{"id":645,"date":"2004-12-15T20:24:00","date_gmt":"2004-12-15T20:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2006-09-28T12:08:55","modified_gmt":"2006-09-28T12:08:55","slug":"democrats_and_g","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=645","title":{"rendered":"Democrats And Ghillie Suits"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s a good document on where the Democrats go from here<\/a> by Will Marshall (of the PPI).<\/p>\n

He suggests that the Democrats can once again become competitive in the ‘heartland’ by doing a few sensible things:<\/p>\n

Let’s face facts: America is at war, and the public isn’t yet convinced that Democrats have the stomach for the fight. Democrats themselves seem unsure of their true identity: Are they the anti-war party or the party of tough-minded liberals, the party of Gov. Howard Dean or the party of Sen. Joe Biden? Resolving this ambivalence is essential to making headway in the heartland states.<\/p>\n

Like the liberal hawks who fashioned America’s winning Cold War strategy, today’s Democrats must demonstrate that they are tough enough to wage an aggressive war on Muslim extremism, and smart enough to enlist influential allies and international institutions in that fight.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

and<\/p>\n

Instead, Democrats should do a better job of linking their economic interests and moral outlook. In his 1992 campaign, Clinton wove personal responsibility and middle-class opportunity into a single narrative that promised to reward families that “work hard and play by the rules” and to oppose policies that entrench unearned privilege. He spoke of honoring work and family by ending welfare as a way of life and supplementing the wages of low-income workers. He called for national service as a way to balance the rights and duties of citizenship, and to replace the politics of entitlement with a new ethic of reciprocal responsibility. Four years later, Clinton’s proposals for school uniforms and television V-chips struck a resonant chord with middle class families trying to shield their kids from pop culture.<\/p>\n

Since then, Democrats have had little success in challenging the GOP’s claim to be the party of “family values” and its hold on married families with children. A heartland strategy should include a new progressive family policy that addresses both the economic and cultural strains on American parents.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

and<\/p>\n

Just as religious advocates of the “Social Gospel” infused early 20th century progressivism with moral fervor, Democrats should couch their social initiatives in the language of faith and morality. The sad truth is that since Clinton’s departure, Democrats have had little to say about growing poverty and inequality in America. Surely, they are moral issues no less than abortion and gay marriage, and they give Democrats an opportunity to speak unambiguously of right and wrong.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Makes sense to me, on every front.<\/p>\n

Go read the whole thing.<\/p>\n

I have one quibble (of course).<\/p>\n

The article starts with an electoral calculation, and then makes the policy arguments that the author believes are needed to make that electoral math happen.<\/p>\n

When I read his conservative equivalents, the impression I get is that they start with a strong sense of belief, from which flows policy, which is then vetted and tailored to be electorally palatable.<\/p>\n

I think the Democratic Party does need to be a party of believers – they need to believe in some core values and the policies that flow naturally from them. It’s a very different animal than donning a ghillie suit<\/a> of beliefs to try and concoct a winning electoral strategy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s a good document on where the Democrats go from here by Will Marshall (of the PPI). Amed Liberal has one quibble.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}