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PrintOctober 13, 2007
Are Democrats 'The Stupid Party?'
A superb piece in The Weekly Standard by James Ceaser, a professor of Politics at the University of Virginia, is your weekend reading assignment.
The article is meaty, substantative, and full of interesting little historical nuggets that illustrate his main theme; that the old progressive wing of the Democratic party which believed in "scientific" solutions to social ills, carrying on a progressive tradition going all the way back to the turn of the 20th century when it was believed that government could "perfect" society, must make a clean break with the new coalition of super rich leftists, liberal bloggers, and progressive organizations like Moveon.org and ANSWER in order to reclaim the party's identification:
The article is meaty, substantative, and full of interesting little historical nuggets that illustrate his main theme; that the old progressive wing of the Democratic party which believed in "scientific" solutions to social ills, carrying on a progressive tradition going all the way back to the turn of the 20th century when it was believed that government could "perfect" society, must make a clean break with the new coalition of super rich leftists, liberal bloggers, and progressive organizations like Moveon.org and ANSWER in order to reclaim the party's identification:
The allies of the wealthy, the bloggers, are the coalition's hit men. Almost all are males in their thirties. The two most prominent, "Markos and Jerome" (Markos Moulitsas Zúniga of the Daily Kos and Jerome Armstrong of MyDD), gained their fame and won their political clout by latching onto Howard Dean's candidacy in 2003 and using the Internet to help create the "Democratic wing of the Democratic party."...There's a lot to chew on and digest in this piece by Ceaser. I highly recommend you read the whole thing.
The bloggers in turn are teamed up with the new, Internet-reliant grassroots associations like MoveOn and ACORN. What emerges from Bai's study of the coalition is that the tone of MoveOn's recent New York Times ad assailing General Petraeus as "General Betray Us," far from being exceptional, is perfectly typical of the discourse preached and practiced by this so-called progressive coalition...
The Democratic party, its prowess renewed by a taste of success in 2006, is riding the crest of a political wave. It is the stupid party triumphant. What serious Democrats must now consider is whether to accept this state of affairs--or begin to think deeply enough to find a principled ground for rejecting a faction in their midst that is not only stupid but dangerous as well.
