Quick backdrop: I grew up with two Democrats for parents. My first political memory is walking precincts with them -- for RFK. Not too long after that, my father ran for a seat in the House of Representatives (in a highly gerrymandered district; he lost--but did better than any Democrat did there before him, or for many years afterward). His parents were Democrats as well and my grandfather was a union member who paid his dues even when unemployed during the Depression.
The idea of being a Democrat runs in my veins. But it's the end of the year, and I'm feeling contemplative.
I'm a historian, and a political junkie. I've said repeatedly that not only do I care deeply and intensely about politics, it's also my favorite full-contact sport. Even when I'm outraged and disgusted over the malfeasance and cheating, there are moments when I step back and marvel and appreciate the effective "play" involved. But in the end, I care about the "score," what the results are.
I'm aware that once upon a time, the Democratic Party stood for things that revolt me. Not really in my lifetime, but not so long ago that I can pretend and ignore it. Once upon a time, as well, the Republican party really was the "Party of Lincoln," too. Of course, he'd long ago have fled it in horror--sort of like Lot fleeing Sodom, I suspect.
But politics is always a field on which multiple things engage; there's the visionary side, the part that looks to how things should be--and that's absolutely critical. And of course, there's the side that looks at what can be accomplished now, and recognizes that the visionary side may be caught in high ideals, and that--even though it may be distasteful--settling for half a loaf, now, may be the best that can be done (for now), and that doing so will fend off real suffering and misery. And of course, there's the brutally pragmatic power game that underpins politics. That part's inescapable, I think--and it's both a source of energy and success, as well as a source of real danger to achieving political ideals.
I've raised two sons who understand why I won't cross a picket line--and I don't think they will, either. They understand why it's important to look at the details, that how and where something's made, and who made it, and under what conditions, is very important. And, as far as these things grip the teenaged psyche, they understand that sometimes it's messy, and that while (for example) sweatshops are bad things, they may be better than the other options available--for now. Progress is, after all, progressive.
And this leads me to the consideration of being a lifelong Democrat, and whether that'll reliably last.
You see, I'm drawn not to the brand (though I know that I have the mental tattoos...), but to what it stands for. Were Lincoln alive, and the Black Republicans pushing the sorts of agendas that they stood for (updated a century and a half), I suspect I'd be a supporter. It's not the party, it's the platform. And it's not just the platform, it's delivering it. Talk is, after all, cheap--and it's far too easy to look over at the GOP and see that the politicians in that party have played to their base without ever really trying to deliver on issues like abortion and the imposition of Christianity (for which failures I'm grateful!).
It's the platform that I come back to--and measuring the actual effort and dedication of our leaders towards it.
Things like Civil Rights.
The list is here, along with a link to the whole 2008 document.
It's standing for these things--and delivering them--that matter.
And thus it's these things that make me wonder if I'll be a Democrat at the end of my life. Talk is, after all, cheap.
Our era is one critical not only for the nation, but for the ecology of the planet. I'm profoundly disappointed at the moment. We've just seen a rousing (yet imperfect) performance at the end of this Congressional session. I can't help but wonder where that level of effort and focus was--for Congress and the Administration--earlier in the Congressional term. There's so much that should have been done--and so many things that seem fundamentally important that just got skimmed over... that we can't afford to have put off.
Fair elections that aren't corrupted by vast amounts of money from individuals and corporations, for example. It's damned hard to clean up a neighborhood while a primary sewer leak is still spewing into it. And that's what we've got now.
Arctic ice is rapidly going away. Greenland's icecap is melting. No doubt, so is enough of the Antarctic that at some point we'll be getting shocked "who could have imagined..." responses from various dead-enders. BP/Transocean/Halliburton fouled the Gulf of Mexico in a way that's devastated the Gulf economy and society--and done profound damage to the ecology. It won't heal for a long time. And yet... the reactions to all this are demonstrably too half-hearted, too responsive to the desires of the oil industry and shills like Sen. Coburn. This isn't an era in which we can afford to make small, slow, incremental improvements. We need some large steps forward, and soon.
I guess my thought is that it's the ideals that I'm devoted to--and if I leave the party at some point, it'll be because it's clear that it's not going to actually work in the interests of the nation's people, and to actually deliver peace, justice, and the common good.
It needs to make good on the ideals that Theodore Parker articulated, and that Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr re-articulated;
Government of (all) the people, by (all) the people, for (all) the people
and, of course, the idea that the arc of history bends towards justice--and that we have to go out and do the actual bending.