I have read and commented upon with great interest the number of diaries speaking to the current sense of dissatisfaction engendered by our recent election defeat.
Many have been negatively affected by the loss of polity among the Kossacks, but my opinion is that the battle of ideas is where the Republicans have completely trumped us in the last 4 years, at least. And now, in the shadow of defeat, is the time to express our discontent, and listen to hear the new ideas born out of despair, that may someday lead us in triumph. Let us not squelch or limit debate, even when we dont like the opposing argument.
DON'T GET ME WRONG. I am not endorsing Republican or Repub Lite ideas and certainly not endorsing the quality of their ideas. I am simply tipping my hat to an opponent who has kicked my ass 7 out of the last 11 presidential barroom brawls, however he has done it, not to mention taken control of Congress and the Supreme Court to boot.
If it wasnt for the arcane Senate rules of Cloture, which require 60 votes to cut off debate and force a vote, we might be soon staring down the face of a gun barrel, and forced to watch while the conservatives REALLY hijack the direction of the country.
The Kid Oakland Diary " To Be a Fighting Democrat" currently recommended and elevated to main page has got me thinking.
True, we need to inject more activist energy into the democratic party. My response is the energy is there, and now even the money is there, but energy and money both need to be focused toward winning elections(currently, a republican specialty).
The old Democratic coalition is in tatters. It is not big enough or influential enough to deliver presidential victories very often.
The coalition consists of African Americans,the unionized working class, and the white "bohemian" subculture, for lack of a better term.
This last group includes big city intellectual workers, artists, mass media workers,and the occasional oddball middle classite who has made enough money to skip over to the Republicans (who better serve his economic interest) but has chosen not to. This middle class oddball is the mirror image of the lower middle class white oddball who votes Republican when the Dems better serve his economic self interest.
Unfortunately, the latter bloc of oddballs dwarfs the former, and is much better organized through the church subculture.
I - Near Term
Many have blogged on about how to attract at least portions of this larger bloc of working class whites back into the donkeys' stall. While this reeducation strategy may work on a limited basis (when a complete catastrophe is laid at the feet of the Ruling Party, as example), it seems would take decades to bear fruit, if ever.
In fact, the only way that I see to short cut this process in the near term is to run candidates with whom the ever increasingly sunbelt residing electorate can identify: a Southern Democrat. Today the pool consists of two: Edwards and Clark. Both good men with a lot of future upside. Clark may be the better suited in 4 years if Iraq goes where it appears to be heading: Disaster in the Land of Zoroaster (dont know if I mismatched religions there, but it does rhyme). Edwards seems to have the better potential otherwise.
II Long Term
The old democratic coalition is not working. At the same time a demographic explosion has occurred, and its aftershocks will change the future political landscape in ways that are unimaginable to most of us today.
This demographic explosion consists of the (mostly illegal) immigration of Hispanics and Asians into our culture.
This population shift will eventually have a more long term impact on politics than the shift of the Northeastern and Midwestern white population to the Sunbelt states has in our time.
I have spent most of my life living among the immigrant subcultures, both because I had no choice, (my hometown in S. Cal. was working class white and chicano, is now 90% Spanish speaking)and by choice ( my wife is a Korean immigrant who does much work in the Korean community).
I have seen the political changes wrought already by this tidal wave, which will only grow. California was trending hard right in the 70s and 80s. Remember the very conservative names of Reagan (2 term Gov), SI Hayakawa (Straight from Campus repression to US senate), and George Murphy (straight from H'wood scrapheap like Reagan)? How about Bullitt Bob Dornan? Just a few among many,many hard right Congressman, state representatives, the people surrounding Nixon, etc.
Today, Cali has regained its proud heritage as the land of fruits and nuts. The fruits and the nuts have changed to a darker shade, is all.
Orange County, once as John Birch conservative as Dallas, is today trending Hispanic/Asian and Democrats are winning local elections.
Dallas County itself, of all places is also trending Democratic (see Burnt Orange Report). Jack Ruby must be rolling over in his grave.
The immigration policy in this country is on the whole, more absurd than even the foreign policy. And it is clearly designed to limit the citizenship, and thus voting rights, of millions of potential Democrats.
The federal government has so restricted legal immigration that many millions of people with higher educations, high experience and skill levels, not to mention money, are forced to enter the country illegally.
Why do they come? From Korea they come seeking a better life for their children, beginning with easier access to higher quality higher education.
South Korea is overcrowded, expensive, and still has vestiges of a patriarchal, repressive society, although that is changing somewhat as the country prospers and more of our culture seeps into theirs.
Korean immigrants by and large exhibit an extraordinary degree of entrepreneuralism and work ethic. They have successfully created their own social and economic subculture in nearly all the major cities of the US. Why not work to enfranchise them by legislating them a clear and achievable path to citizenship that is neither onerous nor self defeating for the US?
Asian Americans voted overwhelmingly for John Kerry. Yet many of the newer immigrants, hardened capitalists by force of their illegal status, would seem ripe for conversion to Republicanism, if Democrats ignore them.
How do we assimilate the newly immigrated (and more important- their children, who are straddling both cultures but will clearly grow into American adulthoods with voting rights)?
How do we overcome the resentments that many in the old coalition have for recent immigrants who work just as hard for less money?
After all, when I was a kid, I really looked up to the Dads who were roofers. Union men all.
I can tell you the last three roofs put on my house were not done by union guys who resembled my boyhood friends' dads. As much as I would like to use the union, I cant afford the extra thousands of dollars per roof.
This is not an altruistic argument, either. While immigration issues barely make a ripple in electoral political debate, we all accept that we need immigrants to fill both high and low end jobs. Employers need them. Social Security and Medicare need them. WE ALL NEED THEM.
But, while we talk about activism, while we think in terms of "issues" that will resonate, the evangelicals are out there converting them. Who is more activist than an evangelical Christian after all? And they are using the Bible, not "issues". They are living among and gaining an understanding of, the people to whom they are reaching out. Their main goal is to convert. Voting Republican is a byproduct.
Bush has an immigration agenda, albeit one whose main goal recognizes and decriminalizes the Employers' ability to continue the expoitation without offering much in the way of citizenship (and voting rights)to the exploited immigrant.
But the point is, at least Bush has an agenda, and one that has long term benefits for his party. The Republicans recognize the demographic shift. Do we? Bush gained a lot of Hispanic votes in 2004 over 2000. Do we have an agenda to reverse this startling trend?
Yes? But do we have as effective an outreach to these somewhat closed (by fear) communities, as the Republicans do (through the churches)?
The issues and ideas that will resonate with immigrants are ones that will ease their path to becoming Americans.
We have to walk among them in order to know and understand their issues and problems. We have to plant the seed (money)now before we can convert them and their children successfully into our tent for generations.
The Party has some money now. How many seeds are being planted? And where? On the side of the rocky white cliff or in the fertile brown soil?