The Democrats' Defeatism

[mazzarro]

Last edited Tue Aug 5, 2014, 10:58 AM - Edit history (1)

Defeatism infects the Democratic Party's bloodstream. This affliction is systemic and chronic. It has spread through every limb and organ of the party from the White House to towns across America. The ulterior source is a political lifestyle dating back to the Reagan years of passivity as the Republicans aggressively seized the commanding heights of the nation's political discourse. That well orchestrated, all-out offensive had several fronts: the media, the think tanks, the foundations, high finance, school boards and local organizations. Democrats became observers of their own marginalization or, worse, entered into the gradual but inexorable process of accommodating themselves to the New Thinking. They became an accessory to this silent revolution in the country's political life.

Democrats still win elections -- at great cost. The party has abandoned its historic constituencies, allowed the radically reactionary opposition to set the agenda and to define the issues. Victories are hollow. A Democratic President, Bill Clinton, pronounced "the era of big government is over." He let loose the locusts of financial predation on the land. He and Hillary hobnob with the Wall Street barons. He promotes the Bowles-Simpson assault on Social Security, Medicare and federal social problems of all sorts. Barack Obama, the glamorous champion of renewal, began his second day in the White House putting a depressed economy's fate in the hands of those who had pillaged and crippled it. He gave them all E-Z passes. He set as his administration's centerpiece a bizarre health insurance plan cooked-up by the ultra-Right American Heritage Foundation. Obamacare might rightly be called Heritage Care. He embraced austerity. He appointed Bowles-Simpson after first proposing to Congress even more dire threats to social spending. He promoted the "sequester" that has achieving the perennial Republican objective of downsizing government. He has launched a campaign against public schools and public universities. He has drastically undermined the most basic civil liberties in blatant ways. He has pressed a draconian program for expelling undocumented immigrants that tears apart families all the while pledging humane treatment.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-brenner/the-democrats-defeatism_b_5647861.html

It helps to read the whole article before rearing in defense of the Democratic Party's leadership or President Obama.

My problem with the party as is the lackadaisical attitude towards the rank and file and the abandonment of the efforts started under ex-governor Dean to re-energize the base in all of the 50 states. Obama's removal of Dean from the party chairmanship as well as Dean's non inclusion in any other significant position of leadership is something that still confuses me till today. Then add to these is the attitude of the leadership to always pull back from engagement in any serious fight, wherein Democrats take the offensive, with the republican party on any issue.

[woo me with science]

1. It's not defeatism. It's complicity.

Systemic corruption - corporate money/power/control - is the cause.

We need to stop treating it as a mystery, because it's clear and in front of us.

[Laelth]

4. Spot on.

I seek a resurgence of the democratic wing of the Democratic Party. We have been in the wilderness since we nominated McGovern in 1972, and it's about time that we regain the leadership of the party.

Democrats should run as Democrats, and not as Republican-lite, and they should govern as Democrats and not as Republican-lite.

I invoke Harry Truman:

I've seen it happen time after time. When the Democratic candidate allows himself to be put on the defensive and starts apologizing for the New Deal and the fair Deal, and says he really doesn't believe in them, he is sure to lose. The people don't want a phony Democrat. If it's a choice between a genuine Republican, and a Republican in Democratic clothing, the people will choose the genuine article, every time; that is, they will take a Republican before they will a phony Democrat, and I don't want any phony Democratic candidates in this campaign.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman

-Laelth

[DJ13]

2. "It helps to read the whole article..."

Link?

[woo me with science]

3. Here's a link, but I hope the OP adds it above.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-brenner/the-democrats-defeatism_b_5647861.html

[DJ13]

8. Thanks!

[CrispyQ]

5. This:

His (Obama's) naïve philosophy of bi-partisanship neutered his supporters and his party while emboldening his enemies. Most serious, he never has made the case for liberal principles and progressive government. He manifestly does not believe in them.

A good share of our party doesn't believe in liberal values. They want the left to help get them elected & then they blame us when they lose & tell us to shut up when they win. All the candidates talk about how we have to help the middle class & restore our infrastructure & when they win, it's business as usual.

There's not gonna be any change until the people make it happen & most of the Americans I know are still pretty fat, happy & distracted with their electronic devices. I have good friends who can't name our two senators. (Yes, I shamed them for that.) I'd be surprised if half the people I know could name three Supreme Court justices.

[GeorgeGist]

6. Reagan Democrats ...

torture some folks. I'm one of them.

[Octafish]

7. ''He embraced austerity.''

Sums up the wasted mandate for change.

Well, the DJIA did hit 17,000.

[RobertEarl]

9. And we wonder why a majority don't vote?

But then, people not voting and exercising their one easy expression of power, is what the PTB most desire; ""STFU People. We got this: Trust us"".

And so people stay home and don't bother to vote. The PB has us right where they want us.

And look, even on DU, where some of the most connected democrats post, we have torturous explanations of why torture should be condoned.

We are screwed because like the PTB has told us time and again to do so, we have gone and fucked ourselves.

Sad days, these days. It almost feels like it did when raygun was president.

[jmondine]

10. Bring. Back. Dean!

'Nuff said