Ask Auntie Pinko
July 31, 2003

Dear Auntie Pinko,

I am a 16 year old student at University School, in Nashville TN. I am also a supporter of the American Green Party. I ask the age-old question; what happened to the Democrats? What happened to the party that represents the interests of the middle-class, the poor, the minorities? When did the Dems become pro-death penalty and pro-corporate agriculture? Any insight would be appreciated.

Isaac

 
Dear Isaac,

To which Democrats do your questions refer? Beware of generalities! They leave you vulnerable to false assumptions. Auntie Pinko knows many Democrats (including myself) who oppose the death penalty, and many who want government policies to support small, family owner-operated farming rather than corporate tenant farming.

Of course, not all of the Democrats I know who are passionately concerned about saving family owner-operated farms oppose the death penalty. And not all the Democrats I know who oppose the death penalty approve of making the support of small owner-operated farms a major government priority. Some of the Democrats I know don't feel very strongly about either of those particular issues, but they are people who work hard in their own way to increase the well-being of their neighbors and communities through political self-determination.

Auntie is not deliberately misunderstanding you, Isaac. In fact, I share your concern that the national Party agenda is being manipulated by special interests hostile to our traditional constituencies. But before we make assumptions about how that reflects on all Democrats, it would be smart to apply a broader lens to the survey. We can only find effective solutions when we have a more comprehensive understanding of the problem.

As I see it, Isaac, one factor that we often fail to consider in the Party's current dilemma is the nature of our traditional constituencies, and how they have changed over the past thirty years. In some respects, we are victims of our own successes.

When Auntie Pinko was young, the key constituency for our Party was working people. And back then, working people generally meant those who were already part of an organized labor group (union,) or who shared the goals of organized labor. Those goals included better working conditions overall, balancing the power of labor against the power of capital to achieve workers' participation in the conditions of their employment, etc. While there were plenty of working people even then who differed with some of the goals, there was a pretty broad and strong support for the whole—enough support to make the Party's agenda clear and powerful.

Another key constituency that emerged were disenfranchised African-Americans, who had suffered under an institutionalized system of exclusion from political and economic participation since the end of Reconstruction. Again, the goals were clearly focused and the agenda broadly supported.

When there is enough focus on a single problem or problem set, and a sufficiently broad consensus on how to address the problem, it is easy for a political Party to build strength around that agenda. When the Democratic Party took on the concerns of the working people in the 1930s and 40s, and communities disenfranchised by institutional means in the 1950s and 60s, we benefited from a broad focus on the problem and a general consensus on how to solve it.

And we succeeded. We succeeded so well, Isaac, that the level of unity and consensus around what would benefit working people most, and disenfranchised minority populations most, is gone. Some working people feel that unions are still greatly to their benefit. But many working people now feel that unions have created as many problems as they solve, or that unions cannot address the particular problems of a modern post-industrial workforce. Some members of minority communities feel that there is a legislative or regulatory agenda to be pursued to address continuing inequities and injustices in our political and social system. But they don't always agree on what that agenda consists of—and many feel that legislative or regulatory remedies would make things worse, not better.

Without the kind of focus that energized the great political and social victories of the Democratic Party in the past, it's easy for ordinary people to lose interest in active participation in the Party. This is very dangerous for our Party, because our power has always been in numbers, not in dollars. When we lose numbers, dollars take over. Our leadership is faced with a complex set of problems, and an electorate that lacks focus on the kind of driving issue that gives the Party leverage. They must fight a defensive action, focused on trying to keep the Republicans from rolling back past victories for working Americans, the poor, and the disenfranchised.

In these conditions, the Democratic Party leadership has not always made the best choices about our policies and agendas. And Auntie Pinko would relish a private chat with a few of them on some pet subjects, myself. But I also know that the best way to bring my concerns to the Party is by participating actively within the Party, and by getting everyone who shares my concerns to participate, too.

And I'm keeping my eye on the demographic trends. America is becoming ever more diverse, even as a large part of our population ages. I think we are once again reaching a point where a clear-cut problem will unify large enough numbers to give the Democratic Party real leverage for real change. Will we be ready to grab that leverage and make that change?

Only if you and millions of committed young people like you are already part of the Party, already participating, and know how to seize the day, Isaac. Thanks for asking Auntie Pinko!

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