Peter Beinart at The Daily Beast provides what could almost be a party-platform statement for this site, just in case it was not sufficiently clear from the About page.
“The House’s passage of health-care reform is the clearest sign yet that the Democratic Party is, once again, for better and for worse, a big tent. By essentially sacrificing abortion and immigrant rights to get conservative Democrats to vote for expanded health-care coverage, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi restored the old hierarchy that between the 1930s and the 1960s helped Democrats establish dominance on Capitol Hill. Today, to a degree we haven’t seen since then, the Democratic Party is about economic protection first, and cultural freedom second.”
“[A health-care reform billpassed Saturday night] because the House contains dozens of culturally conservative Democrats, many of whom voted yes on reform. Had Democrats nominated cultural liberals for those seats, those seats would now be held by Republicans, who would certainly have voted no. And had Democrats tried to force those conservative Democrats to vote for a bill that permitted government funding of abortion, the Democrats themselves would have voted no”
“For cultural liberals, it was ugly. They had better get used to it: Big parties are ugly. But if you want to rebuild the American welfare state, there is no alternative. A profound shift is under way, one that will likely endure even if Democrats lose seats in the midterm elections next year. The Republican Party is growing smaller and more ideologically pristine; the Democratic Party has grown larger and more untidy. Conservative activists seem positively thrilled by their party’s newfound purity. I hope they enjoy it. Meanwhile, in the messy real world, the party of FDR and LBJ is back.”
Beinart describes the Democrats as having at one time made a “devil’s pact” with white supremacist Southerners — then, in the 1960s, they “accommodated themselves to a different kind of devil’s pact.” We shouldn’t go back to the first “devil’ pact.” But….
I think I have mentioned somewhere on this blog the remark I came across on a left-activist site: “We must defend the sexual revolution!” I think this individual wanted every election to be a referendum on said sexual revolution. I guess that was supposed to be the defining difference between the political parties — not some trivial matter like the economic question.
I see that people with views along these lines have left a number of fist-pounding comments on The Daily Beast site in the wake of Beinart’s article. These people need to get over it, and get a grip. Such people remind me of children who unwrapped the last present under the Christmas tree and then flew into a tantrum because there was one present on their list that they didn’t get. They need to get it through their heads that they may not be able to get everything that they want.
A serious left-of-center party should cultivate an understanding among the rank-and-file that their first responsibility involves the economic question. The cultural transformation that appeared to be the aim of the transformation of the Democratic Party between 1968 and 1972 is, beyond a certain point, not tenable. The history and composition of the country will not permit it. The attempt to bring it about already has caused considerable collateral damage….