Some might say we’re at a crucial point in national politics, and that change needs to come from Democrats.
But there are two tangible problems within the Democratic Party that make me worry that 2004 might not be our year.
Problem One: The process vacuum
I fear what many Party faithful are most concerned about isn’t necessarily winning the general election next year. I don’t mean to imply that Dean supporters, for example, are simply making a Nader-like choice-despite-their-fate, but that they are instead fooled into thinking that what they hear and like from Dean is what the rest of America hears and likes.
They got goose bumps when Dean announced that he would take the country back from the fundamentalists.
They feel a sense of place and belonging, of righteousness and satisfaction backing a candidate who says he wants to stick it to the Washington insiders.
But the guy in Tennessee whose vote Dean needs to win might not have a computer. While vacuum Democrats see Dean’s finding Jesus on the campaign trail as an unfortunate political reality, our Tennessee friend sees it as forced, condescending and fake. And while some Democrats see Internet politics as the new “soft community,” the voter in Tennessee doesn’t; he goes to church.
While backing a candidate like Dean may prove emotionally satisfying to Democrats who’ve seen their country erode and their services cut, they don’t realize that Dean is a substantively weak candidate right now. Yes, he has endorsements, yes, he has Internet support, but being an agent of change, a symbol of anger and the one who yells loudest doesn’t automatically make him a good general-election candidate. What Dean is best at — process — is not enough.
We’ve already seen hints of how the Bush team will play the election this year. Colin Powell’s recent op-ed in the New York Times was the biggest giveaway; hard-line foreign policy will be sold as striving toward higher moral ideals.
“We’re spreading freedom,” they will say. “We’ve addressed a fundamental shift in global discourse, and you haven’t.”
Problem Two: “Forget the South.”
There’s an idea floating around that even without a single Southern state, a Democrat could still win the presidential election. Some Democrats feel that, “Hey, as long as we win, who cares how?” I admit, part of me feels this way, too.
Problem Two is similar to Problem One. It’s a polarization of ideas and philosophies, but Problem Two is a self-aware separation, one with which many Democrats are too comfortable. They see the right wing as a lost cause and have decided simply to fight it back from behind their own bunkers.
I admit this polarization is very popular. It’s the cocaine high of politics: It feels really great for a while and makes you feel vindicated and superior, but it’s temporary and certainly won’t bring you much perspective. This polarization has sold millions of political-hate books, helped cable ratings and probably brought many donations to parties, but it’s based on a faulty premise.
There is very little substantive polarization of America. The whole ploy of the current Republican administration is that it pretends it represents half the country. It doesn’t, especially financially. Certainly, some issues will be tough to transcend; gay marriage and abortion, for example, might never provide common ground. But labor laws, tax policy, job loss, health care and education could.
Bush has mastered the bait-and-switch between center and right, and we need now to call him on it. By retreating behind our own lines, forgetting the South, we have ceded the center. We have almost acknowledged that Bush has faked well enough to actually claim working-class Americans.
Besides, there are too many poor, disenfranchised Americans in the South to follow the Republicans’ political race to the bottom. We need to respect political variance but not entrench it.
The tipping point
Bush and Karl Rove have no respect for the two-party system. They don’t just want to win, they want to own the forum; gerrymandering congressional districts is a prime example.
Let’s keep job losses in the news. Let’s keep rethinking NAFTA. But let’s also announce a plan to strive for world democratization. This is the terror issue, the foreign-policy issue, the issue that could clearly be won back. World democratization isn’t necessarily a sexy election issue, but we should make it one. That doesn’t have to mean forcing democracy on the end of a rifle as we did in Iraq, because we know that method rarely succeeds. But it also doesn’t mean responding with the opposite — no force ever — because come another terror attack, Democrats will be impotent.
We need to address terror somehow, whether by reducing oil dependency, mediating the Israel/Palestine problem or finally confronting Saudi Arabia. In any case, it’s essential to claim foreign policy back for ourselves, to not lose the moral high ground to a bunch of gunslingers. It’s probably not the issue the average American puts on the top of his or her list in a dry survey, but be sure Bush will ramp it up next year, and he’ll do so with fear, forcing terrorism into the spotlight.
It scares me that we might end up fighting a blueblood with a bluer-blood, but if we can transcend the false polarization and earnestly appeal to normal Americans and not just educated elites, I’ll be ready for a bumper sticker. Until then, my money’s still on Bush.
Josh Orton ([email protected] ) is a senior majoring in political science and ILS.
