Reply #133: A Little of This, A Little of That

[Hidden Stillness]

I think there are three different parts to this question: 1) The "DLC"/corporate Republican media-type of lie, that we are all of these horrible things, nobody likes us, we should become archcons, blah--easily dismissed; 2) An actual turn against us, that we must face, as described by people who wish us well, and therefore convincing; and, 3) An actual opinion against us, but based on a lie or smear campaign, which if people knew the truth, they would not oppose us.

People have to face the fact that there are different parts of this country, and they aren't necessarily like each other at all. Good, liberal/radical Democrats from the Midwest can hate the ones from the Coasts because the Midwesterners are sick of the self-absorbed arrogance, vulgarity and "show biz" triviality of supposed "cosmopolitan" types, and the fact that they are oblivious to our issues. We do have to face the fact that the phony, Republican non-issue of gay marriage was a ploy to turn people against us, it began with no popular support but only Republican ballot-placing connivance, and that it is not the same as support for gay rights or a strong stand against bigotry. We have to be clearer on why there are people who think we will not be good on national defense, (especially since it was Democrats--from FDR to Clinton--who built up the armed forces and veterans' benefits), an opinion I do not understand at all. There actually are people who still think of Democrats as "hippies" and the like, and we have to be clearer on educating, instead of ignoring and avoiding those parts of the country. Do NOT become more conservative, especially now that Republicans are seriously, chillingly, ripping the country and its laws apart.

There is a lot of overlap on opinions, and people will hold opinions for different reasons. For example, I like relatively harsh sentences for crimes, and am also for gun control, for the same reason--it fights crime. Is the first opinion "conservative" and the second "liberal"? No--I am a liberal and never want to be called the other. These are only contradictory opinions to some people; it is all the same opinion if you want a stable, safe society. The labels are not helping. Let's say you are tough on crime--"conservative"--but what you want the heavy sentences for are rapists, batterers, violent-pornographers, and the rest that there have never been real punishments for; then you are a feminist. The attitude of the feminist who fights for victims' rights will never go together with the "lock-'em-up-and-throw-away-the-key" group. It is not helpful to brand people because you don't even discover how they think.

We can learn from intelligent Democrats who, for example, run in certain parts of the country and lose. They often hear from people why they won't vote for a Democrat, "anymore." After the 2004 Presidential election, C-SPAN had many panel discussions on these issues, voting patterns, media, "The Future of the Domocratic Party," etc., and on one of these Democratic ones, from Dec. 3, 2004, Brad Carson, who ran for re-election to Congress in Oklahoma, and lost, made many really great comments. First comparing the current state of our party to Britain's Labour Party during the '80s, when there was real hatred of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government, who then just kept winning, for a while, Carson believes that as things change from this to that, our day will come again. However, "The race turned for us, when there were multimillion dollar expenditures saying, 'A vote for Brad Carson is a vote for Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy,' " and that people in Oklahoma said, "You know, I think you'd be a much better Senator than Tom Coburn would be, but you are going to, you are going to deliver the Senate to the hands of Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton, and we can't have that happen." The word Carson used to describe them in that region of the country, is "polarizing," and as someone who grew up in a family that considered the Kennedys heroes and national treasures, I feel we have to understand why this is. It is offensive, but people are still thinking of something--what?

This is one thing we should really be having think tanks and Town Hall meetings and all the rest about: Learning from Democrats in areas of the country where we are not winning anymore, but who themselves won--Sen. Blanche Lincoln is another example--and who will tell us, honestly, and amongst ourselves, what some of the attitudes are, and what we want to do about it. Very often, the solution is not to "turn Republican," as we are always, only, told, but just the opposite--to become real fighters again. We have to hear it, though; from people who want to help.

Brad Carson quoted someting an earlier panel moderator, Larry Sabato, had said: "Until the last member of the Viet Nam generation dies, we're gonna be fighting that battle over and over and over again, and, that's what I see in Congress, I see it in Oklahoma, we're fighting the '60s social struggles, both the domestic and the international ones, over and over again. Oklahoma is clearly on one side of that divide, and they have come home to roost today, and until the last member of that generation dies, and new people come in, who weren't formed by those experiences, the Democrats are on the one side of those changes, that has a phenomenally organized and well-financed resistance to it, and we get beaten in every election, fighting those same battles, and, there's nothing you can do about it--it's the country, it's the world; the same way that the elections in the 1880s were still about the Civil War, you know. Till the last generation formed by that tremendously tumultuous moment passes, then we live in its shadow, and we reap the whirlwind."

Carson referred to the national DNC as "irrelevent" to Carson's regional campaign, that there was no support, no money, etc., the same complaint many have made. How many elections have we lost because of the long-term, DLC, top-down, "Presidential-campaigns-only" structure that froze out most of the country, and didn't even try? The Democratic Party allowed its local structure to decay and die a long time ago, and we lost it all then. It became a corporate structure issuing orders, messages and how they will be stated, etc., then gave no Party support. When the DLC types started using "strategies" to determine which slogans would be used, and not any longer the spontaneous expression of a thing, a promise or a pledge, then the whole sense of who we are philosophically, had to dissolve; it wasn't there anymore.

During this past election, Republicans lied about us, and did not pay a price for it. They passed out flyers that claimed we would "Ban the Bible," force gay marriage on the country, and many other lies. If people voted against us because of these things, then do they "not agree with us," "support the moral behavior of Republicans," or what is the actual statement of this event? This happens over and over now. When people are against us because of lies, then they are not necessarily against us for anything real. Also, the huge amounts of money that subterranean Republican groups pretending to be independant, and then slandering the Democrat, are destroying the whole system. Carson was defeated with it, especially the so-called "Club for Growth," which spent heavily to target and attack our candidates.

A staement Brad Carson made near the end of this panel may just be a key to a future hope. Giving the opinion that Bush's second term will probably be much like the first, Carson then said, "There is a certain side of you that almost says, you know, we should just vote no, but don't do anything heroic, let them get their way, let them take everything to the absurd, and half-cocked conclusions that it will no doubt lead to, and let the country have a referendum on it in four years. You know, there's a part of me that says that--if they want to get rid of the Department of Education, go for it; you know--abolish it. We'll vote 'no,' they got more votes, let's don't filibuster it, let's let 'em do it--and let's see what the people think. Same thing on judges and all the rest of that. I don't believe the agenda is one that the majority of people believe in--it's about a cultural orientation and how they vote, and other things. So let's let them implement their agenda, and, there's a part of me that says that's our best chance, for having the kind of epiphany that may lead to a change in the kind of fundamental dynamics that are going on and on and on."