Democrats Are Lost and Afraid

By all rational measurements, the Republican Party in the United States should be on the brink of disintegrating. Yet, the Democrats keep lifting back up from the mat and thereby  putting their own existence in jeopardy. From the ashes would rise a temporary split into 3 new parties. This is the logical, obvious outcome when you have a system of two parties, and only two parties. One of those parties, the Democrats have been around under couple of names since the birth of the country under the Constitution. The second party, always known as Republicans also ironically call themselves the Grand Old Party. A prophetic name considering that they began as a radical party and have morphed over the past 160 years into an old, tired conservative party. That switch can be traced to about 40 years after their introduction as the party to end slavery. But progressivism was pushed that aside to become the party most connected business interests. Tossing out their last Progressive leader, Theodore Roosevelt, they dug in their heels. Both parties had liberal and conservative wings, and in general that held up all the way until the early 60’s. Even through the Depression, while the Democrats became home for the far Left and the Republicans by their continued support of Business interests became a natural home for the far Right. Conservative vs Liberal until the 60’s was mostly geographic.

Eventually, after an era of economic turmoil in the early 70’s that began during the infamous Nixon administration, the Conservatives completely took over the Republican party. They were helped in that effort by LBJ’s opening up America to black citizens, to a degree not thought about since the last living days of Lincoln. That effort turned the Conservative Southern Democrats into a Republican stronghold. Thus began the actual split where Democrats almost exclusively became Liberal and Republicans became Conservative. Oddly enough, until the Civil War, parties in America were split up based on issues at the time, post Civil War the parties that had faced off were frozen into place.

But a very odd thing happened. With the takeover of the Republican party, they also managed to force an alteration of how we thought of ourselves. We became, as a nation, not just proud; but boastful, not just a defender of freedoms. but an enforcer and an imposer of freedom. Of course many of those traits were part of America’s vision of itself as an exceptional nation doing exceptional things. The only problem was that Republican no longer wanted America to do anything exceptional. But somehow, everything got redefined in the post Reagan America.

With nothing more than a napkin with a graph written on it an entire new concept of post Keynesian economics was developed based on the theories espoused by economist Milton Friedman. Taxes had to be low, much lower than they had ever been in modern history. The idea being that with lower taxes, the government income would actually soar, since all that tax money would stay in the economy. In order to pay for the short term lower income the government, would of course cut back on some welfare benefits, but that’s only temporary because soon with lower taxes, there would be so many jobs, that welfare won’t be needed.  This concept carried through into the Clinton administration especially in welfare reform. But there was much, much more. Regulators, now were being required to take into consideration the needs of the businesses being regulated before the needs of the people being protected.  Lower taxes created other opportunities to cut back on regulations, by eliminating IRS investigators, so tax fraud was less likely to be found; ignoring the anti trust act, allowing larger near monopolies to arise. FCC rules limiting ownership of the media was weakened until Clinton finally opened the floodgates to allow the media to be owned by a handful of entities.

The list of ideas that Republicans got into place during their 30+ year run  goes on and on.

Then it all crashed in 2008. The deregulation, the almost no taxes on large businesses, the minimalist approach to Social Services, the growth of near monopolies, all demonstrated to everyone that this Conservative approach has not, can not, and will not work. The near total shut down of Congressional action to solve our fiscal problems, our lack of good paying jobs, the lack of response to people’s needs by government agencies, the debt hanging over the heads of Americans and especially our college grads. Nothing is done. And who has proposed solutions, any solutions? Actually Democrats have. And they were not debated in either House except on whether to even open debate. Republicans have not offered a single solution. This is clear and factual, there is no debate on my last statement.

And that is all Democrats had to do. Instead, many tried to be sorta like a Republican only nicer to people. People want jobs with good pay, they want relief from debt that cripples them  when the economy dips, People just want their government to respond quickly to meet their needs. Whenever the Republicans take the Senate and hold Congress it will be the Democrats fault. And that means to me that is what the people want.

If that is what the American people is best, then that is democracy. But I will not hold my nose anymore and vote for a Democrat just because they, by virtue of their party they are better than Republicans That is not good enough anymore. There is no more room on right that I can compromise on. The next tiny slide to the right is going to push America into a bigger ditch that President Obama described in 2012. If America lurches anymore to the right, it will take more than tow trucks to get us out. It will take one or two of those 3 new parties that emerge to meet the challenges of making America a role model for the world, politically, socially, economically and peacefully. The Republican want a time machine and go back to the past. The Democrats are lost, afraid to move forward because they might make a mistake.