Thomas Frank on the conservative revolt
On the NY Times Op Ed page, Frank sounds the following note of warning to the Dems that will go unheeded, especially after the Dem Senate minority leader is going to be pro-life and anti-war. I had been clinging to some kind of hope for the party, but Frank's prescience about the triumph of cultural populism and the left's abandonment of economic and social justice and populism trumps all my wishful thinking regarding the default party of the left.
"To short-circuit the Republican appeals to blue-collar constituents, Democrats must confront the cultural populism of the wedge issues with genuine economic populism. They must dust off their own majoritarian militancy instead of suppressing it; sharpen the distinctions between the parties instead of minimizing them; emphasize the contradictions of culture-war populism instead of ignoring them; and speak forthrightly about who gains and who loses from conservative economic policy.
What is more likely, of course, is that Democratic officialdom will simply see this week's disaster as a reason to redouble their efforts to move to the right. They will give in on, say, Social Security privatization or income tax "reform" and will continue to dream their happy dreams about becoming the party of the enlightened corporate class. And they will be surprised all over again two or four years from now when the conservative populists of the Red America, poorer and angrier than ever, deal the 'party of the people' yet another stunning blow."
For the full text, click here.
"To short-circuit the Republican appeals to blue-collar constituents, Democrats must confront the cultural populism of the wedge issues with genuine economic populism. They must dust off their own majoritarian militancy instead of suppressing it; sharpen the distinctions between the parties instead of minimizing them; emphasize the contradictions of culture-war populism instead of ignoring them; and speak forthrightly about who gains and who loses from conservative economic policy.
What is more likely, of course, is that Democratic officialdom will simply see this week's disaster as a reason to redouble their efforts to move to the right. They will give in on, say, Social Security privatization or income tax "reform" and will continue to dream their happy dreams about becoming the party of the enlightened corporate class. And they will be surprised all over again two or four years from now when the conservative populists of the Red America, poorer and angrier than ever, deal the 'party of the people' yet another stunning blow."
For the full text, click here.
4 Comments:
I'm not sour grapes about the loss. I can deal with more Bush if he won fair and square. I'm not so happy to write a eulogy for my country.
Paula Zahn just said, “It’s official inside the Beltway: Republicans Rule.” What is all this business about the Red states beating the crap out of the Blue states? It is still the same country, if in fact the Reds won by vote fraud -- either way, the country is essentially split down the middle and one side just has a few more votes than the other. The winning Evangelicals happen to find themselves in the unfortunate position of being manipulated, like the stupid pawns they are, by a brilliant and evil political strategist named Karl Rove.
The Retro vs. Metro (www.retrovsmetro.com) model helps makes sense of the Blue/Red "divide" by showing how the Blue States are vastly richer, smarter, pay more taxes and in fact subsidize 90% of the Red States hypocritical farm subsidies and other parasitic programs that support their Retro way of life. I believe that in exploiting this dependency and hypocrisy lies a partial strategy for the next election. I also think I'm prepared to emigrate to New Zealand if Bush wins by fraud AND we actually go down the Matrix-like rabbit hole of encroaching Evangelical Theocracy.
On the Reason vs. Faith issue, www.samharris.org sheds some light. Here's a good excerpt from his book, The End of Faith:
According to Gallup, 35 percent of Americans believe that the Bible is the literal and inerrant word of the Creator of the universe. Another 48 percent believe that it is the “inspired” word of the same—still inerrant, though certain of its passages must be interpreted symbolically before their truth can be brought to light. Only 17 percent of us remain to doubt that a personal God, in his infinite wisdom, is likely to have authored this text—or, for that matter, to have created the earth with its 250,000 species of beetles. Some 46 percent of Americans take a literalist view of creation (40 percent believe that God has guided creation over the course of millions of years). This means that 120 million of us place the big bang 2,500 years after the Babylonians and Sumerians learned to brew beer. If our polls are to be trusted, nearly 230 million Americans believe that a book showing neither unity of style nor internal consistency was authored by an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent deity. A survey of Hindus, Muslims, and Jews around the world would surely yield similar results, revealing that we, as a species, have grown almost perfectly intoxicated by our myths. How is it that, in this one area of our lives, we have convinced ourselves that our beliefs about the world can float entirely free of reason and evidence?
And, for the latest on Vote Fraud:
Voting Fraud in the 2004 Presidential Election
http://ideamouth.com/voterfraud.htm#FL
E-voting machines w/o paper trail stole election
http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/04/11/con04482.html
From E-voting machines w/o paper trail...
Landis continues: "Burl Osborne, chairman of the AP board of directors, is also publisher emeritus of the conservative The Dallas Morning News, a newspaper that endorsed George W. Bush in the last election. Kathleen Carroll, senior vice president and executive editor of AP, was a reporter at The Dallas Morning News before joining AP. Carroll is also on the Associated Press Managing Editors (APME)'s 7-member executive committee. The APME "works in partnership with AP to improve the wire service's performance," according to their website. APME vice president, Deanna Sands, is managing editor of the ultra conservative Omaha World Herald newspaper, whose parent company owns the largest voting machine company in the nation, Election Systems and Software (ES&S)."
Eric,
Voter Fraud: I can't decide what's what with that.
What I do see is that the Dems were not able to mobilize enough people in the mythical heartland to vote for them -- that happened through a combination of various forces -- Fox News, the power of the Churches, and the Dems inability to articulate a strong message regarding economic justice. Kerry tried, but it didn't work.
Basically, we have a conservative revolt against the Enlightenment values of tolerance, reason and justice upon which this country was founded.
What to do? I don't know -- and much depends on the outcome of investigation into the voter fraud.
thanks for stopping by Eric --
Catherine,
I haven't come to any conclusions as to whether or not this election was stolen, however I have concluded that our electronic voting system is completely fucked. There is absolutely no way to accurately audit what happened or do a recount, because there is no paper trail. We will never know who really won this election.
I think that ALL progressive, liberal and Democratic activists have to make election reform the number one issue and withhold all contributions to the Democratic Party and candidates unless Dems force sweeping reforms of both electronic machines themselves and conflict of interest relationships between Secretaries of States, owners of voting machine companies and political parties. Also, there should be absolutely no private control of software and maintenance of machines, which is what we have now. Otherwise, all our activism is for naught.
As far as the message goes, you're absolutely right that Dems have to stop appealing to reasonable centrist positions if we are to win the war of emotions. Arianna Huffington has a great piece on this here:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/huffington/2004/11/08/caution/index.html
You can just see Red state voters' eyes glazing over as Kerry says "I have a plan for healthcare, I have a plan for Iraq, I have a plan for the deficit." No one believes politicians anymore and we all, Blues and Reds, certainly have no faith that they will do anything they say they're going to do. Give them red meat! Expose the Republicans for the lying fascists they are! Engage in class warfare! And then govern from rational, tolerant and liberal positions as we are wont to do....
Your blog is great...keep up the good work and the good fight!
Eric
Here are a few more links I think you'll dig:
The (Un)Concession Speech That Could Have Been
by Megan Tady
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1108-35.htm
Straight male seeks Bush supporter for fair, physical fight - m4m
http://newyork.craigslist.org/about/best/nyc/47785163.html
One more idea I like: Boycott all companies that advertise on Fox.
I never thought of it this way -- but Eric's last post made me realize that what we've got is the "privatization of elections" where vote counting has become a profit area for private companies like Diebold. And even if the past election was NOT stolen, this kind of thing should not be allowed in a democracy.
Election reform is important, but I'm afraid that the Republicans are more inventive than we are regarding vote fraud.
The battle against them has be fought on many fronts -- but the Dems have always been more of a loose coalition than a united front. And I don't know if it can be remade as an opposition party. I was ready to fight this year for them, and all they did for/to me was ask me for money.
The destruction of anti-trust laws in media that led to Clear Channel's power, the deterioration of public education and other right wing governmental initatives have led to the present evisceration of the public sphere.
How about just boycotting Fox and its programming instead of its advertisers?
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