The Party's Over: Mopping up from Tuesday's election

by Ozymandias

It’s official - the Democratic Party is fucked.

The GOP is claiming victory and gloating that Tuesday’s results represents another step for freedom & conservatism (they’ve long ago made the terms interchangeable) and another nail in the coffin of liberalism. And understandably so. With a receding economy, a President who seems to be faltering now that the dust from 9/11 has settled, and a surprising amount of domestic resistance to a war against Iraq, the GOP not only kept their power base - they GAINED power by taking back the Senate in dominating fashion and held onto the House of Representatives.

All in all it looks like a bad year for the Democratic Party. It isn’t. It’s even worse than that. Democrats will claim victory by the fact they they’ve made gains in the number of Democrat governors for the first time in a decade. They’re kidding themselves. Tuesday’s result was a complete rebuke of the reconstruction the Party has undergone since the election of Bill Clinton in 1992. For ten years the Party has marginalized the power of it’s most liberal members while slowly moving to the right under the guise of compromise. Instead of keeping it’s liberal base while enticing away moderates - which was the intended effect - it has alienated the leftists that were once it’s power base and it can only depend on moderates who lean towards the left anyways. Right-wing moderates and conservatives certainly aren’t fooled. The Party has gutted itself of virtually all that it once stood for and is now just a haven for rich people who happen to be pro-choice.

But maybe things aren’t so dire, after all....

Democrats can perhaps take solace by looking to the past. With the exception of the now-ending 18-month period in which the Democrats held the Senate by one seat, the last time Republicans controlled the White House, Senate, and House was from 1952-1954. In 1952 under the Eisenhower landslide the GOP gained complete control of the government. The result? Two years later the Democratic Party retook the House and Senate once the average voter realized what a mistake it was to give so much power to one party (especially one as morally bankrupt as the GOP). After this the Senate and House remained under Democratic control until 1984 and 1994, respectively - giving total control to future Democrat presidents who would be able to implement progressive liberal politics of the 60’s and 70’s. Clearly, the 1952 election was the ultimate cloud with a silver lining for the Democratic Party. The previous instance to this of an all-GOP government would be from 1928-1930. The result? The Great Depression. Enough said. This led to the Presidency of Franklin Roosevelt and the most sweeping progressive change our society has ever seen, as well as a 20 year reign of power for Democrats in the White House.

As a propaganda tool, this might seem invaluable to the Democrats in 2004. The message will be pretty clear: either the American people wake up, or the country will fall apart under total GOP control.

The problem with that theory is that it assumes the American voters have somewhere else to go after the GOP. Nothing could be further from the truth. The average American voter does not vote for Democrats. Why? Well, why would they? If someone leads toward conservatism...well the choice is clear. However, if someone is of a Liberal persuasion things become murkier. See, in 1992 - after the soul-crushing Reagan years and the horrific failure of the Presidential campaigns of Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis the Democratic Party made a choice. Instead of waiting out the conservative era of the time, they decided that Liberalism was dead and that they could only survive by moving to the right. Heck, the right is where all the money is anyway. If you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em. And it worked. In 1992 Bill Clinton was elected President just one year after then-President George Bush had been considered unbeatable. And this is when the Democratic Party fell apart for good. After taking office Clinton abandoned the token liberal ideals of the platform that he’d used to appeal to Liberals and the youth. The message this sent to the vast majority of leftists was that the Democratic party was no longer a party of progressive politics and a voice for the people but a corporate-friendly, offshoot of the GOP. This was later proven time and again as Clinton would go on to ban gay-marriages, abandon universal health care, trade with China despite HORRIFIC human-rights violations and generally rule like a Republican. Take a look at his record and compare it with Richard Nixon’s. You won’t notice much difference.

The Democratic Party moved SO far to the right that they have nothing left to distinguish themselves and are now a pale shadow of the Republican Party. Why on Earth would anyone vote Democrat when they can just vote Republican and get the real thing? Why would leftists even bother registering when they can see that the power struggle between Democrats and Republicans is just kept up for appearances sake and that the two parties are now just part of an unannounced merger. Democrat v. Republican, Bush v. Daschle, Coke v Pepsi, - at the end of the day it’s all the same.

With the 2004 election looming the choices on the Democrat side all fall into the same Republicrat mode. Dick Gephardt, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton (she’ll run), Al Gore (he’ll be back for seconds). Any of them will lose. Bush is going to win. Any moderate Democrat will lose to him. The conservatives and right-wing moderates will go to him, the left-wing moderates will vote Democrat and the liberals will stay home. Ditto 2008.

There are only 2 places for the Democrats to go from here:

1) The Democratic party will regain it’s liberal ideals and no longer pander to conservatives and moderates.

2) The Party will continue their current course of action as a happier, friendlier version of the Republican Party until all their constituents abandon them for good.

Either way the Democratic Party will not survive if it keeps up it’s current agenda and demagogueing. It's time to stand for something or fall for good.