{"id":783,"date":"2005-05-05T05:41:10","date_gmt":"2005-05-05T05:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2006-09-28T12:09:08","modified_gmt":"2006-09-28T12:09:08","slug":"the_void","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=783","title":{"rendered":"The Void"},"content":{"rendered":"

MyDD<\/a> is one of the smartest Democratic political blogs around; I often disagree with specific points he makes, but if you want to understand what the folks near the seat of power at 430 South Capitol Street Southeast are thinking, you should read his blog.<\/p>\n

Chris Bowers has a post up<\/a> that I read while bleeding the brakes on TG’s motorcycle, and I was so immediately depressed that I had to put down my tools, leave the garage, and go back into the house. He criticizes Ruy Texiera’s latest<\/a> on what the Democrats need to do. After taking apart framing, inoculation, unity, and mobilization as answers to what ails Democrats, Ruy says:<\/p>\n

Sorry, Democrats, there’s just no substitute for good ideas and fresh approaches. It’s time to jettison these myths and buckle down to the real work of change–serious change–in what Democrats say to voters.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Right f**king on. I’ve bashed<\/a> Ruy’s (to me, naive) belief that demographics will somehow rescue the Democratic Party in the past; but here he is speaking for me.<\/p>\n

Sadly, Chris is speaking for the Democratic apparatchniks.<\/p>\n

He starts with this:<\/p>\n

Overall, however, I actually do not believe that Ruy’s solution, changing what we tell voters, is enough. I believe that our problems are even more fundamental than our message, and in a post-national consensus era are directly tied to the ideological gap between conservatism and liberalism. We can talk about message and framing and mobilization and unity and reform and elect ability until the cows come home, but quite frankly I believe that Democrats are losing elections before they begin because of the general ideological composition of the electorate and of the nation.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, we’re losing because most of the country doesn’t agree with us. His plan?<\/p>\n

As far as I can tell, the main problem facing Democrats is that conservatives, when compared to liberals, have superior organizational control and power over what Louis Althusser famously called Ideological State Apparatuses and what on this blog I have taken to calling ideological conversion machines. To put this another way, I believe that conservatives are largely in control of those mechanisms that determine an individual’s ideological outlook, which these days is largely determinative of how an individual ends up voting. I believe that our problems are growing particularly severe when it comes to four specific ideological machines:<\/p>\n

\nEducation…<\/p>\n

\nLabor…<\/p>\n

\nMedia…<\/p>\n

\nReligion…<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, basically, if we can gain control of these four tactical objectives, we can change the imprinting that individuals get and thus how they vote.<\/p>\n

What deterministic horseshit.<\/p>\n

If you want to know why David Gelernter’s “We’re Smart, You’re Dumb<\/a>” article in the LA Times was so dead-on, read this. Chris and his ilk know better then voters do what they should believe, and plan to change the social frameworks that determine their beliefs so that voters will then believe as they should.<\/p>\n

It’s not enough to make me a conservative, but it’s sure close.<\/p>\n

Let’s go back to school, and John Schaar, and “The Case for Patriotism”:<\/p>\n

“Finally, if political education is to effective it must grow from a spirit of humility on the part of the teachers, and they must overcome the tendencies toward self-righteousness and self-pity which set the tone of youth and student politics in the 1960’s. The teachers must acknowledge common origins and common burdens with the taught, stressing connection and membership, rather than distance and superiority. Only from these roots can trust and hopeful common action grow.”<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Chris, go read that and come back to us, will you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MyDD is one of the smartest Democratic political blogs around; I often disagree with specific points he makes, but if you want to understand what the folks near the seat of power at 430 South Capitol Street Southeast are thinking, you should read his blog. Chris Bowers has a post up that I read while […]<\/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":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}