Second Kick from an Old Donkey
Jonathan Bayliss
2005
A majority of Americans are beginning to see through Bush and the narrow-minded arrogance of his headstrong administration. There is a good chance that their dishonesty will at last be recognized by a majority. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ll vote for us in 2006 and 2008.
Howard Dean, the only one chosen to represent us all until we elect a president, is very actively extending and assisting a truly national Democratic organization. He emphasizes community. But he is not in a position to speak for our Senators, Representatives, or future candidates for office, though he and they substantially agree on issues, on objections to Republican folly, and on civic values.
But so far most of their lists of Party goals, in the form of “agendas” – intended for the common good – have been more appropriate for legislative debates than for a political philosophy that explains everything we stand for or oppose. Without such an explanation our ultimate motives won’t be understood by people who vote against us because of a single issue. We lose elections when voters have no idea about what essentially distinguishes us from Republicans.
We must take the offensive by criticizing what we can see that Republicans actually stand for, not in rhetoric, but in what they do and hope to do. That will help us approach the task of articulating, in contrast, an open and honest political philosophy of our own. We must publicly question Republican motives and relentlessly criticize their propaganda.
The danger of “centrism” is that almost every step in that direction makes it harder for us to deny the moral legitimacy of Republican individualism especially when it speaks in the name of religions that urge quite the opposite of self-aggrandizement.
Maggie Thatcher (Reagan’s soul-mate) said “There’s no such thing as society, only the individual and the family.” “God wants us to be rich” said a chaplain at a Republican Convention. Republicans even want privatized Social Security to accumulate heritable wealth for investors (instead of simply insuring retirement). What they mean is “We’re all in this alone!” For them selfishness is a virtue, ownership more important than any other private right.
We must urge our leaders and think tanks to criticize Republican conservatives in terms of social morality. We Democrats reflect the best combination of personal freedom and social justice. We should study the complex history of philosophical and religious ideas that have influenced present political doctrines. Otherwise we will continue losing ground in the struggle to frame a general concept of what we stand for as the truly public spirited party.
