12.16
Most people don’t seem to understand that the Democratic party is a coalition party, not a progressive party. For each progressive student ranting about gay marriage there’s an urban black man who’s a hardcore Christian and against homosexuality. For every green advocate pushing for carbon emission reduction there’s a steel worker union member who’s worried about his job.
Progressives seem to have developed the idea that they are the Democratic party’s base, but they’re not. To understand that all you need to do is look at Obama’s policies, he’s for civil unions but against gay marriage, he’s for hard-line diplomatic stances (eg Iran can’t have a nuke, escalation in Afghanistan), he’s not actually doing anything about carbon emissions, etc. Quite simply the Democratic party is not the Progressive party, it’s the party of many conflicting and competing points of views. As a result it will continue to be the party that says a lot of good-sounding things during election, but won’t actually take action incase it pisses off one of their core constituencies. Gay marriage cannot happen due to the urban poor and latino vote which is every bit as religious as the Religious Right.
Green reforms cannot happen due to the union vote which is every bit as pro-business as big corporations. Anti-war policies cannot happen due to the working class blue collar vote which is every bit as pro-gun and pro-war as the Southern Republican vote. Once people start to understand things thing maybe they’ll stop acting surprised when Democrats accomplish nothing on the federal level. These Democrats aren’t “limp dick” democrats, they’re simply intelligent enough to understand their constituency, their entire constituency, not just the progressives.
If most democrats want something as well as a few republicans, shouldn’t that be enough to get legislation passed?
But the thing is republican politicians are a lot more consistent in sticking with party lines. Is this due to a greater alignment on issues? Perhaps to an extent, but I would guess a lot of it is due to the “Us vs Them” mentality. As annoying and insane as it can be, their dramatic posturing and fearmongering can have some political value. The democrats are evil, healthcare legislation is socialism, and anyone who strays from the party line is a traitor/communist/heathen.
This sort of thing doesn’t seem quite as pervasive on the democratic line, so it’s definitely a part of their problem. But sitting there, taking vague lines that they don’t stick to, backing down to opposition and giving into “compromise” to people who are unwilling to compromise isn’t going to help them. I think the democratic party needs some of the force and consistency in their posturing that, admittedly, conservatives have been very successful with. Long story short, they need a clear and forceful plan to stick with – which will be far harder to accomplish now than it would have been before.