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In an article written for The Nation several years ago, Gore Vidal advocated devolution as a practical prescription for a country trying cure itself of the divisiveness inherent in its very size. Realizing that the geographically smaller Greek city state was more easily governed than the massiveness of the Roman Empire, Vidal proposed that the United States dissolve itself into four or five autonomous regions, each of which would be representative of the political and social attitudes of the majority of its citizens. Two ideal regions, he said, would be The South and The Northeast. And in this he might be right, since, given the results of last Tuesday’s elections in Virginia, New Jersey and New York, his ideas may have already reached fruition – and to a great degree because of the emergence in the South of a relatively new breed of animal called the New Democrat.
Despite the fact that the victories of Warner and Kaine in Virginia gave Democrats in the state a much needed shot in the arm, there is little doubt that the Democratic Party and its agenda of social progressivity is, for all practical purposes, dead in the South. Gone is the advocacy for civil rights for women, gays, blacks and the poor. Gone too is the pride that Democrats used to take in programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Head Start, the Peace Corps, and the rights of workers to make a decent wage under acceptable working conditions – all of which the Democratic Party generated and embraced.
No, the New Democrats will have none of this, can have none of this, if they are to win elections in the South. What results, then, is that New Democrats turn out to be Old Republicans. Indeed, as we all listened to the debates in Virginia this year, it was difficult to discern any difference at all in the candidates’ views on things such as education, budgetary matters, health care for the elderly, the environment, or any number of other issues. The sad fact is that the Democrats have appropriated Republican stances in all these areas and, as a result, have left us little choice between the two major parties. The opposition represented by the progressive Left has disappeared completely, thus depriving the state of an important point of view relative to the grave issues that face our newly elected government.
Indeed, the New Democrats abjure any mention of the fact that they are Democrats. While signs for Melanie Rapp made it clear that she was a Republican incumbent, and while Dick Ashe fell all over himself to make clear on his signs that he was, despite his independency, a Republican, the word “Democrat” was totally missing from the signs of the candidates of that beleaguered party. For all we know, a vote for Pettitt, Warner, Kaine, Barlow or Icenhour might well have been a vote for the Mugwumps.
Yet in the 96th District, Rapp, for all her proudly proclaimed Republicanism, did not receive a majority of the votes. These went instead to the more moderate, if not more liberal, Pettitt and Ashe. One wonders indeed what would have happened if Pettitt had embraced his Democratic roots and had come out swinging on the basis of them. But such behavior is, unfortunately, antithetical to the amorphous New Democrats. One wonders too whether the New Democratic organizations throughout the state are so deliriously delighted that Warner garnered only four more percentage points in this election than the openly liberal Robb did in his that they are willing to eschew completely the principles and issues that have formed the core of Democratic ideology.
It would seem, then, that Vidal had it right all along. Thanks to the New Democrats, the South has become socially and politically solidified on the right. In the Northeast, on the other hand, a similar solidification to the left has occurred. In New York City, for example, Michael Bloomberg, a former Democrat turned faux Republican, won only by assuring his constituency that he was more liberal than Mark Green, the Democratic candidate. And in New Jersey James McGreevey, an avowed liberal, handily defeated his conservative opponent, Bret Schundler.
What this means for our two party system, then, is that in the South we have the Right (New Democrats) and the Farther Right (Republicans), while in the Northeast we have the Left (Republicans) and the Progressive Left (Democrats). And this is exactly what Vidal envisioned. Whether it’s what we, as citizens of a purportedly united group of states want, however, is another matter. |
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email: LWL@lewleadbeater.com |
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