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Edited on Sat Jan-16-10 05:01 PM by Drunken Irishman
And it's what dominated the party from late-60s until the early-90s. And when I say liberal, we've got to make a distinction here. Because you will find contradictions in that term throughout the base of the Democratic Party. Which, ultimately, played a role in the party's downturn after dominating American politics from the Roosevelt administration until Johnson was corrupted by Vietnam.
What happened in the wake of that is that many saw the Democratic Party as left-leaning and only serving three social groups: blacks, women and wealthy liberals. That was what defined the Democratic Party in the post-60s era and it slowly began to dwindle its support on a national level.
Now you've got to understand something. Prior to Roosevelt, the Democratic Party was very ideological and lacked a true cohesion at the national level. Which explains the fact that from Andrew Johnson (a Democrat who succeeded Lincoln after his assassination) to FDR, there was only one successful Democratic president. That, of course, being Woodrow Wilson.
Sure, you had Grover Cleveland thrown in there - but he was ho-hum and actually lost his reelection bid before coming back and winning a second term (the only thing he's probably known for now). Beyond that, though, the Democrats struggled at attaining the presidency. In fact, struggling is putting it lightly. Hell, had it not been for California in the 1916 election (a state Wilson won by only .3%), Wilson is a one-termer and the Republicans continue their domination.
Even with that win, though, Republicans held the presidency all but sixteen years from 1869 to 1929. Ridiculous, right?
Then Roosevelt came in and totally reshaped the party at the national level. He was able to bring together ideologies and the party went from dominating just one region to establishing itself a real national party.
From 1933 to 1963 (30 years), the Democrats were only out of the White House for eight years (Eisenhower). That is a remarkable stretch and would not have happened hadn't Roosevelt created a more inclusive party.
Granted, many on DU believe Roosevelt to be the epitome of liberalism. Except he wasn't. Not by today's standards. He inched - but was far from progressive - when it came to civil rights. He was a life-long free-trader (which in today's liberal communities would be grounds for dismissal) and propped up capitalism, even though he had a legitimate reason to move the country away from it. The system had failed and a far more progressive president probably could have come in and gutted the system in favor of what has been created in many European countries.
He didn't, though.
That isn't to say Roosevelt wasn't progressive. He was. But even back in the 30s, many progressives and populists (read what Huey Long has to say about the FDR administration) didn't like him. They felt he wasn't liberal enough (eek, sound familiar?) or wasn't doing enough (again, sound familiar?).
But the Democratic Party was an open-tent back then. It had southern conservatives and liberal north-easterners and they fought like hell - but the Democratic Party WAS the United States government. It owned the Senate. It owned the House. And it certainly owned the presidency.
Then things began to shift in the 1960s.
You had liberal Democrats pushing for civil rights. The southerners rebelled. It ruined the Democratic Party in the south and purged many southern voters from the party. In the short-term, not a bad thing. They were racists that had to be dealt with. But only a fool would suggest it didn't hurt the Democratic Party in the long-run.
What happened beyond that, though, was a mighty backlash from White America. Not necessarily total bigots - but disenfranchised blue collar Democrats who felt the Democratic Party was losing interest in their causes.
Now that sounds similar to what many suggest today. But it isn't quite the same. Many blue collar Democrats were a bit racist and socially conservative. They were military men. They probably fought in WWII - or were the sons and daughters of those who fought in WWII. They were pro-military. Probably supported the Vietnam War. They were not anti-capitalism, but pro-union.
They weren't liberal, though.
Not by today's definition anyway.
So out of the unrest of the 60s came a longing for stability. You had civil rights and women rights. You had anti-war protesters and a slew of moral issues taking control of the American political scene.
Out of that, a new coalition of Democratic voters were formed. They weren't New Deal Democrats anymore. Kennedy and Johnson were the last New Deal presidents. They were civil rights leaders and women's rights leaders. The local leaders weren't the Big City, blue collar, Irish-Catholic types anymore. They were affluent limousine liberals.
They fought for equal pay. They fought the war. They fought the establishment once it became clear they weren't the establishment anymore.
Then these voters from the rust belt cities - voters brought into the fold a generation ago with Roosevelt - started rethinking the party. The Democratic Party wasn't for them anymore. In the 70s, it appeared to be a party owned by the liberal-wing.
Rightfully or not, that was the perception. The perception was that the Democratic Party was not a big-tent party anymore. Add the social aspect and you get an even bigger rift between a good swath of America and the modern Democratic Party.
The 1970s was all about creating stability after the turbulent 60s.
It also saw the beginning of social politics. Abortion. Guns. Sex. God and though not exactly social - war.
In every category, the Democrats were hurt because many of their leaders were seen as too liberal on those issues.
So what happened? Well they left the party and then the party was only made up of blacks, affluent whites and socially aware women.
That was it. Blue collar voters might have stayed registered Democratic - but they voted Republican. The South was long gone. Nixon came and played on their fears. It worked. He won in a landslide - twice!
If it had not been for Watergate, Carter never sees the White House and the Republicans most likely dominate from the late-60s to the early-90s.
Not a bad stretch for a party a few decades earlier was on its last leg.
There were candidates like George McGovern - who ran as a peace candidate. And Walter Mondale - who openly told Americans he would raise their taxes. The Democrats still managed to do well enough at the local level, but only because of some conservative holdovers in the south and the Big City machines in the NE.
But nationally, they were doomed. McGovern wasn't going to beat Nixon. He was far too liberal. Mondale wasn't quite as liberal, but he fit the liberal stereotype - affluent white man who seems out of touch with the country. Hell, Dukakis was tagged with that too and it doomed him against the inept Bush campaign.
The only reason the Democratic Party became a player again is because Bill Clinton realized they weren't winning with the old play book. Instead of talking about the poor and the working class, he talked about the middle class. It was genius really.
I mean, who wants to consider themselves working class? No one. When someone hears that term, which had been used over and over by Democratic candidates throughout the 70s and 80s, they thought 'working poor'. But they weren't working poor. They couldn't connect with the working poor - even though they were pretty much working class. Because, whether Americans there wanted to believe it or not, there wasn't a lick of difference between working class and middle class. They both were sandwiched in between the poor and the rich.
So Clinton decided to use the term middle class. It gussied it up. The silent majority. Hard-working Americans who felt they were left by the Democratic Party years ago and voted Republican because the Republicans promised lower taxes and were in line with their social views.
1992 was not about social issues like the elections of 1968, 1972, 1976, 1980, 1984 and 1988. It was mostly about the economy and that's where Democrats generally do well. Clinton articulated a message that hit home with Middle America. A group of Americans who don't fit the conservative or liberal definition. Because they're neither conservative or liberal.
Granted, Clinton had a lot of help in that campaign, but he won. He became the first Democrat since Roosevelt to win re-election. He redefined the Democratic Party and though he gets slammed for being 'too moderate' and taking the Democratic Party too far to the right - but what the Democrats were doing before wasn't working.
They were reverting back to their pre-Roosevelt days of doing well locally, but hardly being a national party.
Now DUers need to ask themselves - what do they want? The 1980s Democratic Party (which was more liberal, but failed in every national election) or today's Democratic Party (which might not be as liberal, but won the WH in 2008 with the highest vote total since LBJ's landslide in 1964)?
There has to be concessions. You can't have the perfect ideological party or you're going to lose a huge number of voters.
That's why there should be compromise.
But that's a bad word here...
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