Back in 1874, cartoonist Thomas Nast came up with the donkey as the symbol of the Democratic Party. And now that symbol is being torn apart slowly and agonizingly. Recently, I read an article in the Nation magazine about this very subject. The author, John Nichols, sees the progressives within the Democratic Party as the very soul of the party and that it is slowly losing its soul.
In recent days many media outlets have been saying that the deal and the fighting between Romney and McCain are tearing the Repub. Party apart. The Democrats should be so lucky. Within the Dem Party the progressives have been marginalized and eventually are eliminated. And it has left a soul-less shell of a party. The media with the help of the DLC have crushed the candidacy of Kucinich, who represented many progressives. Then with Dennis gone they looked to Edwards, who was to be short lived. The media seem to refuse to give Edwards the same amount of time that they gave, say Huckabee, another "minor" candidate. Without media exposure of the two desired candidates, the progressives fell by the way side, with no voice in the party they helped create.
If Clinton is the eventual nominee of the Democratic Party, then the party will be completely soul-less. The party will be dead. The soul will have been sucked completely out of the party. This slowly killing of the party started with the formation of the DLC and the presidency of Bill Clinton. And if Hillary Clinton becomes the nominee and finally the president then the inevitable death of the Democratic Party, a party of the people, will finally be complete. The DLC will have its way and the party will no longer be the party of progressive ideas. It will instead be just a semi-liberal imitation of the GOP.
Who would have imagined that the party that was the champion of civil rights and women’s rights would digress to the point that gender and race were the deciding factors in an election? And that this party would divide itself along those lines. That gender and race would trump the needs of the people.
I would prefer that the Democratic Party stay intact. But without true progressive ideas, I do not think it will survive as the party of the people. The question is: How can the progressives reassert themselves into the party and its political direction? With every election since 1992, the corporate interests have changed the feel of the Democratic Party. Just look at the New Democrat Coalition in the Congress. It has all the feel of a branch of the GOP. It may be too late for the redemption of the progressive soul of the party. If so, what road should the "true" progressive democrat travel? Is the importance of electing democrats more important than the progressive ideology? Just thinking out loud.