Paul Starr, co-founder of the leading liberal/progressive magazine,
The American Prospect, has a very interesting, thought-provoking op-ed published in
today's New York Times. The piece, called "Winning Cases, Losing Voters," makes the argument that Democrats have NOT been losing just because they have had bad candidates, or that they haven't "framed" the message well, or that they have been poor strategists. Instead, Starr argues that it's much more fundamental than that, and far more disturbing -- to my mind at least.
Acording to Starr, whose bio on The American Prospect website describes him as being known for his "blend of idealism and pragmatism," the Democrats have been losing voters by doing the morally right thing on the issues. Just as LBJ predicted back in 1964, after he signed the Civil Right Act into law, "We just lost the South for a generation." Well, LBJ was wrong -- it's now TWO generations and counting!
In other words, the argument presented by Starr is that Democrats for the past 40 years have been morally RIGHT but electorally WRONG:
Democrats have paid a historic price for their role in the great moral revolutions that during the past half-century have transformed relations between whites and blacks, men and women, gays and straights.
Well, I don't know about you, but to the extent that Starr is correct, I find this analysis extremely depressing. Not WRONG, mind you, just depressing. Because what it implies, among other things, is that the American people are simply not a very tolerant, progressive people overall; that "no good deed goes unpunished;" and that "the [electoral] road to hell is paved with good intentions."
Of course, the even more depressing "flip side" of Starr's argument is that, in America, you get rewarded -- as the ReThugs do -- for doing the WRONG thing morally; for pandering to peoples' WORST instincts; and for being the racists and reactionaries (or at least pandering to those people) -- not the tolerant and progressive folks.
OK, maybe I'm in a bad mood because we're just past the most depressing day of the year? Still, it's hard to deny the truth in what Starr argues, namely that:
To be sure, Democrats were right to challenge segregation and racism, support the revolution in women's roles in society, to protect rights to abortion and to back the civil rights of gays. But a party can make only so many enemies before it loses the ability to do anything for the people who depend on it.
And, unfortunately, the Democrats have made a whole lot of enemies the past few decades. You know, the people who used to be called "Reagan Democrats," but maybe should now simply be called "FORMER Democrats," because that's what they appear to be at this point.
Not to despair totally, though: according to Starr, there's still a bit of life left in the sick ol' Donkey. Unfortunately, Starr's liberal but pragmatic prescription for the Donkey's renewed health is probably not going to make a lot of DailyKos readers happy:
Rebuilding a national political majority will mean distinguishing between positions that contribute to a majority and those that detract from it. As last year's disastrous crusade for gay marriage illustrated, Democrats cannot allow their constituencies to draw them into political terrain that can't be defended at election time.
As I said, most DailyKos readers will not like what Starr is peddling here. Especially that last sentence. Because what Starr is arguing, correctly in my opinion, is that the Democrats have moved out of the American mainstream. And no, I'm not ENDORSING the American mainstreams' views at all. In fact, I think they're ignorant, misguided, selfish, even evil in some cases. Furthermore, I do not enjoy compromising on my core progressive beliefs, not in the least bit. But, guess what, I enjoy LOSING everything I care about even less! In other words, we're talking about the lesser of two evils here.
Seriously, which is more evil: to become an "ideologically pure [liberal] minority party," but lose again and again at the polls? Or, to be (in Starr's words) "an ideologically varied party that can win at the polls?" Well, I for one tend to favor the latter, if unenthusiastically, only because if we keep losing at the polls, eventually (soon?) we will lose the Supreme Court, and with that goes all the gains we have made over the past 40 years -- my whole lifetime. And that's simply not acceptable to this environmentalist, pro-gay-rights, pro-affirmative action, pro-labor progressive Democrat.
Finally, Starr argues that, for Democrats to be a winning party, they have to be the "great force for good in the world" that they used to be, "the liberalism this country once heard from Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy." According to Starr, this "is the only form of liberalism that will give the Democratic Party back its majority." In other words, a LIBERAL party of American greatness, something I know a lot of liberals are not comfortable with. But that doesn't mean it's not true.
Anyway...thoughts? comments? talk amongst yourselves?