Reply #15: What is the Democratic party?

[m berst]

I can't figure out what the Democratic party is anymore. Is it all of the people who vote Democratic? If so, they would still exist without the party with the same ideas they have now. Is it the label and the memories that go with that label? Is it like always rooting for your favorite sports team no matter who plays for them or how well they do? Is it a collection of leaders? Do those leaders define the party for us no matter who they are or what they do? Is the label Democrat all they need to gain our loyalty and devotion?

Where is this Democratic party? How does one enter it or leave it? How does one know if one is in it?

If the Democratic party - the label and the party apparatus -disappeared tomorrow, would we be better or worse off? The liberals would still exist. The people who have voted Democratic would still exist. The ideals would still exist.

Why "stay in" the party? People say that if we don't, we weaken it and weakening it makes it more likely that horrible things will happen. I then have to ask what could happen that is more horrible than what has already happened? Not to say that it won't get worse, because the nightmare is just starting to play out now, but it is in motion and seems unstoppable.

Do people imagine that if the Democratic party disappeared tomorrow that there would then be no opposition to the Republicans? Would we all say, "oh well, no more Democratic party so I guess I will just go home and give up" and leave the field to the Republicans? Or would we be more likely to be energized and motivated to create something new to fill the vacuum?

How much of our time and energy is now spent wrestling with the cumbersome and moribund structure we call the Democratic party rather then spent in creative and positive new directions?

Is the Democratic party not merely a tool for achieving certain goals? It shouldn't be akin to a religion, should it, that requires our faith and devotion regardless of performance?

If this tool we call the Democratic party is not getting the job done - and 8 years of this corrupt and totalitarian regime is what I call not getting the job done if anything ever can be called not getting the job done - then why are we clinging to it? Because we don't have a choice? Of course we have a choice.

Why not loyalty to the people first and foremost? Why not devotion to the great liberal ideas for which the party once stood? The ideals that Democrats were able to articulate at one time and didn't have to apologize for or compromise on? If the people who currently "own" the label don't want to give it up, then the label goes the way of the Whigs. So what? Let them have the label.

Aren't we really the Democratic party? Didn't Dean show us that we can do it without the party apparatus? Go without corporate money? Create our own grass roots organization? Didn't Clark show us that we can present liberal ideals in a way that resonate with working class Republican voters? Was it not the party apparatus and elite rather than the Republicans that stymied and thwarted us?

If the choice were between continuing to wrestle with the existing party, or having a clear field to try the experiment of forming a new populist progressive party aligning the old Democratic working party and have-not constituency, which would be the more likely to beat the Republicans? What if we moved forward without all of the baggage, the corruption, the conflicts and the labels - how could we possibly do worse than we are doing now?



on edit - typo