Cross-post: The Alito Surrender and Irrelevance of Senate Democrats

[David Van Os]

Many Democrats question the intelligence or humanity of fellow citizens who believe George Bush's pack of lies. I do not agree with this attitude.

Don't blame it on the people for not seeing through the Bushite lies. That's blaming the victims for the crime. Blame it on the pathetic Beltway Democratic upper crust. The political process is an adversary process. In order for the public to perceive the truth when the dominant party is misleading them, there has to be an opposition party that fights for the truth, in both words and deeds. We don't have that. Democrats don't have that, hence America doesn't have it.

Actions speak far louder than words. The Democratic surrender on Alito said loudly and clearly by action that the Senate Democrats as a group have no core convictions and their words mean nothing. Even though there are a handful of individual exceptions, the group action is what the public sees. Even those who voted against cloture did not passionately fight for a filibuster within the Democratic caucus, but cast their "nay" against cloture as a symbolic formality. In the final analysis, re-election politics counted for more than any principles, just as it always does in the corrupted and self-serving congressional political culture.

As for any misguided thoughts of going "third party": The Democratic Party is the oldest continuously existing political party in the world. Jefferson and Madison founded it (at first called simply the "anti-federalist caucus") as the party of the people and in its history and its noble ideals it remains the party of the people. The party of the people still burns brightly today in the strong hearts, minds, and values of tens of millions of grassroots Democrats. Weak, self-promoting individuals who slither their way into high positions through unprincipled brokerage politics continually sell out those millions of grassroots Democrats. But as Jim Hightower so aptly says, we don’t need a third party; we just need a real Democratic Party.

Don't waste your energy on being angry with the weak-kneed Senate Democrats. Realize they are irrelevant and that they will be the last to recognize their own irrelevance. Concentrate on your state and show your fellow citizens what Fighting Democrats are all about. Fight 'till hell freezes over, and then fight on the ice.

David Van Os
Democratic Candidate and Nominee
For Texas Attorney General 2006
You Can Help Me at www.vanosfortexasag.com

[Vincardog]

1. David please lead the charge.

[Vincardog]

13. Just a Kick for luck

[AZBlue]

2. "Fight 'till hell freezes over, and then fight on the ice."

My FAVORITE line out of an excellent post. I may have to borrow that!

[JeffR]

3. I kicked it in the Texas forum

And by God, I'm kickin' it here!

:kick:

[ladjf]

4. You are "on the money". Good luck!

[KoKo]

5. Great Post and thanks for the link to your site!

I'll check it out and maybe some dollars your way...

[depakid]

6. Haven't I been saying all year

that the Dems are irrelevant in national politics? You'd have to be blind not to see it- and blinder still to support it.

[Doctor_J]

7. Wow - this sums up a lot of my feelings

Thanks, and good luck. Hopefully you can find a group in TX to roll with this attitude.

[LittleClarkie]

8. The 25 who voted for the fillibuster, and the two who initiated it

are not irrelevant.

And they will have to pry my Dem card out of my cold dead hands. I ain't goin' noplace.

[bvar22]

9. If the Democratic Party "as a Party"...

do not support and advance the following issues "as a Party", then the Democratic Party IS irrelevant!
THIS IS the CENTER!

In recent polls by the Pew Research Group, the Opinion Research Corporation, the Wall Street Journal, and CBS News, the American majority has made clear how it feels. Look at how the majority feels about some of the issues that you'd think would be gospel to a real Democratic party:
1. 65 percent say the government should guarantee health insurance for everyone -- even if it means raising taxes.

2. 86 percent favor raising the minimum wage (including 79 percent of selfdescribed "social conservatives").

3. 60 percent favor repealing either all of Bush's tax cuts or at least those cuts that went to the rich.

4. 66 percent would reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.

5. 77 percent believe the country should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment.

6. 87 percent think big oil corporations are gouging consumers, and 80 percent (including 76 percent of Republicans) would support a windfall profits tax on the oil giants if the revenues went for more research on alternative fuels.

7. 69 percent agree that corporate offshoring of jobs is bad for the U.S. economy (78 percent of "disaffected" voters think this), and only 22% believe offshoring is good because "it keeps costs down."

8. 69 percent believe America is on the wrong track, with only 26 percent saying it's headed in the right direction…


There may be INDIVIDUALS in the Democratic Party who are honorable, and who still fight for the people, but unless "The Party" champions OUR CAUSE, they are worse than irrelevant, they are an obstruction.
The Democratic Party Platform for 2008 (and the Democratic Party "Contract with America" for 2006) should be no more or no less than the above 8 positions!

The Democratic Party is a BIG TENT, but there is NO ROOM for those
who advance the agenda of THE RICH (Corporate Owners) at the EXPENSE of LABOR and the POOR.

[IndianaGreen]

10. Excellent post and...

good luck in your campaign!

[Lexingtonian]

11. That's too easy.

I'm not naive about what it takes to get elected Texas. I hope it all works out for you.

Having said that, the picture you draw is half the national reality. Not all of us live in that half.

This isn't the place for an academic argument, but the hard arithmetic of mandates and issues won/lost nationally in the November 2004 elections is that the Right won itself net another vote on the Supreme Court. Largely via the Republican gains in the U.S. Senate, less so from Bush prevailing slightly. The Roberts nomination was a status quo deal, of course. The Democratic game in the Senate on Alito was, in the great scheme of things, one side giving up that one vote change of margin as due the Right. And the other side trying to ensure that Democrats will not simply give away any further, undue, ones. I.e. should John Paul Stevens die or retire before the next Congress convenes.

For all the elisions into 'strong' versus 'weak' and 'values' and such, that's not actually the straightest possible talk. The partisan division in our period of American history is at bottom about integrity of interpretation, which is to say proper extension and enforcement, of the 14th Amendment. Which itself essentially reduces to its Section 1 civil rights guarantees.

There are several kinds of corruption and cowardice in political life. The day I see Democrats accept their assigned role, particularly the Red State ones, and champion a strong and integer interpretation of the 14th Amendment for all citizens in all realms of public life, that's when I think the most fundamental corruption and cowardice of the Democratic Party is overcome.

[radio4progressives]

12. K&R

:toast: :applause: :toast: