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Here's an exchange I had with a reasonable Repub (yes, there is one out there) on an internet Political Forum. It is rather long, but I think it's worth reading and commenting on.
11-03-04
ME:
A Sad, Sad Day for America.
Yesterday most Americans decided to choose fear and smear over reality and competence. On this forum over the past year and a half, we've seen that all of Bush's positions have failed to pass close scrutiny. Actually, they fail to pass any scrutiny past his sound bites and talking points. Unfortunately, the average American voter either can not or does not bother to think past the talking points.
I suppose I should congratulate two people for Bush's victory. First, Karl Rove for his skillful overall manipulation of the average voter. His increased courting of the religious fundamentalist vote since the 2000 election gave his candidate the margin of victory. Nevermind the fact that the GOP is just using the morality/values issue as window-dressing to further its real agenda of increasing profits for corporations and cutting taxes for the wealthy.
Second, Osama bin Laden for his very well-timed tape. Bush got the 'fear factor' he had been campaigning for, and bin Laden got to keep his most valuable asset in office.
The average American voter has spoken. They will get what they deserve. I wash my hands of them.
HIM:
The election - what it all means
ML I think you may understand - or be starting to - what this means. But I see other posters here who still do not "get it"; "De Nile" is not just a river in Egypt.
This election was NOT a full endorsement of Bush! Certainly not of all his policies. Bush's overall approval rating remains well below par. The American people will need to be SHOWN that he do better. I hope he, his team and his supporters (I'll call that WE) are all up to the task.
As difficult as some Democrats will find this is to accept, the much maligned "social issues were apparently decisive in this election. This appeared to be, most of all, a rejection of some of the policies Kerry appeared to represent, not just (or even primarily) Kerry himself. The deciding factor in this election was apparently the tremendous outpouring of both religious and secular conservatives, who voted against what the left perceives to be "the economic self interest" of those same ordinary citizens. (In some limited respects, it might even be true). For over a year now, these middle Americans have heard themselves being insulted, ridiculed, being made fun of, and being considered "Billybonkabubbas" by the Michael Moore's of the liberal elite. For the most part these plain, common citizens took these two years of insults in silence.
Until they were in the voting booth.
This is now a key moment in our two party system. There is no reason a honest, primarily liberal (in the traditional sense) Democratic party cannot make the long march back. There is a place IMO for more liberal, perhaps even what some might call populist, economic positions. (Just one example: I'm can't be the only Bush supporter who still strongly favors the concept of a modest inheritance tax.)
But Democratic party MUST realize that the American people simply will NOT elect someone who is on the left side of the "Culture War" (the so-called "guns, God, and gays" issues). Think of this election: Eleven states (!) felt it necessary to have state constitutional amendments or laws defining marriage as being only between one man and one woman. Eleven states, and ALL passed handily. If the Democrats can understand the implications of that, if they finally can seem to "get it" on cultural issues (as they at least some of the party appears to have done on national defense issues), their future is not necessarily grim. I think such patriotic, socially conservative Democrats stand a good chance of forging a new moderate Democrat party. That was the party of FDR, Truman - and yes John F. Kennedy. Such a party would be able to challenge a more conservative Republican party.
However, if the Democrats contiues to embrace the radical feminist, radical pro-environmentalist, rededistributionist fringe represented by their elite Hollywood supporters, than I fear the Democrat party is soon to pass into history, with potential negative consequences for our system.
We need two vigorous political parties IMO - not one that is so weak - because it is so far left on the cultural issues - that it continually marginalized and out of power. Regards.
ME:
You said:
"But Democratic party MUST realize that the American people simply will NOT elect someone who is on the left side of the "Culture War" (the so-called "guns, God, and gays" issues)."
I think you are right as far as the Presidential election goes. You can extend that list to include abortion in the Bible Belt states for just about all elections. Unfortunately, the Senate is starting to reflect 2 Repub Senators for each red state and 2 for each blue. With the reds having an advantage in the number of states, I don't think the Dems will be able to hold off cloture votes for many more years.
I thought that whichever party lost this election would see a civil war within the party. I've been involved in several Dem websites where the members discuss issues. There is a war looming (hell, it probably started today) between the "too conservative" Clinton/Carville/DLC faction vs. the Left-left wing (stop the War/get out of WTO & NAFTA now/pro-gay marriage, etc) faction. The new faction wants the Dem Party to take all the far-left positions on everything and the DLC has been resisting it, although the leadership still gets smeared with the issues. Clinton started out on the wrong foot by taking on the NRA on the assault rifle ban in 1993. The Mass. Sup Ct shot us in the foot by taking up the gay marriage case back in January. Those idiots should have waited until after the election to decide that case. Rove capitalized on the issue to bring out 4 million more fundamentalists. Whether he could have done the same thing with just the abortion issue, I don't know, but the gay marriage issue sure didn't help us.
Anyway, I don't see the current Dem leadership, represented by the DLC, being able to quieten the left-left faction. Even if they can, the GOP may still be able to work the fundamentalists on the abortion issue.
HIM:
Why is reform impossible in Democrat party?
ML, I am talking reasonable reform here, on the social issues particularly.
The Democrats do not have to give up on fair treatment for all citizens. They do not have to give up on advocating laws permitting civil unions or domestic partnerships - particularly if they applied to any two unmarried individuals regardless of gender, orientation, or anything else. They do have to give up on advocating fundamental change in the marriage laws - particularly when done unilaterally by unelected judges.
The Democrats do not have to give up on proper separation of church and state, a premise to which most Americans agree. But they do have to give up on the effort to remove all vestiges of faith from the public square. They have to give up, for example, of trying to use unelected judges to change the wording of our Pledge of Allegiance contrary the will of the people, or sending their lawyers out to remove a manger scene from a community park act at Christmas time. These are LOCAL decisions, not forcing religion on anyone. All of us should agree we have absolute freedom of religion - but not the right to supress all religions expression of others or their communities.
The Democrats do not have to give up on limiting the use of the death penalty, particularly if capriciously applied. It does mean they have to give up on trying to get judges to impose a nationwide prohibition of the death penalty in all cases, in defiance of the will of the people and their representatives.
The Democrats do not have to give up on free speech, nor should they. The Democrats do have to give up unreasonable opposition to reasonable restrictions on the constant and wide dissemination of material that virtually all Americans do not want their children exposed to.
These are just a few of the so-called social issues - there are others. ML, I believe, as do most of you, that there are other pressing concerns facing our nation, some that concern me more. But what this election has shown crystal clear is that the majority of the people ARE concerned about these issues, and will vote accordingly. They know that, in some respects, moral issues are indeed paramount in importance. They know some changes will occur. They may not like them all but will put up with some. However, they will not put up with having what many consider a faithless, entirely secular culture imposed on them and their children and grandchildren.
That was a big part of what this election was about - ordinary, conservative, people of faith saying they will no longer permit there culture to be corrupted by elites who do so just because they think they know better than all the uneducated yahoos in the heartland. Is this so hard to understand?
So why cannot the Democrat party simply marginalize their most extreme left supporters? The Republican party has declared itself foresquare against racism, for example. As I stated above, there is room for a LIBERAL Democrat party, competing with the Republicans in the marketplace of ideas (hopefully with a certain amount of liberals and conservatives in BOTH parties). But if the Democrats insist on having a RADICAL party, they will continue to lose elections, continue to be marginalized, and before too much longer will pass into history.
ME:
I understand what you're saying, and you are actually preaching to the choir. I have been so vocal this election because the Bush admn has been so extreme on non-"moral values" issues, including frightening the country into War without telling Americans the real reason.
I agree that, given the values of middle America (right or wrong), cultural issues to left-left Dems are like a flame to a moth. They can't resist the light, but get burned every time.
As, I mentioned above, Clinton screwed up big-time (and really helped build-up the NRA) when he went after the cosmetic assault rifle ban in '93. To avoid any problems, and actually have some impact on a gun's lethality, all he had to do was ban high capacity clips. We simply asked for trouble by letting the gun lobby frighten it's members. I recall that I even cringed in Clinton's first year in office when he issued his "don't ask, don't tell" policy for the military. I was sure there would be some cultural fall-out from that, but it didn't seem to hurt him. I'd say this was a good example of how society can accept a slow and gradual change. However, thinking middle America can accept going from "don't ask, don't tell" to demanding gay marriage in 11 years is insane. Even though the Dem leadership only advanced to endorsing gay civil unions in 11 years, they got painted with the left-left's support of all the gay marriages middle America was seeing on their TV screens and internet homepages.
The strange thing is-- Bush was forced to endorse gay civil unions before the election in order to look "compassionate" because he has pushed the anti-gay marriage amendment. Remember that Howard Dean was called an "extreme liberal" by the GOP before the Dem primaries because he signed a civil union law as Governor of Vermont. Bush's endorsement of gay civil unions is an example of how he is willing to sell-out his fundamentalist backers in order to get what he wants. The ironic thing is that the gay rights cause advanced to an evangelical President's endorsement of civil unions, while the gay rights issue was used against the Dem leadership.
I don't know what the Dem Party will decide to do about cultural issues. I do know that if it can't convince the left-left faction to push ONLY what middle America can accept, we will see more of the same in future Presidential elections.
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