The Art of Politics

On Target

Peter Beinart finds the bullseye on the donkey...

As post-mortems continue to emerge on the failed Democrat campaigns at every level in 2004, Peter Beinart has absolutely nailed their problem - and their solution, all with one shot.

To clarify the problem, Beinart harkens back to a previous crisis in the Democrat party - their struggle for identity in the post-Roosevelt era. The problem, as he astutely clarifies, is how those who would accomodate communism, not oppose it, viewed their opponents:

"...they refused to make anti-communism their guiding principle. For them, the threat to liberal values came entirely from the right. To attack the communists, reliable allies in the fight for civil rights and economic justice, was a distraction from the struggle for progress."

Indeed - the threat from their own countrymen was far greater in their eyes than that posed by Soviet totalitarianism and expansionism. This correlates nicely to today - the Democrat left consists of those who think John Ashcroft is a greater threat to America than Al Qaeda. This is not an exaggeration. They see America under siege not in a physical way, but merely metaphysical, where the threat to America is not material in the form of death and destruction from terrorists, but rather a threat to the progressive idealism of what America is by Republicans.

This is, without question, patently silly. But they are such a force in the Democrat party - because much of their traditional constituencies such as blue collar men have abandoned them - that they steer not just the nominating process, but the entire party and any national image, hard to the unserious left.

In order to regain viability, they must decide which they desire - relevancy, or fealty to groups that swell their numbers but destroy their viability. The Democrats in the past chose to purge the accomodationists from their party to engage a healthy anti-communist platform that manifested itself in the hawkishly anti-communist Presidency of John F. Kennedy. Only after Viet Nam did the re-infiltration of dovish accomodation begin back into the Democrat party.

The hard left is unelectable. The Democrats would do well to let them be unelectable without them....

Posted by MEC2 at December 7, 2004 08:38 PM