Showing posts with label Democrat Party. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Democrat Party. Show all posts
Hey hey, ho ho, Donald Trump has got to go
It should be the active position of the left that, though the Democrats have dealt the country a bum deal over the last half century, progressives are going to go all out to defeat Donald Trump. But in doing so they shouldn't lie about Joe Biden and corporate Democrats. On the contrary, this is an opportunity for the Working Families Party, DSA, and anyone else organizing against the duopoly to raise consciousness, recruit new members, and fill their coffers. Trying to paint Biden as an acceptable nominee won't work; disgruntled voters will see right through it. But his election can be sold as a necessary first step on the way to a living wage, universal health care, fair taxes and economic security.
Bailing
The reliably feckless David Brooks has this to say about the domination of the GOP by radicals:
"It's probably futile to try to change current Republicans. It's smarter to build a new wing of the Republican Party, one that can compete in the Northeast, the mid-Atlantic states, in the upper Midwest and along the West Coast. It's smarter to build a new division that is different the way the Westin is different than the Sheraton..."
"Would a coastal and Midwestern G.O.P. sit easily with the Southern and Western one? No, but majority parties are usually coalitions of the incompatible. This is really the only chance Republicans have. The question is: Who's going to build a second G.O.P.?"
Representative democracy would benefit from such a development, but here's an easier way to do it than by trying to recapture the GOP. Stragglers from the moderate wing of the Republicans, if joined by the neoliberals, now a declining and reviled minority among Democrats, would form a new centrist, corporatist, neoliberal party (the New Whigs?). The Republican Party under this scenario would continue to represent fundamentalists, reactionaries and rightist libertarians. The Democratic Party would take on its proper role as the champion of the middle and working classes. And a green party, maybe the Green Party, would carry on with an agenda focused climate change. A House with four or five parties could only function by building coalitions, making it far more likely that rational, practical and more representative political outcomes would prevail.
All parties in the legislature have an interest in reining in the executive branch. The Founders envisioned ours as a legislative democracy, and it would serve us all to return to that model. The assignment of power through winner-take-all contests has proven itself to be dangerous to democracy as well as to wise stewardship.
"It's probably futile to try to change current Republicans. It's smarter to build a new wing of the Republican Party, one that can compete in the Northeast, the mid-Atlantic states, in the upper Midwest and along the West Coast. It's smarter to build a new division that is different the way the Westin is different than the Sheraton..."
"Would a coastal and Midwestern G.O.P. sit easily with the Southern and Western one? No, but majority parties are usually coalitions of the incompatible. This is really the only chance Republicans have. The question is: Who's going to build a second G.O.P.?"
Representative democracy would benefit from such a development, but here's an easier way to do it than by trying to recapture the GOP. Stragglers from the moderate wing of the Republicans, if joined by the neoliberals, now a declining and reviled minority among Democrats, would form a new centrist, corporatist, neoliberal party (the New Whigs?). The Republican Party under this scenario would continue to represent fundamentalists, reactionaries and rightist libertarians. The Democratic Party would take on its proper role as the champion of the middle and working classes. And a green party, maybe the Green Party, would carry on with an agenda focused climate change. A House with four or five parties could only function by building coalitions, making it far more likely that rational, practical and more representative political outcomes would prevail.
All parties in the legislature have an interest in reining in the executive branch. The Founders envisioned ours as a legislative democracy, and it would serve us all to return to that model. The assignment of power through winner-take-all contests has proven itself to be dangerous to democracy as well as to wise stewardship.
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