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Many of us on the left see much of the Dem program as fascism light - endless restriction and conformity with "nice" corporations pulling the strings, and lots of laws for our own good, and don't see the party supporting the individualist, the traditionalist, the workers, the free thinkers. Many on the right see the same problem with the Republican party. Both parties have betrayed the poor and the minorities. Both parties have sold out the small independent business person.
So that leaves us with both parties seriously fractured, and that is being disguised by this bitter partisan contest.
We can't hope to make everyone in the same mold - college degrees, corporate job, suburban house, consumer-oriented and security minded.
Republicans embrace all sorts of "losers" - witness the President! - and while the liberals mock and ridicule that, there is an appeal there that has stripped away almost all of the working class support for the Democratic party. The dumber Bush looks, the more people relate to him and love him. The more that liberals ridicule Bush, the more the people hate liberals.
This isn't because the people are stupid, it is because liberals are so out of touch with reality, and because liberals come across as such insufferably arrogant know it alls. I am not saying that we are that way, rather that we come across that way. The Republicans have been very effective at exploiting that for their own benefit, not because they have a different "philosophy" than we do, but because it is the path to power.
We have built up an enormous edifice of verbiage that is taken the place of true liberalism. It is carefully worked out in elaborate detail and is correct on all points. The problem is that, as many have described, none of it means squat to the average person.
There is something about liberalism today that just is not straight-shooting down to earth plain talking common sense, and the right wingers are destroying us on this. They have co-opted all of the populist sentiment in the country. I think that is what attracted all of us to Dean, Kucinich and Clark - each of them was able to open their mouths and speak plain honest truth as they saw it without handlers or a script. We can argue over which of them had the better truth, or was the better candidate but that doesn't go anywhere and it just causes more divide and conquer to happen. There is something they have in common - they aren't all boxed in by "on the other hands" and all of the rest of the mealy-mouth double talking liberal idiocy. They were able to connect with the populist strain in the American public.
I see a lot of the current rural and blue collar support the Republicans now get, as well as the progressives, banding together in the near future in a populist movement. I see most of the suburban Dems, and many of the professional moderate Republicans banding together into a moderate Republican party. That would better reflect the divisions in the country right now.
Professional people in the suburbs - Dems and Republicans - have no idea as to how the sytem oppresses people outside of their world, because it so much supports their world. This has led to a remarkable callousness on the part of suburban liberals to the victims of this new consumer society. Workers at Wal Mart? They damned well better be polite to me when I stop in to shop, and if they weren't lazy or stupid they could go to school and be just like me so they have nothing to complain about.
Do you know what suburban liberals say to me if I try to criticize, say, AOL? "They must be doing something right, look how successful they are." That is not liberalism anymore. It is stock-holding, corporate job holding, real-estate investing, aristocratic moderate Republicanism. Nothing wrong with that! They want to protect what they have, and psychologically they want to feel that they "earned" everything they have, despite the evidence that 99% of the people in the world - more and more of whom are slaving away to support the suburban life style - will never have any opportunity to attain what the suburbanites have.
The problem comes when suburban liberals claim to represent the working class - they cannot, because their needs and goals are in opposition to the working class. Suburban liberals claim to represent environmentalism - they cannot, because their lifestyle is the most wasteful on the planet. They claim to represent diversity and tolerance - they cannot, because their wealth is predicated on real estate which is predicated on racism and white flight. They claim to represent civil liberties - they cannot, because the protection of suburban property is the number one driver for increased police state regulations. Likewise, one cannot really be against the oil wars and live in the suburbs. Likewise, suburban culture is consumer culture, and creators and builders and artists and entrepreneuers will never fit in or be fairly treated. Suburbs require conformity, security and intense organization. All of these work against creativity, small business and risk taking.
Inevitably, so long as the Democratic party is dominated by suburban liberals, it will be in opposition to the needs of the rest of the population. This is where all of the blue collar strength in the Republican party comes from - resentful victims of suburbanization. What is good for the suburbs will always be bad for the cities, the small towns and the third world. It will always be bad for the environment. It will always be bad for agriculture and the arts, the inventor and the entrepreneur. It will always be bad for public transportation, and it will always be bad for minorities.
Liberalism has not failed, it has been hijacked. White suburban liberalism has failed. Replace "white suburban" with "populist" and we get 70% support from the population for liberal and progressive politics. Continue to support the interests and cater to the prejudices of white, educated, suburban liberals and we continue to lose support from the people.
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