I have begun wondering why I am a Democrat. Face it, we’re a bunch of losers and we have been since 1968. That’s thirty-two years, almost two generations of losing Democrats. We don’t have an image of losing, we are losers. To watch Gore and Kerry and Nader you could easily believe that we prefer to lose, that we prefer to remain true to our ideals rather than compromise our values and win. But are we helping anyone when we keep losing?
Are the pensions of American workers more secure when Labor chooses to support only those Democrats not too strong on fuel mileage restrictions? How many plants and animals were pushed closer to extinction after liberals determined to teach moderate Democrats a lesson by voting for Ralph Nader? How many more hours must women spend looking for a doctor who will consider their health first rather than some pseudo-Christian’s version of morality, now that Democrats are required to be in favor of unlimited Abortions? How many more children must suffer in under funded schools, with parents struggling below the poverty level, with no hope of college, no hope of a secure future, because all Democrats are required to oppose any limits on affirmative action? In the last forty years, have we helped anyone by insisting we must help all or none?
Any Democrat is better than these Republicans. And any Democrat who does not recognize that is working for further Republican victories. It is time for Democratic unity, not in ideals, but in mutual support. It is time to recognize who the enemy really is. And the enemy is not a Democrat who is not pure enough in thought or deed. The enemy is a party that calls itself God’s Own Party while abandoning the poor, the sick and the old and the young. The enemy is a party that would see no women with access to unrestricted health care and no children with access to higher education unless they are the wives and children of rich men. The enemy is a party that mortgages our children’s future in the name of favors to those who least need favors. And have least earned those favors they continue to receive. The enemy is a party corrupt in its actions, in its ideals, in its goals. The enemy is a party that lies to win, and wins.
We are the “Tax and Spend” Democrats, but it is the Republicans who have run up the largest deficit in American history, who have mortgaged our children’s future to pamper the rich, who have abandoned our schools, our health care system in favor of tax cuts for the wealthy. And just how are Democrats helping that next generation by remaining such a bunch of losers?
Early in 1873, after almost a decade out of power in Washington James Gordon Bennett, Jr., editor of the Democratic newspaper The New York Herald sent a reporter to interview the newly re-elected Ulysses S. Grant. Grant had won by a landslide and the Republicans looked as if they were going to be in power for ever. So Bennett’s man had been instructed to ask the President a simple question; did he intend to run for a third term? If Grant said no he would immediately become a lame duck, particularly in those days of the spoils system. But if Grant said yes he would be breaking George Washington’s precedent of two terms only and outrage the public. So Grant took the middle road, saying “I haven’t given it any thought.” It was a clever answer, neither a yes nor a no. But Bennett’s paper immediately began to editorialize about the dangers of Caesar- ism in Washington. Other Democratic papers picked up the story line, and then more neutral papers covered the issue because it had become a story because the Democrats kept talking about it. In the midterm elections of 1874 the “Mugwumps” – Republicans so worried about the issue of an imperial presidency, an issue which had been created and nurtured by Bennett – chose not to go to the polls in silent protest. The Democrats won control of the House. With the House came the power to subpoena, and that produced investigations and indictments and Grant’s reputation as the most corrupt administration in history. It was perhaps the smartest political move a Democrat ever made. We could be that smart again.
But first we have to stop being Mugwumps.
