The Democrats’ Da Vinci Code:

[ashling]

The electoral results they didn’t tell you about: progressive victories in the heart of red America.
By David J. Sirota
Issue Date: 01.04.05




As the Democratic Party goes through its quadrennial self-flagellation process, the same tired old consultants and insiders are once again complaining that Democratic elected officials have no national agenda and no message.

Yet encrypted within the 2004 election map is a clear national economic platform to build a lasting majority. You don’t need Fibonacci’s sequence, a decoder ring, or 3-D glasses to see it. You just need to start asking the right questions.

Where, for instance, does a Democrat get off using a progressive message to become governor of Montana? How does an economic populist Democrat keep winning a congressional seat in what is arguably America’s most Republican district? Why do culturally conservative rural Wisconsin voters keep sending a Vietnam-era anti-war Democrat back to Congress? What does a self-described socialist do to win support from conservative working-class voters in northern New England?

The answers to these and other questions are the Democrats' very own Da Vinci Code -- a road map to political divinity. It is the path Karl Rove fears. He knows his GOP is vulnerable to Democrats who finally follow leaders who have translated a populist economic agenda into powerful cultural and values messages. It also threatens groups like the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), which has pushed the Democratic Party to give up on its working-class roots and embrace big business' agenda. These New Democrats, backed by huge corporate contributions, say that the party must reduce corporate regulation and embrace a free-trade policy that is wiping out local economies throughout the heartland. They have the nerve to call this agenda “centrist” even though poll after poll shows it is far out of the mainstream. Yet these centrists get slaughtered at the ballot box, and their counterparts -- the progressive economic populists -- are racking up wins and relegating the DLC argument to the scrap heap.

The code’s seven lessons are clear, and have been for some time. The question is, will party insiders see the obvious and finally follow their real leaders? Or will they continue mimicking Republican corporatism, thereby hastening their own demise?

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[Warpy]

1. We keep telling those damn fools supporting the DLC

that the future is on the LEFT.

Put those working class economic issues of living wages, fair taxes that don't cut into subistence, safeguarded FICA payments, worker health protection on the job, universal health insurance, restored overtime pay, prevention of offshoring, and other assorted issues back on the table.

The pubbies will get dumped so fast it'll make your head spin.

All they have is tax cuts, and they've shown anybody with a brain that the "cuts" are just bait and switch for working people and usually result in a net tax hike.

Put those items back on the table, and you expose the pubbies for what they are: the party of selfish rich men who don't want to support the country they live who hide behind a cross to justify their greed.

[Selatius]

2. It's not left or centrist; it's standing up for the people of this country

It's not about leftist ideology over corporate-friendly policies. It's about fucking standing up for people when they damn well need it when they're being slowly ground into oblivion.

Economic populism by nature is left-leaning ideologically because most people understand that there needs to be certain checks and balances on the markets to prevent abuses and excesses. The result is a mixed economy with elements of both capitalism and socialism.

[ashling]

3. Your subject line says it very well

stand up for the people

[ixion]

4. yep, this is why DEAN should have been the candidate

and why the DLC needs to be shown the door. Let them all join the neocons. I would rather that than have them slowly strangling the opposition party.