Time to kill the Southern Strategy
It is time once again for the Democratic Party to be the moral leaders of those “Old Timey” issues such and race and poverty.
It is as relevant today as it was at the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. That the poor in New Orleans did NOT have a Cadillac to escape and now the government by Executive Order is not allowing then to earn the prevailing wage.
We can not let the Republicans demonize EVEN MORE African Americans and the poor. After hearing Pat Buchanan spew “looting, raping and welfare checks” in the same sentence… I see this is where it is heading.
Democrats must resuscitate the issues and ideologies that we are good at.
This time around we need to take the lead in the framing wars. No longer can we tolerate rhetoric like Reagan’s “Welfare Queen who picks up her welfare check in her big new Cadillac”… The Republicans have played this myth so well that now the mere mention of taxes sends off dog whistles to whites that their money will be given to welfare queens.
The crying call of the Democrats should be:
No Representation without Taxation
Sometimes I wonder if the real purpose behind the taxes cuts is to thwart representation of the average citizen…
Democrats can no longer unravel the Safety Net with policies like Bill Clinton’s “Reform welfare as we know it” that pandered to the lies and fears of far right.
Democrats keep America safe
- Safe from immoral wars
- Safe from attacks on Americans civil and constitutional rights
- Safe to have equal opportunities in the workplace as well as the classroom
- Safe to grow old with dignity
- Safe from corrupt policies and laws that favor the powerful and hurt the powerless
- Democrats will save Democracy and the Constitution in the United States
We are not going to get this new vision from the DLC/NDN types who want to do away with “Old Timey issues and ideology” … the mainstay of the Republican winning streak.
Reform is NOT about throwing overboard women, minorities, labor, gays…yunno the Democratic base.
Reform is NOT about getting rid of special interest groups or even having them to suppress their issues for the greater good…
It is about creating a common value within all of these interest groups. Reform must be about reframing liberal and progressive values and policies into a coherent whole: what affirmative action has to do with progressive taxation, what abortion has to do with affirmative action, what environmentalism has to do with feminism, what labor has to do with education etc.
We must reweave the safety net so that those who walk the straight and narrow path, who defend this country in battle, who work, who pay taxes… will not be left to drown if they slip.
