Red Meat for the Red States

opinion by Brian King

The Republicans gave the Democrats quite a drubbing last November, didn't they? It looks like George W and his friends will be sitting in the driver's seat for a while, now that the Republicans control both houses of Congress, the Supreme Court, and the Presidency.

Some people think it doesn't matter that much. During the 2000 campaign, Ralph Nader used to say, "There's not a dime's worth of difference between the Republicans and the Democrats." Well, George W has shown us a little more than a dime's worth, no matter how wishy-washy the Dems act. As long as elections in America are winner-take-all, it looks like there will be only two major parties capable of winning, and one of them will be a little more on the side of everyday people than the other. The Dems deserve support, or at least non-opposition, as long as they are the party that leans toward the people. Third parties like the Greens should run as Green Democrats in the primaries, not as spoilers in general elections.

So, does this mean that progressives should go along with anything or any candidate the Democratic Party puts forward? Absolutely not! But we need to fight for progressive ideas intelligently. If the Dems put up a presidential candidate in '08 like Hillary Clinton, who is pro death penalty, pro Iraq war, and signals only luke warm support for Roe V. Wade, do we have to campaign for her? No. But we should not mount a general election challenge that makes her Republican opponent more likely to win.

Since the election, the Democratic Party has been offered a lot of free advice on what they should do to get a few more votes next time. And, like all free advice, it's got to be worth every penny they paid for it. Since everybody has been holding their breath, anxiously awaiting a contribution from this reporter, here goes!

In order to win back control of government in America, the Democratic Party needs to return to its New Deal roots. Progressives should concentrate on organizing around bread and butter populist issues, like a right to health care, real access to education for all and a full employment economy. We need to pressure the Dems to take a clear stand with us on these things.

The Dems have been drifting to the right ever since John Kennedy was assassinated. The John Kenneth Galbraith piece in the March 14th 2005 Nation magazine illustrates, in some detail, Kennedy's reluctance to cooperate on Vietnam with the cold warriors in his administration. When Lyndon Johnson took over, his escalation in Vietnam poisoned the Great Society effort and reduced it to little more than a program to make the war more palatable.

Bill Moyers, the newly retired host of the PBS program Now, was press secretary during the Lyndon Johnson administration. In a recent Seattle Times interview, Moyers said, "Johnson's ambition was to seal the New Deal, born under Franklin Roosevelt. Instead, the toxic cloud of Vietnam came between him and that generation. The cloud has not yet lifted."

As Moyers implied, the forces that seized power in the Democratic Party after Kennedy was eliminated, are essentially the same ones we see in charge today. Bill "end of big government" Clinton is a great example. This is the main reason the Dems are growing weaker at the polls, not rigged computer voting machines.

This long move to the right, Clinton called it "triangulation", has undermined working class support for the Democratic Party. Many workers don't view themselves as members of minority groups, with something to gain from affirmative action and the like. And, they don't see much in the way of firm commitments from Democrats on such economic populist issues as health care, education, or jobs. John Kerry's health plan was a good example of this problem. It was way too complicated and left too much room for fudging after the election. A simple statement, repeated over and over during the nationally televised debates, that "health care is a right!" would have given working people some hope that Kerry really intended to do something about the health insurance crisis. Then, the election would have been more of a contest in the Red States. The Democratic Party needs to be pulled back from the right by strong populist movements.

Many Democratic Party supporters attribute the loss of the election to cheating by Republican officials in Ohio and Florida. Rev. Jesse Jackson makes a good case that Kerry might have won in a fair vote. The danger here is that too much effort might be spent on court cases and the like, instead of building a movement that can beat the Republicans no matter how hard they try to steal the vote.

The Democrats and labor should look at the Republican Campaign, and compare it to their own. A frequent comment made by reporters covering the race, including the Economist magazine, was that the Republican foot soldiers at the precinct level appeared to be mostly committed volunteers. On the other hand, the Democratic precinct walkers looked to be largely labor and Democratic Party staffers, people doing it for the money. Let's forget "values voters" for a moment, and ponder this advantage the Republicans held in face to face contact with the voting public.

Many Democratic Party activists are currently in love with the ideas of George Lakoff, whose recent book Don't Think of an Elephant offers yet another version of what the Dems should change to do better in the next election. Lakoff believes that the most important change to be made is in the wording of campaign commercials and printed materials. He seems to be saying that average people will take our side if we use clever enough words and phrases when we talk to them.

Trying to get the words right is fine, but we shouldn't use communication efforts to hide from the tough issues. In order to get red state voters to take our side we need to give them real issues to sink their teeth into. We need Red Meat for the Red States!

Progressives should support efforts to build up such issues as a right to quality education, a right to quality health care, and energy independence through energy conservation. A national organization, like the old Non-Partisan League, might be able to organize people around these universalist demands.

When there is enough support for these issues to cause the Dems to take them up in a clearcut way, maybe folks won't worry so much about all the divisive stuff the Republicans are always throwing at us. And then we could win some elections and get a real New Deal cooking again!