|
Edited on Thu Mar-24-05 04:13 PM by Langley85
With thinly veiled conservative Chris Matthews of MSNBC’s Hardball already pontificating with his “panel of experts”- containing the profound insight of such staggering minds as Patrick Buchanan and Joe Scarborough- on the 2008 presidential election, I figure it may be time for the Democrats to be doing some thinking of their own. After all, the best defense is a good offense, and if the previous two elections have taught us anything- besides how easily the masses are duped and the hidden joys of electronic voting machines- it is that Democrats have got to learn give as good as they get.
The failure of a single Democrat to come to the aid of the African-Americans in Congress protesting President Bush’s election in 2000, and the current almost complete silence about the Republican-led Congressional action ignoring nine previous state rulings and demanding a federal hearing for the unfortunate- and unfortunately misused- case of Florida’s Terri Schiavo, to name two of the most prominent examples, are part of a long-running pattern of Democratic apathy in the face of conservative power-mongering which is threatening to leave the Democratic Party looking like it’s all bark and no bite. For decades, Democrats have been able to count on African-Americans as a predominantly Democratic voting block. But sad Democratic displays of weak-willpower, even political cowardice, most notably in 2000, is having its after-effects.
In 2004 11% of the African-American vote, a three-percent increase from 2000, went to George W. Bush. Likewise, among Hispanic voters, also perceived as mostly Democratic, Bush- according to polls- attracted 44% of the vote as opposed to 35% four years earlier. Democrats have called the poll results an exaggeration, but whether the numbers are inflated or not, it is clear to me, as it should be to all Democrats, that we can no longer count on the minority votes as we have in the past. And the Party largely has itself to blame. People cannot be reasonably expected to stand with a party which makes grand, inspiring speeches about diversity and equality and the American Way, and then sits on its hands in the moments when something is needed besides a lot of pretty words. The series of African-American politicians protesting Bush’s election and not finding one single Democratic Senator willing to lend even the most symbolic support made me feel embarrassed for the Party.
I am a registered Democrat, but among the numerous constituencies which largely make up the Democratic Party’s support, I would most accurately be described as a Libertarian, and of those the subset of libertarians who vote their social views more than their economic views. I believe in the equality of all law-abiding Americans, regardless of race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation, which I regard as equally irrelevant to who you are as an individual, I may find abortion regrettable but believe it is best left between a woman and her doctor, and it has sometimes been with pride and enthusiasm but too often instead with embarrassment and frustration that I have witnessed the workings of the Democratic Party and its political figures.
We- by “we” I mean the Democratic Party- have let this go on far too long and taken far too many hits by the Republican opposition laying down. We have to do more, and most importantly, we have to mean it. No more taking people for granted, no making assumptions about who will vote for us, we have to give people a reason to vote for us, and we have to keep that reason valid in between the years in which we have a candidate running for President. We cannot sit back and watch helplessly as the conservatives appoint themselves as the guardians of moral virtue and purity in America and allow ourselves to come across as the enemies of all that is good and holy. We must define ourselves rather than letting our enemies define us.To quote President Bush, we need a “strategery.”
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(96 posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
