Can some one please make a rational case for the Left "owning" the party?

[Perky]

Look I am not suggesting the LW should not have a loud an important voice in the party. All I am asking is where the LW gets off telling everyone else in the party to shut up and sit down.

Rationally, realistically, when has the left ever truly run the party? What indicators have to be in place to say that the liberal position is the de Facto position of the party? Is it having a liberal win the presidency? Is it the left wing of the party dominating the Democratic Caucus in the House?

I would submit that neither of those has happened in forty-two years and even then it was the result of a poor Republican choice for President in Goldwater and it was because in 1964 there was a solid democratic and conservative South that LBJ came from and understood. And one could hardly call LBJ a rue liberal.

SO tell me since the landslide of 1964 what liberal legacy has the left built to give them the right to say who should be in the party and who should not?

DO we really think the antidote to neo-conservatism is some vague and vapid hearkening back to a yesteryear that never really existed at all?

Again, and before you flame me. I am not suggesting anything positively or negatively about the content of the message liberals offer. I am simply asking why they think it is the default position of the big tent. How has the liberal electoral record of the last 40 years earned the left that right?

[ulysses]

1. ?

DO we really think the antidote to neo-conservatism is some vague and vapid hearkening back to a yesteryear that never really existed at all?

If that's your working definition of "the left", it probably goes a long way towards explaining your confusion.

Aside from that, I for one don't feel the need for the left to "own" or entirely run the party. I just don't want the DLC in that position either.

[H2O Man]

34. Well said.

The difficulties expressed in the OP belong to the beholder.

[JHB]

2. First, explain to us what you consider "LW" and what you don't

These discussions are much more efficient when they don't waste time trying to pin jello to the wall.

[JHB]

21. See?

:popcorn:

[Justitia]

3. You don't consider LBJ a "true liberal"? Besides FDR, what other Dem prez

could even approach the concrete and effective liberal legislation that LBJ did?

You need to reconsider your definition of a "true liberal", IMO.

[Perky]

15. What Liberal would lead us into an escalation of Vietnam?

I am not saying he was not a liberal but he was also a pragmatist and a bully in the south. To get Deomcratic governors to think ab out an invevitable bi-racial future in which their core would be enfranchised blacke instead of an icreasing suburban conservative.

He was a smart cookie to be sure but more realist then liberal.

[Justitia]

26. You are mixing his misjudgment on the escalation w/his domestic

policies - these are two totally different subsets of his presidency.

You're talking to a true blue Texas Democrat who happens to know quite a bit about LBJ, Sam Rayburn, et al, and you are seriously discounting the accomplishments and motivations of these men.

I suggest you do more research on the only real Texan president and learn why many consider him the most liberal president ever.

The escalation of Vietnam is an albatross hung around his neck, for sure.

But to discount the very real progress made by LBJ (reduced poverty by 50%, Civil Rights Act, Medicare, etc.) is to ignore how much better he made the lives of everyday Americans - and continues to do so today.

If you think he was able to accomplish all those things without any real conviction for them, your cynicism is insurmountable.

[NoPasaran]

37. JFK, for one

Yeah, I know some people claim that he planned to withdraw from Vietnam, but I've never really bought that story. At best, he may have believed that the overthrow of Diem (which also happened in November 1963) might have led to a South Vietnamese government with greater popular support which would have allowed the US to withdraw. But in the actual event the result was a series of weak, unstable corrupt military regimes which would have succumbed to the NLF by the mid-60s had the US not escalated its commitment to the war. I have never been able to believe that JFK would have accepted defeat in Vietnam any more than he would have accepted Soviet missiles in Cuba.

[BuhByeChimp]

4. Hmmm...

I'm a Pro-Life moderate democrat and I get told I'm not a Democrat all the the time.

Honestly, I really don't care, but I will agree the absolutist seem to think they own the party.

[MadHound]

5. Make a rational case for the moderative or conservative

Sides of the party owning it? Really now, the Democratic party has always had to walk a fine line with its members, juggling beween lefts, cenrterists and conservatives. Sad thing is however, the left wing, which has generally been the largest in number and the most active in campaigns, has been cut out of the equation for years now.

Instead, the party has tilted increasingly towards center and right, corporate controlled Dems, ala Lieberman and both the Clintons. Meanwhile, despite loud and long calls, none of the left's agenda is ever brought up. Still and yet, we on the left are supposed to fall into line every couple of years in order to put the Dems into office, even though it won't bring us any benefit.

We on the left aren't arguing about who should own the party friend, all we're wanting to do is get our voice back, get a few rewards for being loyal to the party, and to stop being demonized by those within and without the party.

[wyldwolf]

11. I like your approach.... however...

I believe "rewards" are earned. In politics, that equals electoral victories. With moderate/centrists, a win is what makes them sit up and pay attention.

But like your approach for the most part. It isn't arrogant like the MoveOns of the party who make bold claims like "We're taking the party BACK" when they never had it to begin with.

[ulysses]

14. but if the left never had the party to begin with

doesn't that kind of blow out of the water the idea that the party lost through the 80s because it was too liberal?

Cake and eat it too, I know...

[wyldwolf]

18. not at all

The leftwing certainly had more of a voice throughout the 70s and 80s. The reform commission McGovern chaired saw to that.

But what makes the rift in the party today pale in comparison was the very real and chilly relationship Jimmy Carter had with Democrats in congress, who were considerably more liberal than him on average.

But I think I'll sit this thread out. Don't have the time to devote to it. Already a bit of historical revisionism is popping up.

[ulysses]

19. and imagine that.

The leftwing certainly had more of a voice throughout the 70s and 80s.

Sounds like a pretty good idea to go back to, to me. IIRC, Congress was pretty reliably Dem in those days.

[wyldwolf]

23. until they lost it in '94

Three things were at play in 1994 that caused the losses:

1. The Democratic party of the 70s and 80s and grown corrupt.
2. Americans were increasingly distrustful of the Government in general, and, most importantly,
3. The Democratic party had moved left out of the mainstream and became the party of special interests.

The House Banking Scandal is a prime example of the corruption that was running rampant in Washington in the 70s and 80s, culminating with the Democrat’s losses in 1994.

An article in the Boston Globe took up the issue of Democratic losses a week before the last presidential election. When a party holds power for too long, Adrian Wooldridge, reporter for The Economist, said in the article, “it grows fat and happy, it also grows corrupt.” The classic example, he pointed out, is the Democratic Party of the 1970s and `80s, which, spoiled by generations of congressional power, “became a party of insiders and deal makers without any sense of the principles they stood for and eventually collapsed” when they were turned out in 1994.

Philip A. Klinkner, author of “Court and Country in American Politics: The Democratic Party and the 1994 Election,” presents a very interesting and expansive theory concerning the major Democratic losses in 1994 that Wooldridge touched on. Klinkner explains the circumstances surrounding the 1992 election provided ample evidence of a radically changed political environment. Several observers have commented on the growing volatility of the electorate since the late 1980s (Greider 1992; Phillips 1990, 1993, and 1994; Germond and Witcover 1993; Greenberg 1995). By most accounts, this phenomenon reached a new high in 1992, as voters expressed growing disgust with the federal government, elected officials, special interests, and politics in general, and a greater willingness to support outsider candidacies, even such diverse figures as Jerry Brown, Pat Buchanan, and Ross Perot.

By the early 1990s, distrust of the government, especially the entrenched power (that would be the Democrats) was evident among much of the public. In 1964, over 70 percent of the public said that they could trust Washington to do what was right most or all of the time; by early 1994, only 19 percent expressed similar confidence (Phillips 1994: 7). In 1964, when asked, “Would you say the government is run by a few big interests looking out for themselves or that it is run for the benefit of all people,” nearly 40 percent more people agreed with the latter than with the former. In 1992 that sentiment had reversed itself, with 60 percent more people believing that the government was run for the benefit of special interests than those who believed it was run for the benefit of all. (Stanley and Niemi: 169).

As the party of governmental activism, the Democrats were bound to suffer from the rise of popular cynicism toward government. At the same time that Bill Clinton was winning the White House, voters preferred having “government cost less in taxes but provide fewer services” to having “government provide more services but cost more in taxes” by 54 to 38 percent (Milkis and Nelson 1994: 395).

The more common explanation for the 1994 Republican Revolution, though, is that liberal Democratic ideals — or at least the way they were presented — no longer resonated with the majority of Americans. According to Ruy Teixeira, a fellow at the Center for American Progress and at the Century Foundation, the danger for the dominant party isn’t ideological bankruptcy but ideological drift. “Certainly you can make the argument that, if a party’s far enough away from the mainstream, if they don’t lose they don’t get enough impetus to correct their behavior.”

This was no better exemplified than by Bill Clinton’s healthcare plan, which support for collapsed, which set back his presidency and figured in the Democrats’ loss of control of the House of Representatives in 1994. They’ve never recovered from the loss.

Soon after Clinton took office in 1993, he promised health insurance for millions of Americans who had no coverage. But before long, the plan was a shambles, derailed by concerns that it would cost too much and create a huge new bureaucracy. “People have not gotten over 1994 yet,” Karen Pollitz, the project director for the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute, said of the Clinton plan. “President Clinton tried to fix everything at once. It was not well received. And not only that — the Democrats got turned out at the next election.”

Another example was the assault weapons ban - a piece of legislation passed by the Democrats against the advice of many. Some in Washington even warned that it could cost the Democrats the House in 1994.

Now, just for the record, I’m a supporter of both universal healthcare of some type and keeping assault weapons off the streets. But just as a matter of fact, those are two issues thought by the public to be left/liberal issues

[ulysses]

36. the party moved left out of the mainstream

under Clinton?

[benEzra]

42. I think a lot of the Democratic leadership (esp. the DLC) had no idea

Another example was the assault weapons ban - a piece of legislation passed by the Democrats against the advice of many. Some in Washington even warned that it could cost the Democrats the House in 1994.

Now, just for the record, I’m a supporter of both universal healthcare of some type and keeping assault weapons off the streets. But just as a matter of fact, those are two issues thought by the public to be left/liberal issues

I think a lot of the Democratic leadership (esp. the DLC) had no idea what the "assault weapon" bait-and-switch actually covered, or just how offensive the Feinstein ban would be to gun owners. A lot of people were under the impression that the subject was/is military automatic weapons like military AK-47's and actual Uzi's, which are actually tightly controlled by current Federal law (the Title 2/Class III provisions of the National Firearms Act of 1934) and had nothing to do with the AWB.

An "assault weapon" is actually a non-automatic civilian (NFA Title 1) rifle or shotgun with a handgrip that sticks out, a civilian firearm that holds more than 6 or 10 rounds (depending on the definition du jour), or any other civilian firearm the gun-ban lobby doesn't like.


Ruger mini-14 Ranch Rifle, banned by name by S.1431/H.R.2038 (2004 session) as an "assault weapon"

I also think the DLC fell for the line that most gun owners are hunters--whereas 80% of gun owners are nonhunters--and forgot that fully half of gun owners are NOT repubs.

Dems and the Gun Issue - Now What?

[derby378]

44. What's an assault weapon?

The way I see it, the term "assault weapon" is nothing more than a phrase cooked up by Josh Sugarmann of VPC to denote any semi-automatic rifle or pistol that had cosmetic or safety features he didn't think law-abiding civilians could be trusted to own.

Me, I believe it neither breaks your back nor picks your pocket if I own an AK-47. And yes, I am a progressive Democrat.

[Perky]

24. but now wait a minute

THE DLC was a reaction to the humiliating losses by liberal presidetial candidates in 1984 and 1988. It was moderates in the party wanting a voice to. Certainly they would have that right wouldn't they. Are you suggesting that DLCers run the party or that simce the Eighties liberals have lost their voice? Who's fault is that? The DLC's?

[Xipe Totec]

6. It takes two wings to fly,

and they must stand in opposition.

What we have today is one right wing and a dorsal fin drooping to the right.

Is it any wonder the country is going around in circles?

The left wing owns the party?

If only that were true...

[Bluebear]

7. It offers the best hope of stopping religionists from ruling over us. nt

[ThomCat]

8. I think you have that backwards.

The right wing of the democratic party has been in charge for quite a long time, and constantly tells the left wing to sit down and shut up. The left wing has been fighting tooth and nail to be heard at all.

The left wing is the bunch of us that are continually taken for granted and ignored every time the party tries to compromise with the republicans and find some mythical center. If we manage to be heard occassionally, deal with it. Attempting to shut us up and shut us out again is not going to help the Democratic party.

[Perky]

28. An interesting position

But I would politely suggest that liberalism lost it way in the 80's by nominating candidates for president who the populaton generally felt were out of touch (Mondale and Dukakis) and again politely...if the party had continued to nominate true liberals it never would have gotten the White House back.

It was liberals who by their genuflection towards Old North Church and Height-Ashbury that made the South think about Rebpublicans.

[ThomCat]

30. It was racism that made the South think about republicans.

The republicans used race as a wedge issue to get people to vote their hatred and fear rather than their best interest. It had nothing to do with being out of touch. The Democrats were seen as too in-touch, too involved, too concerned, the mommy party.

The Republicans painted themselves as the party of the tough people who didn't need to be so overly involved in everything. The party that would leave people alone.

The only sense in which the Democratic party was out of touch, was that they didn't recognize the power of propaganda, fear, prejudice and divisiveness. They stuck to issues while the Republicans shouted about emotional issues.

[trotsky]

39. The Democrats could have nominated Jesus Christ himself in '84

and probably still would have lost to the Reagan feel-good juggernaut. Mondale further handicapped himself by admitting he'd raise taxes. (Imagine that, he told the truth! And that's not liberal or conservative.) Dukakis, you might remember, actually led in the polls well through the campaign season. The tank photo op and Willie Horton (a blunder and a Lee Atwater dirty trick) did him in far more than his liberalism.

I have to wonder, Perky, what kind of world you think you live in sometimes.

[Perky]

29. An interesting position

But I would politely suggest that liberalism lost it way in the 80's by nominating candidates for president who the populaton generally felt were out of touch (Mondale and Dukakis) and again politely...if the party had continued to nominate true liberals it never would have gotten the White House back.

It was liberals who by their genuflection towards Old North Church and Haight-Ashbury that made the South think about Rebpublicans.

[Dhalgren]

9. Just relax. I think that by 2008 most true leftists will have left the

Democratic Party. Droves of leftists have already left and are leaving. So just be patient, they'll all be gone before you know and then won't the Party be happy...

[557188]

10. Uhh

First off you're way to liberal with the word liberal.

I have no idea what you're trying to accomplish with this trash. Are you suggesting that the moderate position, that has lost the Democratic party every single branch of the Government, is the best because it's the most traditional? Thats the type of attitude that created the Green Party!

[maxsolomon]

12. the 'Left' does not exist.

especially in the Democratic party. who are these Socialists you think 'control' the party? there hasn't been a openly socialist politician in Murka since Eugene Debs was imprisoned for opposing WW1.

if you mean the "center left", people SLIGHTLY to the left of John Kerry, but by no means wild-eyed Chomskyites, perhaps the time has come to finally give that part of the democratic party a turn at the wheel. because this party has been listlessly listing starboard during it's losing streak.

[wyldwolf]

13. Bernie Sanders?

[maxsolomon]

20. but the SSR of Vermont isn't part of Murka!

;)

when Bernie Sanders joins the Democratic Party then the poster MIGHT have a point.

[Karmadillo]

16. That's crazy. If the left took over, we'd lose the White House,

the Congress, and the Supreme Court. Why throw away the stunning success of the right drifting, Bush supporting lickspittles?

[LostinVA]

43. giggle

[smoogatz]

17. "when has the left ever truly run the party?"

Uh, from 1933 to 1992. And they did pretty well. Maybe it's time to give them another chance.

"SO tell me since the landslide of 1964 what liberal legacy has the left built to give them the right to say who should be in the party and who should not?"

Who on the left is saying that, exactly? Is this some kind of coded reference to the Lieberman/Lamont race? Nobody's saying Joe shouldn't be in the party. He just shouldn't be a Democratic Senator anymore if he's going to spend half his time with his tongue up Bush's ass.

[jody]

22. First tell us what parts of the Dem Party Platform do you oppose? See

http://www.democrats.org/pdfs/2004platform.pdf

[Exultant Democracy]

25. It isn't just about elections it is about right and wrong.

If you go through the entire history of the U.S. the left has always been on the correct side of every issue. As for the rest of your question it didn't even really make sense to me.

[Avalux]

27. Oh good heavens. Why the devisive post?

We are all Democrats and should all learn to work together whether we lean more centrist or more leftist. It's those Democrats whose loyalties lie with the corporations instead of the people that are a problem. A post such as this, obviously from the perspective of a centrist, only serves to hurt the party.

[mmonk]

31. Because the right has lost its mind?

[Rex]

32. If you're looking for the Ownership Society, you need to go look at FR.

That is your mistake/confusion. No one 'owns' the Democratic Party and never should. Just look what it has done to the Republican Party (now split into 3 major groups). If the Leftwing controlled the party, it would be a first. Is that bad? Moderates have controlled it forever so...

[Don Claybrook]

33. weren't you telling everyone to shut up and sit down earlier?

Greens get out, sit down shut up, traitors to the cause, ad infinitum?

Yes, I do believe that was you and I believe you have nothing of worth to say. Goodbye.

[Perky]

35. Read the posts

I said I had a specific problem with a Green taking money from the GOP to finance his petition drive in a highly competive race.

He is scum and a whore and the Greens ought to be outraged as well were they not so disorganized

[alfredo]

38. There are no Liberals in power in Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia.

The conservative wing has killed, imprisoned, or drove them into exile.

[LWolf]

40. Personally, I don't think most of you give the LW

enough credit, lol. Oh. You mean Left Wing. Oops.

I don't think the left wing "owns" the party. I get to read pontificating by right-wing democrats all the time here on DU, and, frankly, I've never read a post telling them to sit down or shut up. I've read plenty of posts that immediately assume that someone is a "Freeper" if they don't subscribe to the current groupthink going on, or offer a different point of view, but that seems to come from all sides of the party. Of course, I don't read DU all day everyday, so I'm sure you can provide links for what I've missed. I think your thread topic is a little Orwellian, to tell you the truth. I see a lot more effort to purge the left wing from the party than I do any left wingers trying to "own" anything but a voice and a place at the table that is not marginalized or disenfranchised.

Then again, I don't know that it's a large group of attack dogs going after the progressive members of the party. It's just a really loud, obnoxious group that seems to thrive on negative attacks.

[LWolf]

41. I guess it depends on how you define "left."

These days, Richard Nixon is defined as "liberal" by some Democrats calling themselves "centrists."

If we leave the "left wing" and "right wing" labels behind, what we really might find is that labor democrats think they have earned the default place at the table in opposition to the corporate democrats, based on the support the party traditionally has gotten from labor. The party has been shifting, and transitioning from one "base" and set of principles doesn't happen without some tension. I see that the stage has been set. I believe that the Democratic Party will either continue the rightward/corporate swing and lose the dependability of the labor vote, or will decide that becoming the opposition is not legitimately "winning" anything and swing back.

Which ever way the party swings, I'd like it to be done upfront, honestly and with integrity.