Dems need ideas and positive ideas

Discussion in 'Political Discussions' started by Orson, Jan 22, 2005.

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  1. Orson

    Orson New Member

    Just as I've argued in these pages, someone at L A Weekly has woken up with a clue: Dems need ideas and positive values in order to convey a vision that Americans will buy - instead of being the party of "no!"

    Indeed, the left has become reactionary: against pleasure, against consumption, and against more freedom - including those they've long claimed to represent. The old song and dance ain't cutting it anymore:

    "Put simply, George W. Bush is more a symptom than a one-man juggernaut. As John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge point out in their zesty book, The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America, the Bush administration’s radicalism is actually a kind of culmination. It was born of the right’s deliberate act of reinvention in the ’50s and ’60s, a long, slow process of arguing, thinking, fund-raising and organizing that, after years of defeat, has finally produced what some movement enthusiasts call 'the conservative New Deal' — no matter that FDR had a mandate and Bush doesn’t. Whether it’s rewriting the tax code or privatizing Social Security to solve an imaginary 'crisis,' the right has become the agent of change.

    "In contrast, the left has become — there’s no other word for it — reactionary.

    "Still unable to accept that the right has dominated our national life for the last quarter-century, the left hasn’t done the hard, slow work of thinking through what it means to be progressive during an era of ultraglobalized capitalism in which the only successful Democratic president in the last 35 years, Bill Clinton, followed policies that even he compared to Dwight Eisenhower’s. Far from proposing bold new ideas that might seize the popular imagination, the left now plays the kind of small-ball that Dubya disdains. Even worse, it’s become the side that’s forever saying 'No.'

    "To be fair, if any party has ever given one reason to shriek 'Stop!' it’s Bush’s Republicans. But today’s left remains mired in a reflexive, defeatist negativity that became obvious after the election. The Nation’s subscribers sent letters calling Bush voters racists, homophobes, warmongers and yahoos."

    MORE considered detail at:
    http://www.laweekly.com/ink/05/09/on-powers.php

    -Orson
     
  2. Mr. Engineer

    Mr. Engineer member

    I have to say that I tend to agree with this posting. The problem is that the Democrats have to come up with something by themselves and not exist merely to react to the Republicans. I can see the same thing with Liberal verses Conservative radio. Liberal radio should be concerned with relaying their ideas and not merely going head to head with Conservative ideals.

    Reagan was the real state of the new drive in conservatism. He was a true genius not because he was particularly intelligent, but because he had ideas and an agenda and was able to communicate them in such a manner that made these ideals convincing. Both Bushes merely rode Reagan's coattails. Without Reagan, both Bush’s would have been merely has- been losers from Texas.

    Do you know who is also a genius? Karl Rove. As much as I think the man is low-life demagogue, he has managed to orchestrate the rise of a third rate man into the Presidency. You see, unlike Reagan, Bush Jr. is merely a mouthpiece as he does not have the cognitive ability to have his own ideas.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 22, 2005
  3. Guest

    Guest Guest

    And with Howard Dean now likely to become the new DNC chair, the Dems will follow George Santayana's dictum, "Those who do not learn from history, are doomed to repeat it."
     
  4. Mr. Engineer

    Mr. Engineer member

    Agree with Jimmy on that one. To put Howard Dean as head of the DNC would be like the RNC putting Pat Robertson in charge.

    Ugh - what will they think of next?
     
  5. Guest

    Guest Guest

    Hey buddy! Your favorite Republcan knew that one day, we would find something on which we share common ground.

    Take care and hope you're having a Happy New Year.
     
  6. Orson

    Orson New Member

    First, let's deal with this "Rove is such a genious" nonsense. Democrats have been underrating Republican leadership for OVER FIFTY YEARS!!!!
    If you think anticipating that Dems and the MSM will repeat themselves requires a fricken "genious" - then I have no respect for your intelligence.

    Second, Ronald Reagan is dead, you know; he was in decline for almost a decade and-a-half! If Reagan had some good ideas then, it's far overdue to stop crediting a dying/dead guy as "the mastermind!" Get a clue.

    Like, where are all those new Republican's getting the notion that Dems are wrong? Not just once, but in several elections. Pubbies aren't getting their increased voters out of the ether. Then we may be on the road to some real understanding.

    No one wins by underestimating and disrepecting their opponent. That's how real democratic change works.

    -Orson
     
  7. Orson

    Orson New Member

    COLLEGE DEM CRIES OUT FOR "HELP!"

    To continue this thread from another source, there are dilemmas for Dems; "[L]efty reader Joe McReynolds emails [Glenn reynolds]:


    "'You rightly point out that we liberals must do our best to shout down, disassociate ourselves, do everything we can to make ourselves no longer the party of Michael Moore, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, et al.

    "'And as you noted, the Right does do a better job of quieting its 'idiotarians'. The only problem is, they essentially do it with the "bribes and promises" approach. Jerry Falwell, even when muzzled, knows that to some degree he and the people he represents will get a hearing from the White House and congress, the American seats of power.

    "'On the left, we are a minority in all branches of government. How can we cast off the extremists if we have nothing to offer to placate them, nothing to drive them away with? It makes it harder to easily dismiss them, and as we get drawn into a serious debate with them (which we'd handily win), the Republicans will simply say, "Look, the Democrats can't even stop their circular firing squad, how can they run the country?" and we'll lose more seats in Congress.

    "'I'm with the College Dems at my school, and the reactionary extremism is so thick you could cut it with a knife. What's the solution for people like me? What *can* we do? Casting out the extremists seems an awful lot like putting salt on a bird's tail.

    "'You've got a big pulpit. Help show us Dems how to make a party that's sane, but doesn't believe that America is a Christian nation or homosexuality is a sin or that all the poor are poor because they deserve it."

    [Univiversity of Tennesee Law Prof Glenn Reynold offers this reply of help]"
    "Well, I don't believe any of those three things -- I don't even think this is a 'pulpit!' -- but I confess that I don't know how to save the Dems. I think that the 'silent majority' -- those genuine moderate Democrats/Liberals that I keep hearing about, but don't hear a lot from on the national stage -- needs to realize the damage that the kooks do -- as the Republicans figured out -- and quit regarding extremism as evidence of 'commitment' or 'passion.' I tried to sketch something like that alternate approach here [See http://instapundit.com/archives/017314.php], but though it's not hard to imagine, I think it would be hard for the Democrats to do.

    "I do think, though, that many people (me included) would cheer the Democrats for trying to make those changes, and while there might be a little bit of sniping from Republicans, that sniping would actually help the Democrats by calling attention to what was going on.

    "The alternative is for the Democratic party to get smaller as it gets angrier, and angrier as it gets smaller, until it just doesn't matter anymore. At some point the Republican Party will then likely split into a social-conservative wing and a libertarian wing, and I can join the latter, I guess. I'm not ready to call the Democrats the new Whigs, but it's not impossible for me to imagine.

    "The question is, will the Democrats be willing to do to Ted Kennedy, for his remarks on the war, what Republicans did to Trent Lott [December 2002], for his remarks on Strom Thurmond and the 1948 election?"

    -Orson
     

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