In Case You Don't Read Wolcott
This post is worth a look.
What troubles me most about the present day, as discussed in a previous post, is that there is so little independent thinking going on. Republicans seem to all mouth the same talking points, and many Democrats think that Democrats need to adopt the same kind of mentality in their ongoing war against the Republicans. Every event is interpreted through the "our side versus theirs" filter.
There was a Golden Age, at least a Bronze Age, when Republicans publicly disagreed with Republicans over matters of importance. Democratic bloggers would have gone insane back in the day when there were actually conserative Democrats. But in this Iron Age . . . there is only politics as a zero-sum game.
That's why the upcoming Senate "hearings" on the NSA domestic spying scandal will be a joke. Prediction: a majority of the Judiciary committee will find, based on the most minimal of assurances, that the program was 100% legal. Probably before the hearings start.
posted by Number Three @ 6:29 AM
7 Comments:
I'm with Wolcott on Clinton's budgetary prowess exceeding Bush's.
And I'm with you Emery. Conservative democrats should find their voice. But they'll need a ring leader. It's about time for John McCain to defect anyway, right?
Em, I agree with much of your lament about party-line Republicans, but then I'm a Democrat, and so my lament is predictable and doesn't count for very much.
But I think you make a mistake to assume that the Democrats are a mirror reflection of this tendency. In actual fact, they are not nearly so unified, as their sad inability to muster a filibuster against Alito helps demonstrate. You're essentially repeating the fallacy of "equal polarization" that Pearson and (your good buddy) Hacker effectively eviscerate in Off Center. If anything, the current problem with the Democratic Party is that its leaders have failed to match the lockstep partisanship of the GOP, thus giving themselves a strategic disadvantage and leaving us defenseless against a radical and lawless administration. This doesn't mean that the party should shift to the left, but, to cite Carville and Begala, it needs to get a spine implant: "their problem is not ideological, it's anatomical." Significantly, I think the base already gets this, which is why moderate and conservative Democrats (like me) are so angry and partisan these days, and so quick to criticize party leaders who cave as soon as Karl Rove or Tom DeLay get the faintest glint in their cold, dark eyes.
In other words, there are times for partisanship and there are times for thought-provoking independence. As you know, political scientists have been arguing for years that U.S. politics is not partisan ENOUGH. I'd say that we've reached a point where one party--the GOP-- has crossed over the partisan rubicon while the other is still playing (unsuccesfully) by the old rules.
Unfortunately, Stephanie, Conservative (i.e., Southern) Democrats have largely been replaced by Ultra-Conservative Republicans over the past 20 years. There aren't that many conservative Democrats left, not enough to make a difference in public policy. Heck, there aren't even many Democrats!
But, as TMd observes, even now Democrats do not march in lock step. Look at the Alito nomination: Nelson (NE), Byrd, and Johnson have already announced support for him. There's Lieberman, Bayh, and the other Democratic hawks. The Democratic party is still small-d democratic, with diverse voices.
Meanwhile, Republicans vote lock step for one budget busting tax cut after another, passing them on party lines. They pass a massive new Medicare entitlement plan, paid for out of general revenues, just before the Baby Boom retire. They've sent farm subsidies through the roof! They lauch a war of choice, $2 billion a week, still cutting taxes the whole while. Every dime of the war's cost has been borrowed. It's beyond insane.
Conservative Democrats and old fashioned midwestern Republicans made their reputation on fiscal responsibility. It was THEIR issue. Too bad that there are so few conservative Democrats, just a handful of lonely holdouts like John Spratt left.
But there are no real Republicans left, no Republican fiscal conservatives. Just Bush lackeys and dittoheads, complete sell outs who stand for no principle other than holding on to power. When you ask them about the dire budgetary situation, they talk about the need to rein in earmarks! Earth to Republicans: earmarks are <1% of federal domestic spending!!!
Perhaps Steve Moore's desperate cry will get some attention. But I doubt it. The only intra-party dissent tolerated today occurs within the Democratic party.
P.S. I meant to say "Bruce Bartlett" above. Steve Moore is a former "fiscal responsibility maven" who got the Bush era memo. Back during the Clinton administration, he was very concerned about national fiscal policy. Now he's working up fiscal report cards on . . . the nation's governors! Pathetic.
I think that TMcD and I just disagree on this, which, from my perspective is good. That sentence may explain why I am so often misunderstood. I don't agree that "If anything, the current problem with the Democratic Party is that its leaders have failed to match the lockstep partisanship of the GOP, thus giving themselves a strategic disadvantage and leaving us defenseless against a radical and lawless administration." The problem is not a failure "to match lockstep partisanship"--let the Stalinists and the G.O.P. have that, all day long. The problem is that Democratic elites are usually too timid to actually take real positions (think Kerry on the Iraq war--I still have no idea what his position was before the '04 election). It seems to me that Democrats could take different positions and still have the spine to defend them. That's one reason that Howard Dean is such a great party leader. Not because one will always agree with him. But because you can actually understand what he's saying. No gloss needed.
Btw, that clarity actually promotes disagreement.
So my big point, just to be clear, isn't that Democrats should be more like Republicans, but that Republicans should be more like Democrats. It would be a healthier political system, regardless of which party held the reins of power.
Em, I think we're talking about different things here. I don't want Democrats to be ideologically unified (following the Bush-Stalin model) any more than you do. What I do want is for Dems to recognize that they have a shared interest *as a party*, one that they will often need to stand together for in order to defend. There comes a time when you have to subordinate legitimate ideological differences to achieve a greater good, and this is one of those times.
Now, this partisan unity can go too far, of course. But I've been racking my brain since I first read your post and I can't think of a single example, during my lifetime, of when Dems enacted a bad or dangerous policy as a result of excessive partisan unity; however, I can give you dozens of examples from the GOP just in the last 5 or 10 years. You say you want the GOP to be more like the Dems. Amen. But that's also a pipedream, and an issue over which you, as a Democrat, have zero influence. From a practical standpoint, the only important question is how the Dems, as an *opposition* party, should react to the lockstep GOP, an issue for which your longing for more principled diversity in both parties does only damage.
A point of clarification. I've argued that partisan unity is required, but only in certain circumstances, so I should probably explain why the Democrats are, at this moment, in that situation.
You note that the Democrats are in an "ongoing war against the Republicans." Who started this war? Certainly not the Dems. Karl Rove, Tom DeLay, et al. have been acting out their dream of a permanent GOP majority, and under their guidance Bush and his party have taken every opportunity to paint the Dems as America-hating, latte-sipping, Christianity-destroying, terrorist-kissing uber-queers. This is not new either, and goes back at least to Gingrich (e.g., his principle that you had to use words like "sick" and "degenerate" any time you mentioned a Democrat in public). Part of this effort has been the deliberate politicization of foreign policy, such that, for Rove & Co., the real enemy in the war on terror is not bin Laden but the domestic opposition (the Dems). Following Rove's well-publicized 50%+1 strategy, Bush has never seriously courted Dem support for his policies, precisely so that he can then accuse the Dems of being soft on terror when the elction season rolls around. Responding to these tactics by calling for less Democratic partisanship would be like FDR in 1941 calling on Americans to act more like Belgium.
Post a Comment
<< Home