Stop the Pendulum

Democrats need to return to their working-class roots

One reason the Democrats keep losing support are allegations that they're putting the opinions of the working-class on the back burner in search of corporate cash. The Democratic Leadership Council, the so-called moderate wing of the Democratic Party, has not done the party much good. They not only adopted the Republican values of corporatism, union busting, relaxing laws that keep big business honest (a.k.a., deregulation), and appeasing right-wing extremists. They have twisted the word "moderate" and redefined it as "less conservative than the extreme right wing of the Republican Party." These DLC Dems, or "Republican Lites", are better suited to be moderate Republicans, not moderate Democrats. They're not liberal at all; they're the neoliberals real Democrats love to hate.
Their economic conservatism, which amounts to using right-wing means to attain left-wing ends, makes no sense and has ended up with right-wing results. The only thing that makes them the least bit tolerable is their social liberalism, only their version is social liberalism on steroids: a serious of ideological litmus tests, in the form or symbolic wedge issues, as a requirement to belong to their inner circle. They must be pro-choice on the abortion issue, or else face being labeled as "misogynists"; they must not only condone, but gleefully embrace, altering the very definition of marriage to appease same-sex couples (the GLBT community will hate me for this) or else face being falsely branded as "bigots." Either way, Democrats who have run for high office has had to pass muster with radical pro-choice and now, militant gay rights interest groups, or else they could never be able to get past the primaries. Even if they did, their own party cut off funding for the general election, and we end up with radical right-wing Republicans instead of decent Democrats who dared to dissent from the party line. Just ask Pennsylvania's Ron Klink: he lost to Rick Santorum, who no longer even lives in PA, only because Klink was pro-life! For my own party to cut off its nose to spite its face is, in my opinion, entirely the fault of the so-called moderate Democrats from the DLC!!

There's only one solution for Democrats to regain--and keep--their rightful majority. We have to return to the principles, values, and issues which made our party powerful and thriving. We must return to our working-class, pro-labor, pro-family, and consistent life roots! Forget appeasing corporate fat cats; they'll never give us enough hush money to shut us up, while they pour hundreds of times the money to the Republicans who have effectively turned their heads the other way while they underwrite our laws. We must tap into the constituencies we lost, namely working-class whites, by trumpeting social and economic justice, while disarming the con artists on the right by defusing wedge-issue politics. We must stop reacting to every electoral loss by continuing to try to take our party even further to the right. I think we're overdue for a Neoprogressive movement, one which combines economic populism, respect for others' opinions, social moderation, family integrity, and cultural decency. Forget about defending abortion at all costs--it's costing us support--we should be broadening the definition of "pro-life" to include both born and unborn, and repeat it ad nauseum. For instance, one can only truly claim to be pro-life if he or she is not only anti-abortion and anti-euthanasia, but also anti-death penalty, anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-unjust war, and anti-economic injustice. Right-wing pro-life leaders aren't really anti-abortion; they're just antisocial, if you ask me. Republicans have no intention of lifting a finger to outlaw abortions; they just use it as a divisive issue to keep power at all costs and to prevent exposure of their true intentions: dictatorial power over the people.

If we want to win back the working class and working poor, we have to stop catering to the secularist fundamentalists of the far left. We have to stop making fun of religious people and dismiss their concerns as "backward and irrational" and them as stupid and ignorant, because of the actions of their leaders. Our very nation was founded on religious freedom. Another thing we can do is to start fighting for workers' rights, for the right to have a job that pays enough to support a family on one income, so one parent can raise the kids. Democrats have to win back their traditional base, even if it means sacrificing the big shots' megabucks for the sake of integrity. It can be done; we just have to work at it, starting with the grass roots.

posted by Sue B. @ 11/20/2004 01:14:00 PM