Thursday 23 February 2017

Musings on Democratic Party Delusions

The Democratic Party, despite its criticism of Republican alternative and false facts, seems to largely be a party of alternative facts as well.

Fact: the Democratic Party primary process is not democratic and is weighted to party insiders most of whom are neoliberal in ideological if not demagogic orientation. It should be no surprise that most of these insiders supported the insider candidate, Hillary Clinton. It was George McGovern, by the way, who democratised the Democratic Party presidential primary process after 1968 when the establishment candidate, Hubert H. Humphrey, "the Hump", despite limited success relative to Kennedy and McCarthy on the primary level, was going to be anointed the Democratic candidate for president in Chicago. It was undemocratised after the McGovern and Carter losses.

Fact: Republicans control 31 states. Democrats had to pull two old skeletons out of the closed to run for the US Senate in two of these states. They lost. Surprise, surprise. The moral of this story? Democrats don't play in many US states. In order to play with voters in these states they will have to become even more like Republicans. America's political paradox.

Fact: Democrats seem to think that demographics are on their side and seem to be waiting for a demographic messiah to come down from the skies. Whether this will come to pass is questionable. Example: success of Texas Republicans courting Hispanics. In he meantime they seem to be sitting around twiddling their thumbs and blaming everyone but themselves for their predicament while the Republicans, despite their disarray, control most of the states. Needless to say, a lot of the action, some of it ALEC inspired, is on the state level. The Democrat situation in some states is so bad that the opposition to Republicans is Republicans.

Fact: Democrats opted to take the neoliberal route after the McGovern and Carter defeats. They apparently believed it was the only way for them to survive, i.e. to get the big money necessary to compete against the Republican Party. This hasn't really brought Dems success particularly beyond the federal level. It has led to increasing defection from the Democratic Party.

Fact: Democrats don't seem to be able to face up to their own haplessness. They seem to prefer to blame everyone from Ralph Nader to Donald Trump to Russia for the disaster that is the contemporary Democratic Party. This scapegoating tells me all I need to know about contemporary Democrats.

Conclusion: Democrats are not the solution. They are part of the problem.