I have received an interesting article and posted it on my
blog which is not as widely read as DailyKOS, and I found it interesting in light of the news that Reid, the probable new Democrat leader of the Senate is anti-abortion. The following article was written by Gerry Conway of "Law and Order" / Wolf Films. I have obtained permission from him to share his article.
This is my first diary here so please be gentle.
Gerry's comments are below the break.
Goodnight, America.
This isn't a rant about the "stupidity" of the American electorate. I'll let others decry what they perceive as a failure of intelligence and a triumph of fear on the part of those who voted for George Bush. In my judgment that represents a fundamental misunderstanding of what's happened to our country over the last twenty-eight years. What we've witnessed this last year is not the triumph of fear and stupidity; it's the final collapse and death knell of the liberal progressive ideal in America.
Former Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey said it clearly last night, and it's something we all need to understand, if we're to understand why the Democratic party, as presently conceived, is dead as a political force in our country. To paraphrase Kerrey, no Democrat can be elected to national office if he supports a woman's right to choose or civil rights for gays and lesbians. Period. End of story.
According to the exit polls, voters who ranked the economy or Iraq as the determining factor in their choice of candidate overwhelmingly chose John Kerry for president. Voters who ranked "moral values" as the deciding factor overwhelmingly chose George Bush.
The fact of the matter is, nationally, there are more "moral values" voters than there are progressives or people who vote to protest their economic disenfranchisement. And by "moral values" I mean fundamentalist Christians who believe in the literal word of the bible and oppose gay rights and a woman's right to choose. These people feel so strongly about their religious convictions, they're willing to sacrifice their economic well-being on the altar of their beliefs. They are devoted to the creation of a "faith based" society, and in a faith based society, there's no room for social tolerance. As we can see from other faith-based societies around the world, when fundamentalists are in charge, the only law that matters is God's law, as interpreted by the chosen.
Welcome to 1896 -- but 1896 in an alternate reality where Williams Jenning Bryant and William McKinley are members of the same political party.
A refresher course on American political history: In 1896, two opposing political forces fought a battle for the soul of America, and while one side won, the other made such an impression, it legitimated itself as both a social movement and a political reality.
On one side, we had the Republican party, fronted by McKinley, a party that was the unabashed proponent of "free market" capitalism as embodied by railroad robber barons and banker princes. This was a party that did not pretend to represent the common man. It was the party of J. P. Morgan, Jay Gould, and Edward H. Harriman. It was, in short, identical to the Republican party of today in terms of economic policy. A party that favors of the rich getting richer and to hell with the middle class and the poor.
On the other side, we had the Democratic party, newly re-energized after decades of national irrelevance by the growing Progressive/Populist movement born in the midwest. The Progressive/Populist movement championed the poor and disenfranchised, but from a religious vantage point. To the Christian Populists of the 1890s, "moral values" meant fairness in the economic management of the country. They believed that Christian teachings promoted economic justice for the poor; for them, a literal reading of the bible meant Jesus wanted the working man to get a bigger piece of the financial pie. Their representative in this quest was the charismatic Christian fundamentalist, William Jennings Bryant. Bryant ran on a platform of economic justice as a religious issue. (His famous speech at the Democratic convention contained this line: "You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold." If you want a real mind-bending experience, read the entire speech at http://douglassarchives.org/brya_a26.htm.)
It was a battle between "moral values" and "might is right." "Might is right" won. But the Progressive/Populists were a growing force that had to be accommodated, and after McKinley's death, his successor Teddy Roosevelt managed to co-opt much of their "moral values" agenda, inoculating the Republican party from an effective national challenge by the Progressives and Populists for almost thirty years.
(I'd argue that the Presidency of Woodrow Wilson was a political anomaly during this period. Like Clinton after him, Wilson won as a minority president, the result of a divided Republican party. His re-election in 1916 was more a response to public nervousness about the possibility of America entering World War I than a vote of confidence in the Progressive agenda. After Wilson, the Republicans handily recovered control of the White House and kept it for twelve years.)
This reality -- that "might is right" wins over principles of Progressive/Populist economic justice -- was maintained until the Great Depression, when Franklin Roosevelt gained power through an unlikely alliance. He combined the Progressive/Populists of the Democratic party with an element of the Republicans' own political base -- small business. Big business may have been (and remains) staunchly Republican, but small businessmen, watching their livelihoods go down the drain in the general economic collapse, were ripe for the picking. Roosevelt picked them, and assembled a coalition that allowed Democrats to maintain political control for about forty years.
All that went away in the late Sixties, as Democrats made the critical error of assuming that the Progressive movement and the Populist movement had similar ideals. The Progressive movement, as it came to be defined by the Democratic party, is driven by a desire for social justice. The Populist movement was a movement of economic justice guided by "moral values" -- ie: a religious movement, an expression of fundamentalist Christian faith. But faith is, by definition, inconsistent with reality. Support for economic justice for religious reasons does not necessarily extend to support for social justice.
Remember this: the William Jennings Bryant who championed economic justice is the same William Jennings Bryant who helped prosecute John Scopes for teaching evolution.
And remember this: Bryant won. Scopes lost. Religion trumped reality.
By confusing Progressives and Populists and assuming they share similar values, the Democrats divided their base. They lost the Populists, whose religious convictions force them to oppose the Progressive social justice agenda -- tolerance for different religious beliefs, tolerance for different "lifestyles," tolerance for different moral values. This comes to a head with the issues of abortion and gay rights.
Fundamentalist Christians are alienated by Democrats' support for these social justice issues. They will never support a candidate who supports a woman's right to choose. They will never support a candidate who defends gay rights. For this reason, the Populist movement abandoned the Democratic party. And without the Populists, the Progressives simply have no place at the political table.
You can see this clearly in Minnesota, the home of the Progressive/Populist movement, the home of Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale, where John Kerry won by a little over 100,000 votes. If a Progressive candidate can't win by a landslide in the one of the birthplaces of the Progressive movement, the Progressive movement is, by definition, dead.
What the Republicans have accomplished since the election of Ronald Reagan is nothing less than a tectonic political realignment on the order of FDR's creation of the New Deal coalition. They have, in effect, combined the parties of McKinley and Bryant. The Republican party of 2004 presents the Populist agenda of Bryant (moral values, as defined by Christian fundamentalists) in concert with the economic agenda of McKinley (free market capitalism, might is right). Republicans now command two of the main elements of FDR's coalition -- moral value Populists and small businessmen. This is a powerful coalition, and while it disenfranchises an enormous number of Americans, it does represent the social and political views of the majority. It's a winning combination. Unless there's another Great Depression, it's hard to imagine a scenario where any Democrat can win nationally with a platform of social justice. And without a platform of social justice, what is a Democrat?
So where does that leave us? Well, it leaves us in 1896, facing the unraveling of a hundred years of Progressive principles. The Republicans being elected to national office -- Senators and Congressmen and Presidents alike -- are ruthlessly right wing religious believers. Many, if not most, are fundamentalist Christians who will do anything to advance their faith. Outlawing abortion and restricting the rights of gays and lesbians are not just part of their agenda, they are the essence of their agenda and the reason they were elected. One new Republican Senator has stated publicly not only his opposition to gays and lesbians as teachers, but his opposition to unwed mothers as teachers. These are committed people. They will not rest until they've completely overturned the accomplishments of the liberal Progressive movement. And they will succeed, because whether Progressives are willing to accept it or not, the voters of America are behind them.
Goodnight, America.