Naomi Sheehan Groce is a reader of the World Socialist Web Site who lives in Kentucky. She submitted the following commentary for the WSWS as a contribution to discussion of the meaning of the 2004 elections.
The Democrats’ deconstruction: a post-election report from Kentucky
By Naomi Sheehan Groce
8 November 2004
Among Internet chatters, the separation between these moderate and liberal factions has even been administratively enforced on sites such as the popular Democratic Underground. Moderates and liberals may not directly lay blame on one another or they will be banned. No arguing over the issues and, in particular, the question of responsibility for electoral failure between them is permitted. This is both the essence and imminent downfall of their hallucinatory unity. For Democrats to define their allegiance to the party in terms of aims rather than names would prompt a true bloodletting—a mass exodus of the working poor from the party ranks.
John Kerry, in a November 3 condolence letter to his followers, described his concession call to Bush in an effort to quell discord: “We had a good conversation, and we talked about the danger of division in our country and the need, the desperate need, for unity for finding the common ground, coming together. Today, I hope that we can begin the healing.” He also emphasized that Republicans had won fairly despite widespread reports of voting machine “malfunctions” and fraud. Democrats were supposed to be angry over the “cheating” of Republicans—a convenient scapegoat—but not angry enough to question Kerry’s facilitative role, namely his complacent surrender before hundreds of thousands of ballots had been counted.
Dennis Kucinich, in a tactical statement eerily similar to those of other, more openly conservative Democrats, reiterated the call for solidarity, disregarding the seemingly irreconcilable divides: “Those commitments (to the Democratic ‘ideals’) remain. They help to empower us daily. So, let’s grieve over the loss of this election, but let’s come together and realize that it’s the unity that we have expressed over these last few years which gives us real power to bring forth creative change.”
Unity within party lines would place the blame safely outside its bounds. For moderates, this is the old, familiar persecution of Ralph Nader supporters, socialists, Libertarians, and other groups they perceive to be posing as an alternative and thus a threat to a Democratic win at the polls. For liberal Democrats in Kentucky—where appeals to Bible Belt fundamentalism saturate every cranny of local and state politics—the moral contradiction entails lashing out at the religiously conservative masses beyond their own party’s ranks.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/nov2004/kent-n08.shtml
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
