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November 19, 2004
How Democrats can win
Several different explanations have been floating as to why Kerry lost, and how Democrats could win in the future. These are:Run more charismatic candidates. On the surface, this seems obvious; not since Adlai Stevenson's time has the more charismatic candidate lost. This, however, sidesteps the fact that ideology, and the perceptions of it, influence people's propensity to like a candidate. To most of us on this site, Howard Dean was a compelling, charismatic candidate, but to those further to the right, he came across as angry and bitter. If people don't like the candidate's ideas, they won't like him personally. (The same is true in reverse: is there anyone who disagrees with Bush's policies but likes the man personally)
Develop an infrastructure of think tanks, talk radio, cable TV etc. This is certainly necessary, but this is a long-term project that won't be ready in time for 2008, or even 2012.
Use religious language more. If we used biblical language to argue that invading Iraq was morally wrong, would voters have responded Maybe, but I doubt it.
This theory assumes that voters are conservative because they're religious. But what if the opposite is true: that they're religious because they're conservative Consider the Pew poll taken after the election. It found that the main correlation between religion and politics wasn't based on whether the voter was evangelical, mainline, or Catholic, but rather whether they were traditionalist, centrist, or modernist within their chosen denomination. Traditionalists voted Republican, modernists voted Democratic.
This supports the notion that if someone is of fundamentally conservative mindset, they vote Republican and interpret the Bible as conservative. If that is the case, any appeals to liberal religion will simply be attempts to reach a type of faith that doesn't exist.
Run southern candidates. Not since Kennedy has a non-southern Democrat won the presidency. But being southern didn't help Carter get a second term, didn't prevent Clinton from losing Congress, and didn't help Al Gore carry even his home state. Edwards was a southerner; Bentsen was a southerner. Yawn.
Move to the left on economic issues. This is the Thomas Frank theory; in his book What's the Matter with Kansas he argues that working-class voters, seeing little difference between the parties on economic issues, vote Republican on social issues.
Recent evidence of this actually working is hard to find. In olden days, Johnson's great 1964 victory and Roosevelt's four victories showed the power of a groundbreaking economic program, but the public had a trust of government then it doesn't have now, and is unlikely to have any time soon without the media infrastructure mentioned above. Clinton's 1993-94 economic program was only mildly liberal, but it produced a backlash that delivered Congress to the Republicans for 10 years and counting.
Besides, in 2004 exit polls indicated that most voters for whom the economy, Social Security, health care etc. were the dominant concern were already voting for Kerry. Likewise, Gore did use some anti-corporate rhetoric in the 2000 election, but he continued to run behind Bush on "moral values" and taxes, which in the end trumped his issues.
Some point to the victory in the Montana governor's race as a model. This, however, featured a move to the right on the gun issue. The pattern appears to be that leftward economics only makes a winning program if Democrats:
Move to the right on social issues. This is the standard advice coming from much of the media and DLC types. Retreat from gay marriage to civil unions; quit quibbling over Ten Commandments displays, allow some restrictions on abortion. The Clinton victories of 1992 and 1996 are usually cited as examples of this working. But those victories were Pyrrhic; Clinton's retreats on crime and welfare didn't prevent Democrats from losing Congress.
Furthermore, this tiger can't be appeased. There is nothing to stop Republicans from shifting the bar still further to the right. Clinton signed the DOMA; now they want a constitutional amendment. The Senate voted 99-0 to keep God in the Pledge of Allegiance, but four Democratic senators went down the defeat anyway. In order to neutralize social issues for conservative voters, we'd have to move so far right we'd lose the support of liberal and moderate voters.
Move to the right on defense issues: This issue has been sorely neglected in the post-election analysis, due chiefly to the CNN exit poll finding that "moral values" ranked higher than "terrorism". Moral values, however, are a composite of at least three different issues: gay marriage, abortion, and personal religiosity.
It seems obvious to me that terrorism/defense issues did cost us the election. But it's not immediately clear what can be done about it. Most Americans subscribe to "city on a hill" nationalism: America is always right, its military force is always right and moral, and to suggest that American troops might not be fighting for a just cause is disloyal and treasonable. Since the Vietnam era, Democrats have been regarded as appeasers and pacifists to America's real or imagined enemies, from communists to Islamists. Voting for war authorizations or increased defense spending doesn't help.
Conservative rhetoric regularly paints the Democratic Party in the same league as anti-war groups like International A.N.S.W.E.R, and the jingoistic rage many people feel towards war protesters outweights whatever misgivings they may have about the war.
All the criticisms we lobbed at Bush - the incompetence in the war's execution, the dishonesty in launching it, the escape of Osama bin Laden, the sad state of homeland security - couldn't penetrate this fundamental distrust of Democrats and progressivism. Voters simply refused to believe that Democrats were as serious on terrorism as Republicans.
The trouble with this argument is that it was tried in 2002. Congressional Democrats voted for the Iraq war and made a great display of supporting him. It didn't help. Yet had they simply opposed it, they would also likely have been defeated.
A new, distinctly Democratic militarism:
We need to make nationalism and patriotism work for us, not against us. Democrats need to embrace military force, but use it in ways that benefit real people instead of Halliburton. Back in 2002, we should have opposed the war in Iraq, but proposed in its place an alternative, more just war -- taking on the genocidal regime in Sudan. Judicious use of force, as in Kosovo in 1999, Bosnia in 1995, and Haiti in 1994, can topple oppressive regimes and can make the world a better place.
Clinton was able to neutralize the welfare issue in 1992 by outflanking Republicans - by actually proposing to "end welfare as we know it", something even they hadn't dared do. Likewise, any terrorism platform that would work for us has to be seen as tougher than the Republicans. We should have advocated sanctions on Saudi Arabia if it didn't stop funding madrassas and start liberalizing. We should place ultimatums to the motley crew of Arab despots who take in US aid: improve the status of women and move toward elections, or the aid is cut off. We should pull troops out of Iraq and return them to Afghanistan to finish off the Taliban.
Tough-talk rhetoric, distasteful as it might sound, makes us look strong. Fretting about alienated European allies, no matter how well that concern is justified, makes us look weak.
Woodrow Wilson was a Democrat, for heaven's sake - why should Bush be the one benefiting from faux Wilsonianism?
Posted by Tyrone at 08:54 PM | Comments (0)
November 11, 2004
Why we NEED to demonize the South
The conventional wisdom that is stubbornly repeated after every election loss is here again. Democrats are elitist, out-of-touch east coasters. If they were to stop looking down on southerners, and run southern candidates, they would win.
By that logic, Republicans should be hemorrhaging even worse from their routine demonization of blue-starters as effete latte drinkers. They don't. They benefit from it. They could never have become the majority party otherwise.
And as long as we remain too afraid to strike out against the part of the country that already hates us, we will always lose.
First off, our dislike of the South is not why they don't vote for us. It is the other way around. The South has been the most conservative part of America for virtually its entire history. Whether we were fighting a war against them or assiduously courting them, their attitude never changed. Even in those periods when they voted for progressives - William Jennings Bryan, or Franklin Roosevelt - they did so only under the implicit understanding that the racist policies they had at the time would be respected. Under the New Deal, they benefited hugely from spending while paying little in taxes. To this day, they get more subsidies, more defense contracts, and privileged treatment from both parties. The Democratic Party is guilty of many sins, but genuine anti-Southernism isn't it.
But that needs to change.
It is important to remember the power of propaganda. Republicans run on a carefully crafted myth - that of the soulless, atheistic, socialist, decadent Manhattanite, wealthy and prosperous. The limousine liberal who gives away other people's money, who lets criminals go free, sells our country out to Islamists (and before them, to communists) and splays sexual perversions on television.
This myth has little basis in reality, but that does nothing to diminish its effectiveness. It provides Republicans with a ready-made, permanent target. It is an image they can pull out with just a few code words, and channel decades' worth of cultural frustrations and resentments virtually on command.
The image of the Northeastern/Hollywood limousine liberal is a galvanizer for conservatives. It gives their supporters something to demonize, something to strike back against. In Orwell's novel 1984, it was Goldstein - the phantom enemy who is constantly denounced, constantly hunted down, hated by the populace, but never actually captured or defeated.
In contrast, liberals do not have such a resonant, archetypal portrait of their enemy. We denounce conservatives on an issue basis, or (as in the case of Bush) an individual personality level. But we haven't reached the point of sensing our enemy on a gut, intuitively emotional, rather than intellectual, level.
Only a relatively small, intellectual part of the population is capable of getting excited over ideas in their pure form. For most people, ideology isn't a set of ideas, it is a list of friends and enemies. And it is fighting the enemy, more than defending the friend, that provides fervor to the ideological battle.
The archetype is an incredibly powerful tool for focusing emotions and drawing on universal memory and subconscious beliefs. We used to have archetypes that drove us -- the corrupt corporation, the robber baron, the cold-hearted banker. But in a post-industrial society, these don't hold the power they once did. We have nothing to replace them. Instead of fighting with our hearts, we fight with our heads. And we lose.
I content that Democratic supporters are too comfortable as Americans. They don't have the sense that an alien, hostile force, based in other parts of the country, is trying to take away their values, their institutions, their society. They don't have the sense of resentment and fear that red staters have.
A prime example is media. Believe it or not, most liberals are satisfied with the performance of CNN et al. They don't have the sense that the deck is stacked against them, as conservatives do. They don't hunt for alternative news sources. As a result, Fox finds a ready-made audience of conservatives, while liberal networks struggle.
The reason conservatives had the energy and motivation to build their huge ideological infrastructure - talk radio, Fox, right-wing journals and newsletters, think tanks - is because they were discontent with the mainstream. Never mind how conservative the mainstream has always been - they wanted more. So they built their echo chambers. Before long, their ideas ruled the post. Ours, lacking the same force, have withered.
Most American liberals don't feel that kind of urgency. We are less minded to open our checkbooks for the Center for American Progress or Air America. And part of that reason is we don't have somebody to despise or resent - an archetype.
The anti-southern posts that flooded liberal blogs after the election point out an archetype that is there for the taking, and much more grounded in fact than the conservative archetypes. The Southern fundamentalist Christian, drawing from his racist past, ready to tear down the Constitution and impose a rigid, puritanical theoracy at home and a jingoistic imperialism abroad.
Imagine an America where California and New York are jeered at as communist, where all schools are run by churches, where children are taught creation "science" and that Columbus discovered America. Imagine a country where elderly people starve without pensions, where people die when turned away from hospitals for lack of money, where gay people are beaten and imprisoned, where jobs disappear and hope dies, where women die from illegal abortions, where thousands are killed from guns bought in corner stores.
If secular-minded people, including libertarians, truly felt this danger, truly regarded right-wing regions as threats to our country, we would be the ones bragging of high turnout and winning elections. We would have the energy, not they.
Ask yourself: in your heart of hearts, which feels better: to struggle to win over a few southern conservatives, or to put those bastards in their place? Which energizes you more?
And what would motivate your apathetic neighbor, who voted for Kerry but donated no money and did not volunteer?
Posted by Tyrone at 02:22 AM | Comments (1)
November 05, 2004
Democrats need to embrace imperalism
The "soft-on-defense" tag continues to dog Democrats, and cost us this election. Yes, "moral values" scored slightly higher than "terrorism", but that is a composite of three separate issues: abortion, gay marriage, and religion. The number one issue for Republican voters continues to be terrorism. Talk to a Republican, and they'll tell you they don't trust a Democrat on national security.Why? Consider this quote:
"I will never apologize for the United States of America. I don't care what the facts are."
That quote is actually from the elder Bush, but it symbolizes a cornerstone of American conservatism. America can do no wrong. The strength of nationalism is every bit as powerful as that of religion, if not more. Republicans have tagged themselves as the party of nationalism and the Democrats as that of apologizing for America.
Voters didn't buy it until Vietnam, but after that the label has stuck. Clinton's victories were, perhaps, only possible because of the short window between the Cold War and 9/11. He ran an essentially isolationist campaign to victory in 1992. That's no longer possible.
During the buildup to the war on Iraq, it attracted demonstrations around the world, many of whom condemned the war as "American imperialism", an "oil grab" etc. The mere use of these slogans echoed similar arguments that had been made against the Vietnam war -- and produced a similar backlash. Democrats' being tagged as America-blamers, plus their support for civil rights, led to their 61 percent of the popular vote in 1964 falling to 40 percent in 1972.
Iraq left Democrats in an impossible dilemma. If they opposed the war from the beginning, as Dean had, they would be tagged as America-blaming pacifists (as Dean was). If they at first supported it but then criticized Bush's incompetent execution of it, as Kerry did, they would be dismissed as flip floppers, with the lingering suspicion that they were America-blamers.
There's no way out. If you're not an America-first, hawkish nationalist, you lose elections. Period.
So does that mean that Democrats should concede the ground entirely, and become imperalists too No and yes. That is, we should NOT concede the ground, but we SHOULD become imperalists. Imperalists of a different sort.
Americans will not tolerate any criticism of their country. Fine. Then the solution is to change America's conduct so that it really is beyond reproach. Replace Bush's faux Wilsonianism with the real thing.
Bill Clinton showed the way. In 1999, he made the decision to bomb Serbia. The Chomskyite left called him an imperialist. Western Europeans fretted he'd only make the situation worse. American conservatives grumbled that no vital US interest was involved. All were wrong. Within a year of the bombing, a racist dictator had been overthrown and Serbia was moving towards a stable democracy.
Notice how the debate over Kosovo was the exact opposite of the debate over Iraq. Republicans were the crabby isolationists; Democrats were the Wilsonian idealists. Republicans lost that debate.
What would have happened if Kerry had called for all-out US military intervention in Darfur He could have accused Bush of ignoring genocide and appeasing the world's most cruel Islamist regime. He could have talked about slave raids on Christian villages. He could have said how Sudan had proven links to Osama bin Laden, unlike Iraq. He could have made Bush appear soft on confronting the evils of radical Islamism, and himself the tough, idealistic hawk. He could even have distanced himself from unpopular Europeans by criticizing their inaction on the issue, echoing this Howard Dean article.
Just think of the lines:
"The President went to war to stop a genocide that happened 13 years ago. I want to stop a genocide that's happening right now."
"What kind of a message does it send to the world if we let a regime with proven ties to Al Qaeda continue to enslave, rape, and murder hundreds of thousands of people"
He would have dispelled the notion that Democrats are pacifist at heart, unwilling to use force to defend American interests.
And most importantly -- if he won the election, he might really have ended the genocide and saved tens of thousands of lives.
The list goes on. Why are we giving $2 billion a year in military aid to Egypt's repressive dictatorship? Why is Bush so cozy with the Saudi royal family? Resurrecting the Carteresque emphasis on human rights is needed in our policy towards the corrupt Arab dictators (who, let's face it, are the prime cause of the despair that recruits terrorists).
Aggressive, hawkish talk on "getting tough" on the countries that actually produced the 9/11 hijackers would contrast with Bush's dishonest, phony war. Obviously we can't invade every country in the Arab world, but at the very least we shouldn't be selling them weapons and calling their ambassadors close friends. The Arab street hates us in no small part because we're so cozy with their oppressors.
Not only might that have won the election, it might have actually ended the threat of terrorism, and erased the bad taste of Vietnam once and for all.
Posted by Tyrone at 07:05 PM | Comments (0)
Why voting Republican is a sin
"Open your mouth, judge righteously, And plead the cause of the poor and needy" - Proverbs 31:9
"The people of the land have used oppressions, committed robbery, and mistreated the poor and needy; and they wrongfully oppress the stranger" - Ezekiel 22:29
"Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, The alien or the poor" - Zechariah 7:10
"You cannot serve God and mammon" - Matthew 6:24
"Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's" - Mark 12:17
"You shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child" - Exodus 22:22
"If you lend money to any of my people who are poor among you, you shall not be like a moneylender to him; you shall not charge him interest." - Exodus 22:25
"When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field when you reap, nor shall you gather any gleaning from your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the stranger" - Leviticus 23:22
"If there is among you a poor man of your brethren...you shall not harden your heart nor shut your hand from your poor brother, but you shall open your hand wide to him and willingly lend him sufficient for his need, whatever he needs. Beware lest there be a wicked thought in your heart...and your eye be evil against your poor brother and you give him nothing, and he cry out to the LORD against you, and it become sin among you. You shall surely give to him, and your heart should not be grieved when you give to him...therefore I command you, saying, "You shall open your hand wide to your brother, to your poor and your needy, in your land" - Deuteronomy 15:7-11
"You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether one of your brethren or one of the aliens who is in your land within your gates. Each day you shall give him his wages, and not let the sun go down on it, for he is poor and has set his heart on it" - Deuteronomy 24:14-15
"The wicked in his pride persecutes the poor" - Psalm 10:2
"Blessed is he who considers the poor" - Psalm 41:1
"But he who has mercy on the poor, happy is he. " - Proverbs 14:31
"He who mocks the poor reproaches his Maker" - Proverbs 17:5
"Whoever shuts his ears to the cry of the poor will also cry himself and not be heard" - Proverbs 21:13
"He who oppresses the poor to increase his riches,
And he who gives to the rich, will surely come to poverty" - Proverbs 22:16
"If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat;
And if he is thirsty, give him water to drink" - Proverbs 25:21
"He who hastens to be rich will not go unpunished" - Proverbs 28:20
"What do you mean by crushing my people
And grinding the faces of the poor?" - Isaiah 3:14
"Woe to those who decree unrighteous decrees,
Who write misfortune,
Which they have prescribed
To rob the needy of justice,
And to take what is right from the poor of my people,
That widows may be their prey,
And that they may rob the fatherless." - Isaiah 10:1-2
"Is this not the fast that I have chosen:
To loose the bonds of wickedness,
To undo the heavy burdens,
To let the oppressed go free,
And that you break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
And that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out;
When you see the naked, that you cover him,
And not hide yourself from your own flesh? " - Isaiah 58:6-7
"As a cage is full of birds,
So their houses are full of deceit.
Therefore they have become great and grown rich." - Jeremiah 5:27
"Execute judgment and righteousness, and deliver the plundered out of the hand of the oppressor. Do no wrong and do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, or the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place" - Jeremiah 22:3
"They sell the righteous for silver,
And the poor for a pair of sandals.
They pant after the dust of the earth which is on the head of the poor,
And pervert the way of the humble" - Amos 2:6-7
"Therefore, because you tread down the poor
And take grain taxes from him,
Though you have built houses of hewn stone,
Yet you shall not dwell in them;
You have planted pleasant vineyards,
But you shall not drink wine from them.
For I know your manifold transgressions
And your mighty sins:
Afflicting the just and taking bribes;
Diverting the poor from justice at the gate" - Amos 5:10-13
"Her rich men are full of violence" - Micah 6:12
"You have heard that it was said, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also. And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two. Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away.
"You have heard that it was said, "You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you" - Matthew 5:38-44
"Jesus said to him, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me." But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
Then Jesus said to His disciples, "Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." - Matthew 19:21-23
Then the King will say to those on His right hand, "...I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.'
"Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, "Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink...And the King will answer and say to them, "Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.'
"Then He will also say to those on the left hand, "Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.'
"Then they also will answer Him, saying, "Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?' Then He will answer them, saying, "Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me." - Matthew 25:34-45
"Blessed are you poor,
For yours is the kingdom of God" - Luke 6:20
"But woe to you who are rich,
For you have received your consolation" - Luke 6:24
"When you give a dinner or a supper, do not ask your friends, your brothers, your relatives, nor rich neighbors, lest they also invite you back, and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind" - Luke 14:12-13
"Beware of the scribes, who desire to go around in long robes, love greetings in the marketplaces, the best seats in the synagogues, and the best places at feasts, who devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. These will receive greater condemnation." - Luke 20:46-48
"He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first" - John 8:7
"Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil" - 1 Timothy 6:9-10
"For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away" - 2 Timothy 3:1-4
"Pure and undefiled religion...is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world" - James 1:27
"For if there should come into your assembly a man with gold rings, in fine apparel, and there should also come in a poor man in filthy clothes, and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say to him, "You sit here in a good place," and say to the poor man, "You stand there," or, "Sit here at my footstool," have you not shown partiality among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?
Listen, my beloved brethren...you have dishonored the poor man. Do not the rich oppress you and drag you into the courts?" - James 2:2-6
All quotes New King James Version.
Posted by Tyrone at 02:15 AM | Comments (0)