Will the Real Democrats Please Stand Up

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Will the Real Democrats Please Stand Up

Listening to the postmortems of the election on radio and TV, one is astonished at the number of solid Democratic voters who are, to put it mildly, plainly disgusted with their party. Word being sent by the troops in the field to the alleged commanders of the forces is that 1) They stand for nothing; 2) Even if they did stand for something, they couldn’t articulate it; 3) There is definitely a need for a change in leadership; and 4) They’re tired of New Democrats and the move to the right.

But are the leaders of the party listening? Obviously not.

In fact, the day after the election, Tom Daschle was making the rounds of the morning TV shows, proclaiming how much he “looks forward to working with the Republicans.”

What? Working with the Republicans?

And pray tell in just what areas is he so eager to work with Republicans? Drilling for oil in the Arctic Wildlife Preserve? Giving an additional tax cut to the million wealthiest citizens? Going to war with Iraq? Appointing judges so far to the right that they say “Heil” when they salute their commander in chief? Fostering a so-called “health plan” dreamed up by the insurance companies? Offering a prescription drug program touted by the pharmaceutical industry?

Work with the Republicans indeed. When will he and the rest of the alleged leaders of the party get the message?

The Democratic Party never has been and never should be an extension of the Republican Party. They are now the party of opposition, and, rather than working with the Republicans, they should be opposing every one of the Republican right wing maneuvers with all the power they have left to them.

Yet, just this morning, Martin Frost, a Texas congressman in the running for Gephardt’s minority leader post, claimed that, since the country was moving to the right, the Democrats should follow suit.

And Tennessee Democrats were overwhelmed with joy because a “moderate conservative Democrat” had stolen a House seat from the Republicans.

Will someone please tell me what the difference is between a Republican and a moderate conservative Democrat? Indeed, a moderate conservative Democrat is what they used to call the southern segregationists when the Solid South ruled the Democratic Party. In fact, at this point in the career of the party you would think that the term “moderate conservative Democrat” would be an oxymoron – at least if the Democrats have any hope of defining themselves before the next election.

But in this election the Democrats seemed to be having as much trouble with “the vision thing” as George Bush pere did in his election. In fact, they had no clear vision or message to put out. Or rather, they had one, but were so clueless and so eager to move to the right, lest they offend the Bushites, that they failed miserably to articulate it.

Where, for instance, was their discussion of Iraq? Why didn’t they pin Bush to the wall and force from the Republicans an agreement to abide by UN resolutions and use force as a last resort?

And if tax cuts were in the mix as part of their economic plan, why didn’t they propose them for the middle class and the poor, instead of pandering to the Republicans and giving away billions to the rich? To be truthful, however, no one seems to know what the Democratic economic plan is, or if one even exists. It might be “The Economy, Stupid,” but you never would know it from what went on in this election.

Or why didn’t they propose their own health and prescription drug plans, instead of meekly leaving traditional Democratic territory to the totally distasteful plans of the Republicans?

Where was their discussion of women’s issues, and the fact that Bush has unilaterally withdrawn from UN treaties and agreements that disperse funds which go to third world countries to address diseases that afflict women and infants? And this because he’s afraid that such funds would be “promoting abortions.”

Nor did we hear a peep about corporate fraud, in which the Bush administration is so entangled that it would theoretically take a monstrous wire cutter to release it from the meshy mire in which it wallows.

In fact, there are a host of populist issues with which real Democrats could have pounded the opposition. Yet we heard about none of them. Rather, the Democrats chose to abandon their base – the poor and working class people of this nation – and to concentrate on proving they can be just as moderately conservative as the Republicans.

Well, that won’t wash.

Rather than moving to the right to accommodate what they think is a shift in the political winds, Democrats should take a hard look at what made them the party of the people. They should defend with all the will they have such programs as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Head Start – to say nothing of civil rights, student loan programs and programs for affordable housing. All of which, by the way, those Republicans with whom Daschle is so eager to work would love to see in the trash bin.

No, it is time for the Democrats to return to their roots. And, if they lose some elections by doing it, so what? They’re losing elections anyway. Let the moderate conservatives switch to the Republican party, where they belong, and let those who still hold to the liberality which made the party great infuse it with new voices.

But most of all let the party find the guts and gumption to stand up for what it believes and, like Harry Truman, give ‘em hell.

As one 80 year old Democrat said on a call-in radio program yesterday, “The Democrats asked me for money. I wrote back and told them that I’d send them some money when they found their spine.”

I couldn’t have said it better.

November 7, 2002