It's not imaginary. The progressive majority of Americans HAVE been abandoned.

TahitiNut

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Wed Oct-03-07 06:29 PM
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It's not imaginary. The progressive majority of Americans HAVE been abandoned.

The following article appeared in the July 9th iss of 'The Nation' magazine, yet received little or no notice on DU. Liberals and progressives, the heart of the America mainstream, have been marginalized and betrayed by their elected representatives for over 27 years. I've watched this myself, having no blindered loyalties to the corporations that present themselves as the national political parties.

Will the Progressive Majority Emerge?

by RICK PERLSTEIN
(from the July 9, 2007 issue)

For as long as I can remember, there's been a generally accepted story about the recent history of Democratic Party fortunes, a neat little morality tale that goes something like this: The New Deal majority fell apart when the party was taken over by forces outside the mainstream of American life. Getting blindsided by Reaganism was the party's just deserts. And if Democrats wanted the country back, they would just have to learn to become mainstream again.

For as long as I can remember, liberals have been complaining about awkward, self-conscious attempts to recover this "mainstream" sensibility and how they have paradoxically weakened the party. They forced Democratic politicians to become obsessed with polls. That, in turn, boxed Democrats into an identity the public--the mainstream--found the most off-putting of all: Democrats became timid. They couldn't pursue a bold public agenda because they were too hemmed in by polls. Very recently, among progressives, a new dictum has emerged: Hug close to the polls, worship the polls, be the polls.

Trends in Political Values and Core Attitudes: 1987-2007, a massive twenty-year roundup of public opinion from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, tells the story. Is it the responsibility of government to care for those who can't take care of themselves? In 1994, the year conservative Republicans captured Congress, 57 percent of those polled thought so. Now, says Pew, it's 69 percent. (Even 58 percent of Republicans agree. Would that some of them were in Congress.) The proportion of Americans who believe government should guarantee every citizen enough to eat and a place to sleep is 69 percent, too--the highest since 1991. Even 69 percent of self-identified Republicans--and 75 percent of small-business owners!--favor raising the minimum wage by more than $2.

The Pew study was not just asking about do-good, something-for-nothing abstractions. It asked about trade-offs. A majority, 54 percent, think "government should help the needy even if it means greater debt" (it was only 41 percent in 1994). Two-thirds want the government to guarantee health insurance for all citizens. Even among those who otherwise say they would prefer a smaller government, it's 57 percent--the same as the percentage of Americans making more than $75,000 a year who believe "labor unions are necessary to protect the working person."

<snip>

You suspected it all along. Now it just might be true: Most Americans think like you. Nearly two-thirds think corporate profits are too high (30 percent, Pew notes, "completely agree with this statement...the highest percentage expressing complete agreement with this statement in 20 years"). Almost three-quarters think "it's really true that the rich just get richer while the poor get poorer," eight points more than thought so in 2002.

If only there was an American political party that unwaveringly reflected these views, as a matter of bone-deep identity. You might think it would do pretty well. Which leads to the aspect of the Pew study that got the most ink: "Political Landscape More Favorable to Democrats," as the subtitle put it. When you compare Americans who either identify themselves as Democrats or say they lean toward the Democrats with Republicans and Republican leaners, our side wins by fifteen points, 50 percent to 35, the most by far in twenty years. As recently as 2002 it was a tie, 43 to 43.

<snip>

Here's a riddle: What's an "independent"? More and more, it's an American who holds positions we associate with Democrats but who refuses to call himself by the name. Why? Part of the reason is that people say to themselves, "If only there was a party that thought like me--that was for harnessing the power of government to help the needy and protect the middle class; for reining in business excess; for fighting overseas threats through soft power instead of reckless force." But they don't find today's Democrats answering to the description. A Washington Post/ABC News poll published in early June proved it on Iraq: It heralded the emergence of what might be called "antiwar independents," who'd like nothing more than to find a party determined to end the war but don't see enough difference between Congressional Republicans and Democrats for the latter to earn their loyalty. Fueled, the Post suspects, by the failure of Congress to change course in Iraq, independents gave Congressional Democrats a 49 percent approval rating in April but only 37 percent in June.

The pattern--Democrats losing because they don't look enough like Democrats--is nothing new: During the 2002 election Democrats did such a poor job of selling themselves as better protectors of middle-class interests that Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research found only 34 percent of voters saw a difference between Democrats and Republicans on prescription drug benefits to seniors. That year, when the party was handed a once-in-a-generation shot to prove itself as a protector against runaway greed (the corporate accounting scandals), DNC chair Terry McAuliffe called the swindling firm Global Crossing a "great company."

<more>

Read it. Believe it.

While you're at it, read "The Progressive Majority: Why a Conservative America Is a Myth."

So, as the partisans fling themselves into the habitual "you're either with us or you're with the ___" Mafia meme, let's try to remember: it's suicidal. When the "leadership" (under the cover of either one of the labels in the "two-party" system) finds itself so wholly and irrevocably unresponsive to the majority of the people - who they dismiss, demean, marginalize, and ignore - we can and will see catastrophic results. When the 'system' itself becomes immune to change, it will be destroyed. Sooner or later. (Hopefully sooner - rather than prolong the misery.)