Amendment

A brief (?) addendum to my last post.

A reader watching me bash the Democrats for several hundred words could be forgiven for thinking that I scorn the party. But such a reader would be mistaking in-group criticism for high-horse preaching. My post was intended to be like the coach's halftime speech to a team that's just one touchdown behind in the big game. The team doesn't need to be told that they're on the side of the good guys, that they're doing almost everything right, that the opponent is stupid, and that they just need a little luck and one good pass from the star quarterback. What they need is a good stern tongue-lashing.

Here's the facts: Democrats have been losing ground since 1976. Republicans have steadily gained in every branch of government. The number of people identifying themselves as Republican (and conservative) has skyrocketed, while the number of people identifying themselves as Democrats (and liberals) has plummeted.

Why is it? Ask a liberal, and he might say that Republican voters are just stupid or uninformed. Well, I'd say it's a fair bet voters are no more stupid now than when Johnson won the biggest landslide in history in 1964. Or he might say that the Democrats just need one good strong presidential candidate (Barack Obama?) to carry the day. Well, the truth is, we had that candidate 14 years ago, his name was Bill Clinton, and he won, twice, and was one of the most popular presidents ever. And then he was gone, and the Republicans just picked up where they left off.

Some Democrats just want to hear that we're doing just fine, that surely this time the voters must realize how aful the Republican party is, and thus become born-again Democrats. Sorry, guys. If that were going to happen, it would have happened long ago. The Democrats have problems that go way beyond bad luck. And if we don't recognize and address those problems - if we bury our heads in the sand and hope the Republicans vanish - we're toast.

So I am a realist. I acknowledge Democratic weakness. But that doesn't mean I like the Republicans - far from it. The Republicans cripple our nation with pork-barrel spending and useless tax cuts, throw away our precious international alliances like used Kleenex, punish the environment at the nation's expense just to goad the environmentalist movement, keep the U.S. dependent on Saudi oil, try to push out science in favor of theocracy, ignore the problems of black people, and rake in bribes like kids grab Halloween candy. They're not just bad, they're cartoonishly bad.

Which means that if we allow ourselves to be defeated by them, because we're too set in our ways, or because we're too obstinate to admit that we've made mistakes, then we are complicit in that badness. That is something I will never tolerate.

I admire Kos and the netroots for their tenacity, their energy, their dedication and their innovation. But right now they're like a body without a head. They don't articulate a national platform (hey, they're only bloggers), but they spend most of their time attacking Democrats who don't attack Bush as much as the netroots would like. That needs to stop. There's better ways to lay the groundwork for electoral victory than by angrily cutting the throat of any cautious Democrat. But if the party's leadership can inspire those bloggers with something besides opposition to Bush and the Iraq war, the netroots would be a powerful force indeed.

As for the Democratic "interest groups," the picture is murkier. Some of them I agree with completely (eg. the gay rights lobby). Others, while I like and sympathize with them, I think need to avoid harming the party by going off the deep end with demands that mainstream America will never accept (eg. the NAACP). And some I think often act as purely negative influences, hurting the liberal cause through obstructionism (teachers' unions). Both the Democratic leadership and the grassroots base need to stand up and make sure that the interest groups are yoked to the party's big tent, not the other way around (thankfully, some bloggers are now taking up this charge).

I'm not a Democratic defeatist. We can win the 2006 congressional elections. We can win the 2008 presidential election. Common-sense proposals like energy independence, deficit reduction, education-boosting, and increasing anti-terrorist manpower, combined with a hefty dose of finger-pointing over the myriad failures, lies, and misdeeds of the Republicans, can carry us that far. We need a good candidate, yes. We need effective fundraising, yes. And we can do it, this time and maybe the next, with just that.

But beyond that, the Democratic party needs big changes. A strategic focus. A redefinition of liberalism. A vision. A guiding light. You get the picture.

We need to remember why we're liberals, and what we stand for. Liberals want to be free. We don't want any big institution telling us who to be or how to live - not the government, not corporations, and not some government-backed church. We want to have control over our own lives, our own identities, and our own success.

In the social realm, that means leaving people alone to be who they want to be. Gay rights. Privacy rights. Freedom of religion. A judge wants to hang a Christmas wreath on his door? Fine. A judge wants to make Hindu citizens pay for a Ten Commandments monument that tells them not to worship their Hindu gods? No way! And personal freedom includes protecting kids from bad influences - drugs, sex culture, and violence. Freedom to choose your life means being protected at a young age from the forces that try to make that choice for you.

The Republicans say they're the party that wants to ge the government off their backs? Ridiculous? The Democrats are that party.

In the economic sphere, individual freedom means free markets. Republicans have long used "free markets" as a euphemism for allowing corporations to lie and cheat people if they were so inclined. But that's not what free markets are really about (in fact, healthy corporate regulation makes markets freer). When I look around, I see that the biggest advances in human freedom, wealth, and environmental protection have come from free markets and the economic growth they bring - not from some ineffectual France-style "social safety net." Programs to help the poor are fine and good (and cheap), but the free market should remain our guiding light. Social safety nets are important because they prevent people from dropping out of the market.

The Republicans feed pork to uncompetitive companies. That's not free market. The Republicans build up huge deficits until the free market gets crushed by the weight of government foolishness.

Three of the biggest things we can do to help grow our economy and fulfill the potential of the free market are: 1. to help black people achieve economic equality, by targeting and eliminating the scourges of the black community - violence, gangs, anti-intellectualism, and irresponsible fatherhood. 2. to fix our public school system, starting with policies like merit-based pay and easier hiring/firing for teachers, enhanced science education, equal distribution of property tax revenues, etc. And 3. to make college affordable for all.

And in the realm of foreign policy, liberal Democrats need to be the ones promoting freedom and democracy and human rights throughout the world. We need to push for alliances, mutually beneficial cooperation, and cultural exchanges with every single democratic, human rights-respecting country on the planet. We need to push for a cleaner more competent UN. We need to push for women's rights in all nations, especially Japan and Italy and other sexist democracies. We need to be the ones blasting China for executing dissidents and selling their organs. And we need to stand firm against the real dangers posed by Islamism to freedom everywhere.

We can't leave these jobs to the Republicans.

This is what I'm talking about when I say we need a new liberalism. Really, we need the old liberalism, the Enlightenment liberalism, the "classical" liberalism that trusts human ingenuity, rationality, and individuality to make the right decisions. We need a government that focuses on helping people live healthy lives, full of opportunity and individual growth, in stable communities - not one that uses the state to try (and fail) to force people into some religion's notion of "virtue." America is the birthplace of liberalism, the most liberal country in the world, because we're the most individualistic country in the world. When we choose to emphasize that nature of liberalism, people are going to wake up and see the truth about the Republicans - namely, that Republicans want people to subjugate their lives to the dictates of the government, a church, a big corporation, or a political faction. And seeing that, they're going to vote Democrat in droves.

As liberals, we choose which type of liberalism to pluck from history and apply to the problems of the modern world. If we go with a French-college-student kind of model - beef up government protectionism to try to maintain a "security" that can never really exist - we'll lose the country (or even worse, drive it into the ground). If we go with a Chomsky/Nader model - soak the "evil" rich on principle, and don't use America to promote freedom in the world for fear of being labeled imperialist - we'll lose the country (or even worse, drive it into the ground).

Our only choice is freedom-based, individuality-based, opportunity-based, optimism-based liberalism with a patriotic twist. The American liberalism. The Democratic party leadership needs to start pushing it. The netroots need to sign onto it and start raising money and organizing the troops. And the special interest groups need to make sure their demands fit with the framework.

Do this and we'll win the country, and America and the world will flourish.

Fail to do this, out of bitterness or defeatism or laziness or simple unwillingness to admit any course changes are needed...and we can all look forward to President Bush VIII.

We can make this kind of change, and we must. No defeatists in this club.

OK, rant over. :-)