Land of Victims
Reader and invaluable commenter Kreiz calls my attention to this piece from Oxblog that I missed when it appeared a few months ago.
Read the whole thing, as they say. It hits several nails on the head.
One of the reasons, I think, it's so difficult for Democrats to move from their current sad lack of coherence is that there IS an internal consistency to the place they've landed.
They want to be principally the party that helps the poor and disadvantaged and forgotten. But that will relegate them to permanent minoritarian status in a nation where, famously, everyone believes he is succeeding, or about to succeed.
But that won't be so if the Democratic leadership can convince more and more Americans that they are, in fact, victims. The soldiers fighting in Iraq are "victims," according to Michael Moore. Everyone with a job who isn't a corporate executive is a "victim" according to Paul Krugman. Fundamentalists in Kansas are "victims" according to Thomas Frank.
If only they can shift us all, or the majority of us, into that way of thinking, more people will identify with the reformed street thug tale of Tookie than with the success story of Arnie, and the Democrats will have a message and a majority.
But their only tunnel out of where they've landed is to poison Americans' faith in themselves and their nation. Now, maybe they're right, and we really are all suckers. But that's not much of a message.
WHAT DEMOCRATS BELIEVE: Earlier this week I participated in a sort of focus group for Democratic activists designed to clarify the party's core beliefs. Not that I am a Democratic activist, but I took part because the participants in the focus group consisted specifically of moderate/DLC types committed to restoring the party's credibility on national security issues.
Liberal commentators, including OxBlog favorites such as Kevin Drum and Matt Yglesias , often observe that Democrats, unlike Republicans, don't have a simple set of core beliefs that can be summarized in an "elevator pitch", i.e. a 30 second speech that you could give to someone while riding in an elevator.
With this shortcoming in mind, the leader of our focus group asked the ten or so participants to write down in three sentences or less what the Democratic party stands for. A few months ago, Kos wrote:
Ask 10 people what the Democrats stand for, and you'll get 10 different answers. Ask me what the Democrats stand for, and I'll stare back speechless.
Yet in our focus group, almost every answer was exactly the same. The purpose of the Democratic party is to help the poor and the disadvantaged.
Read the whole thing, as they say. It hits several nails on the head.
One of the reasons, I think, it's so difficult for Democrats to move from their current sad lack of coherence is that there IS an internal consistency to the place they've landed.
They want to be principally the party that helps the poor and disadvantaged and forgotten. But that will relegate them to permanent minoritarian status in a nation where, famously, everyone believes he is succeeding, or about to succeed.
But that won't be so if the Democratic leadership can convince more and more Americans that they are, in fact, victims. The soldiers fighting in Iraq are "victims," according to Michael Moore. Everyone with a job who isn't a corporate executive is a "victim" according to Paul Krugman. Fundamentalists in Kansas are "victims" according to Thomas Frank.
If only they can shift us all, or the majority of us, into that way of thinking, more people will identify with the reformed street thug tale of Tookie than with the success story of Arnie, and the Democrats will have a message and a majority.
But their only tunnel out of where they've landed is to poison Americans' faith in themselves and their nation. Now, maybe they're right, and we really are all suckers. But that's not much of a message.
Labels: Democrats
