The Day The Democratic Party Died

Hear that silence? That’s the sound of the last missed-opportunity the Democratic “moderates” are going to get to fix their rotten party. For years now, the leftists in the media have been obsessed with the Republican fringe. They do article after article about how the Republican party is dominated by its fringes and how that makes it unpalatable to the American public. Yet, they ignore the Democrats, the real party dominated by its fringes. The current health care debate is giving “moderate” Democrats one last chance to retake their party. Sadly, they aren’t up to the task.

You may recall my open letter to the Democrats from a week or so ago. In it, I pointed out that they had become a rotten party. They are a party of spite, of anger, of tribalism. They seek to destroy rather than help. They demonize and they hate. That is their activist base; that is their leadership.

But the moderates have always claimed that they are not the same as their leaders. They call themselves “moderates” or “blue dogs” and they make a lot of noise about being something other than what their party has become. But it’s all an illusion. . . or a delusion. No matter what they want to think of themselves, these same “moderates” support leaders who push a hate-filled, destructive agenda on an unwilling population, and they will vote for any hard-left proposal for which they are told to vote. They are at best “useful idiots” or “fellow travelers,” at worst co-conspirators.

So why talk about this now? Because the current environment gives these moderates possibly the last chance they will ever have to rescue their party and bring it back from the brink.

The American public is furious. They oppose every single thing the Democrats are trying to do in overwhelming numbers. In survey after survey, close to 60% of the population opposes (often strongly or angrily) what the Democrats are doing. The public is intent on throwing them out, possibly for a generation.

This is the exact environment these self-described moderates need to reshape the Democratic Party. They need to redefine their principles and then take a stand on those principles. They need to announce to the world, their intent to change their party and their determination to work with the Republicans to frustrate the fringe agenda being foisted upon us.

They need to say something like this:

“We can no longer support the direction the party is taking. It is time that we stop treating the public as an enemy and start listening to the American people. We must put behind us the era of identity politics and race baiting, the era of class warfare, the destructive politics of spite and envy. There can be no room in our party for such beliefs or for those who would be believe them. Liberalism is about helping those who need it, not hurting those we think have too much.”

“We will no longer support irresponsible uncontrolled spending, or spending on pet projects and special interests. We are here to represent the American people, not just some of them. We cannot support a health care bill that does nothing to cut costs or improve the quality of care, that is financed on the backs of retired people, or that relies on fraudulent accounting. We can no longer support midnight votes on secret bills. We must rethink the way our government works.”

“It is time to chart an old course for the Democratic Party, to make it again into the party that Jefferson built, that Roosevelt built, that JFK built. We must stop being a party that listens to Karl Marx and acts like it’s run by Groucho Marx.”

Then they need to follow this up by denying leadership votes to Pelosi et al. They should work with the Republicans to form, basically, a coalition government -- one that tracks mainly center with some liberalism mixed in.

But they won’t because they are afraid of their fringe. Though nothing could be further from the truth, they’ve bought into the idea that they can’t win re-election unless they pander to their fringe. So they cower and they collaborate.

I say “bought into” because the idea that fringes have power is false. The only power the left-fringe has is in refusing to support a candidate. They could run a primary challenge, but that rarely works. . . especially against a popular politician. And in most states and the overwhelming majority of districts, the leftist fringe is too small to matter.

Take Nelson, for example. Nebraska is a largely non-partisan, relatively conservative state. Nelson is(was) a popular politician -- he was known primarily as a governor who cut taxes. So does anyone really believe that he could be unseated in a primary challenge by some wild-eyed, socialist mouth-breather? Not likely. And do you really think he will be better off having voted for this health care seizure and betraying the people of Nebraska than he would have been had he stood up to this loony plan?

If I were to run against Nelson, I would start now (hint hint) and I would put out ads explaining what Nelson has done in the Nelson/Pelosi Health Care Seizure Act. And when 2012 ran around, there would be thousands of signs all over Nebraska asking:

• “Has Pelosi/Nelson improved your health care?”
• “Did you get coverage?”
• “Is your health insurance cheaper?”
• “Did Ben Nelson forget to mention the fines?”
• “Did you get what you’re paying for?”

But the moderates aren’t serious. Rather than band together and rise up, they remain silent. . . or whisper “can I get something to bribe my constituents?” Or they lie. In fact, it’s become a virtual truth holocaust whenever they discuss their agenda. One of my Colorado Senators (they may be the same guy as far as I can tell) has an ad running right now that is nearly 100% false -- the only part that appears to be true is the bastard’s acknowledgement that he’s a United States Senator.

And Nelson? In a most telling moment, “conservative” Democrat Nelson said this regarding the angry response of the people of his state:

“This is all orchestrated. It’s so thinly disguised. . . it’s almost laughable.”

Laughable? The anger of the American people is laughable?

It’s time to face reality. The Democratic Party is dead. And in its place now stands a hard-core, hate-filled socialist, apartheid party. There are no moderates in that party, and those that claim to be moderate are lying.

For those of you who still cling to the idea of a Democratic Party but aren’t ardent socialists or outraged members of some interest group, it’s time to move on.

So why does this matter to me? Shouldn’t I be happy that these daffy fools are about to commit political suicide? Well, yes. But politics works best when you have two vibrant parties competing for ideas. Right now we don’t have that. In place of the second party, we have this collection of lunatics and hate-mongers calling themselves Democrats.

Jefferson is spinning in his grave.