The Democratic Party has a long and storied history. At its greatest it was the party of liberty, the party of reformation of American government, the party that laid the foundations for rescuing America from Depression and overcoming totalitarianism. At its low ebbs, it was a party that supported slavery and was the party of those who did not accept that the civil war had ended.
But the inevitable historical logic of the Democratic Party is to represent the people against the power of privileged interests, and, as one political sage reminds us, no institution long endures without returning to the spring of its creation.
That time has come again.
What then do we need? A new politics - which can overcome the corruption of insiders. The danger that afflicts, not merely America, but the entire core industrialized world, is that there are insiders and outsiders. And to be an insider is so much more profitable than being an outsider.
This must change, because more and more of the effort of our society is locked up in fighting over who is the insider.
The name for how decisions are come to, and how discussion is converted into consensus, and consensus in to action - is politics. There is a New Politics - one which is based on activity of participants - as Josh Koenig of music for america points out - and all kossacks should know. The old system was about the passivity of consumers, picking from available options that "they" supplied. We didn't like the choices much in 2000, and we liked the repetition of the choice that others made for us in the person of the current executive even less.
Thus we need a new politics, and 2003 has seen the birth of it.
But to use this new politics, we must have a new party. It has been the Democratic Party which, in the last century, has seen new waves of idea, and turned those ideas into political will, effective policy and lasting institution. The time is right, now, finally, for the Democratic Party to be remade in the image of the new politics.
What is this image? It is of a nation that is professional in the way it looks at problems. If there is any single cardinal word for the Republican Party - it is partisan. The partisanization of every topic, of government, of statistics, of universities. Everything is about who pays for it.
The Democratic Party is then the party of professionalism against partisanism. This does not mean to be weak, or to fail to aggressively deal with attacks - it means to maintain professionalism as a virtue, even if attacked by the most vicious of partisan means.
But, to make this ideology permanent, we must have a new President - one capable of delivering a new model of government which assumes that Americans are professional, creative and thorough - which goes to them, not for mere comment, but as an integral part of the process of government. The new technology and new knowledge workforce make this possible, and the new politics make it necessary.
That is what we want, what we demand - a new politics, a new party, a new president.
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