The Democrats
The party of Wilson, FDR and JFK. Champions of progressive policies designed to lift up the less fortunate. The party of “Hope” and “Change” that managed to convince the country to elect (and re-elect) a black president. As with their Republican counterparts, however, these cheerful initial observations do not reflect the state of the Democratic Party today. The party is now riven by infighting – centrists attacking progressives and vice versa, consensus only seemingly possible when opposing Republican policies, not in making bold actions of their own. They exemplify inaction, excuses and empty soundbites, pursuing an electoral strategy so limited in scope that it is simply aimed at being “not the Republicans”. The ruling echelons of the party exist primarily to ensure that its most elite members are insulated from challenges, and that the status quo is preserved. This electoral protection racket was so brazen as to fix the results of the Democratic primaries in 2016, to ensure progressive Senator Bernie Sanders’s campaign could not prevent the coronation of the “chosen candidate”, Hillary Clinton. The glass ceiling of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan, chosen rather hubristically to celebrate an expected victory against Donald Trump, remained unbroken as the obvious flaws of the Democrats’ candidate were ignored by the party, but not the country. The belief that an unfairly chosen, unpopular candidate would be guaranteed victory because she was female and not Donald Trump reveals the naivety and myopia of much of the party today: it is driven not by policy but by identity politics. Progressives clamouring for real change are sidelined and ignored, as the party elite simply assume that voters will have no choice but to hold their noses and vote for them in the face of a candidate such as Trump. The elites remain wilfully ignorant of the anger felt by ordinary Americans when it comes to inequality and being the subject of derision from metropolitan commentators – better instead to simply label those who disagree with you as a “basket of deplorables” made up of “the racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic – you name it”. For a member of the ruling elite, not to mention the wife of a former president, to label a significant proportion of the US population in this manner is electoral suicide and would surely lead to soul-searching and an examination of the entire party strategy? Not so. The Russian bogeyman was to blame, and Hillary was supposedly robbed. Even during the Obama years, the Democratic elite’s disconnection from reality was evident, as working people were ignored, maligned and incarcerated in record numbers. Although Trump was rightly criticized for caging children at the border and separating families, his predecessor, nicknamed the “Deporter-in-Chief”, oversaw in this first term over 60 per cent more deportations than Trump, in the naïve hope that it would persuade Republicans to agree to a bipartisan immigration bill. Elsewhere, it was not Donald Trump who sponsored the 1994 crime bill, but Joe Biden. Biden and the bill have come under repeated criticism for the disproportionate effect on the incarceration rates for black males, a point clearly illustrated by the differing punishments for arrests for cocaine in powder form (used by wealthier, white Americans) and crack cocaine (used by poorer black Americans). A point often forgotten is that Biden was supported by prominent members of the black community, who could see first-hand the damage that the crack epidemic was causing in their communities. The recent moves by the Biden administration to decriminalize marijuana use, and expunge the criminal records of those convicted in the past for minor offences (again, disproportionately affecting black males), might be proceeding too slowly for some critics, but they are certainly a step in the right direction. The most valid criticism of the Democrats today is that they lack the requisite determination and invention to counter the actions of the Republicans, and that they are too busy “going high” to address the long-term damage being done by an adversary content to keep “going low”. The failure to use all tools available to challenge the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, or to enact meaningful gun-control legislation, are two major examples of this predicament. If these issues really mattered to the Democratic elite, or if there was a genuine threat of supporters withholding their votes because of such inaction, then pressure would be applied at every possible point to find a solution. Instead, in the week after Roe v. Wade was overturned, it was straight back to business for Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden, namely using the Republican bogeyman to tap up worried donors for more campaign donations, without any mention of a specific plan to counter the move and protect reproductive rights. Even when action did follow in the form of an executive order, it was loosely worded, non-binding and generally underwhelming.
|
