New Yorker: Bush crackup, and a plan for Democrats

[fiorello]

I rarely post - but this is an excellent, very important article. It has a concise summary of the Bush crackup, the Democrats problems, the center-vs-left fight, and gives a very reasonable way forward.

Best one-liner: "Bush (is) not anti-government, just anti-good-government".

"The old debate over moving to the extreme or to the center... presents a false choice."

"Instead of trying to cobble together a hypothetical majority with a hodgepodge of small-bore policy proposals, the Democrats need to nationalize the elections of 2006 the way the Republicans did in 1994."

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/051024ta_talk_packer

Excerpts (with the above one-liners):

Uncontested power hollowed out the Bush White House and the Republican Party: ideology became cant, and political triumphs supplanted real achievements.... Bush’s philosophy of corporate conservatism—more Harding than Reagan; not anti-government, just anti-good-government, with a tone of authoritarian piety and legislation written by lobbyists—has shown that Republican unity was always based less on intellectual coherence than on a willingness to keep one’s mouth shut.
....

The (Democratic) Party will not return to power by waiting for indictments or by fine-tuning tired slogans. Nor will it be useful to copy the Republican right’s strategy of pandering to its constituency: the conservative base is larger than that of the liberals, as we learned in last year’s Presidential election. The old debate over moving to the extreme or to the center, which resurfaces after every defeat, presents a false choice and is itself a sign of a political vegetative state. The sure way for the Democrats to go on losing is to frame a message designed to win back married Catholic women while mobilizing twenty-something iPod users.

Instead of trying to cobble together a hypothetical majority with a hodgepodge of small-bore policy proposals, the Democrats need to nationalize the elections of 2006 the way the Republicans did in 1994. A Democratic manifesto that unites the Party’s own diverse factions would begin as a referendum on the ruling party: the White House and Congress have handed government over to corrupt interests, and, in so doing, the Republicans have betrayed basic American principles of honesty, competence, and fairness. There is no reason for Democrats to be on the defensive about moral values. On issue after issue, government by cronyism and corruption has sacrificed the interests of the middle class to those of the Administration’s wealthy friends. The deepening inequality in American life threatens families and democracy, and it is neither natural nor inevitable.
....

(List of issues: Energy independence, health care, tax fairness, budget deficits, competent national and homeland security.)
...
Above all, the Democratic Party needs to overcome its own self-esteem problem. Its leaders have to show imagination and take risks, to be confident and aggressive, to proceed as if the current occupant of the White House no longer mattered—as if the Democrats fully intended to win and govern. The Democratic Party has to speak for the common good in a moral language; and it has to believe what it says, so that when the opposition’s attacks come, as they will, it can find the heart and the courage to fight back.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. KICK!!!

[cliss]

2. It's a good article, and it highlights the problems

which we are facing in Washington. The Dem's are simply not speaking out, or they are sitting on their hands as these outrages happen, each and every day.

They just sit there and look the other way.

Why?

This article mentions that "it needs to overcome its own self-esteem problem". They need to be "confident and aggressive", as if all these problems are caused by a lack of self-esteem. And by the way, the Dem's are just as responsible for all the shit we're dealing with today, only because of neglect.

That's not the problem. The problem is they're bought and sold by the same special interest as the Repug's. THAT's why they're not doing anything.

Don't get me wrong: I still believe the Dem's are our best hope. But until they start representing the PEOPLE of this nation, nothing is going to change.

Thanks for posting, S.