At this point the 2010 midterm elections are over and the punditry has just begun. All night long on Tuesday I kept listening to the talking heads ponder what the Republican takeover of the House and GOP gains in the Senate mean.
The Republicans are better organized, and despite their small government, fewer taxes rhetoric which favors the rich, have become the party of the people. Withstanding the usual last minute liberal appeals, droves of angry whites and upper middle class minorities turned out at the polls to support the GOP. So what does this mean for Democrats, whose ironic “Change” and “Hope” bumper stickers have faded and who now wish only to be oppressed in a sane, civilized manner (if John Stewart is to be believed)?
Since the 1980s, Republicans have controlled the story in American politics. We Democrats are the party of issues like Social Security, Unemployment, Medicare, Healthcare and the like. GOPers from push-polling Lee Atwater to Karl Rove belong to the party of articulated vision.
While Democrats strove to separate themselves from the far left and appeal to business friendly interests, Republicans were marketing the compassionate conservative, defending poor unborn babies, helping economic windfalls trickle down, and taking stands against the owners of Welfare Cadillacs. After an eight year Clinton White House, they pulled out all the stops to take back the executive office and promptly gave the wealthy a tax break and plunged the country into two wars.
Democrats found their spine long enough to win back both houses and the Presidency, but froze up and watched their political capital vanish in a series of bogged down debates concerning the economy and healthcare. Suddenly the Republican Party embraced the far right, just as they had embraced Christian fundamentalists in the 80’s and became the party of protest just in time for the midterm elections.
The liberal ideal was once that of higher wages and better treatment for workers. It was the party that advocated education for the middle class and equal rights for all citizens under the law. Somewhere along the way however, the Left quit giving the electorate a vision and instead began to operate within the GOP version of the American dream.
Many Democratic candidates began running right in order to appeal to big money interests and shed the half-crazed hippie or out of touch idealistic professor stereotype. Their opponents rightly deemed them the inconsistent knock off brand competing against the real deal conservatives. In 2008, Obama’s victory was a victory for the liberal vision. But that vision was abandoned nearly as soon as the president took office and Democrats find themselves once again the party on the outs.
In 2008 Democrats thought they had achieved change. What we got was a brief reprieve followed by more of the same. The pattern will continue until Democrats take control of the story and become Democrats again.
