In other words: A discussion of The Bush Administration
Out of the ashes, I gleaned a few particles of clarity:
- There can be no crying foul the next four years about a stolen election. I didn’t like who won – or how he won – but Bush did win. And, going by the popular vote, decisively.
- The final nail has been put into the coffin of the 60s cultural revolution. Liberals lost. We won some good battles . . . 40 years ago . . . but we’ve lost almost all that territory since.
- The Democrats are – at least for the time being – the minority party. More importantly, they are not a national party and need to either embrace that or figure out how to change it.
- It appears abundantly clear that the next democratic president will require a Perot-like conservative to split the Republican party. The votes just aren’t there otherwise.
- The liberal media does not exist anymore. If it did, Bush would not be in office. Liberals and democrats need to stop thinking the media will give them a few ride.
Where to go from here? The Democratic Party needs to figure out how to address “faith/values”. It does not need to appropriate stances from the Republicans, but it does need to frame its cultural values around religion/faith rather than enlightenment rationalism. More important, the Dem elites need to stop ignoring religion or disparaging religion or both. In a country where 33% of people are evangelical, it is all but suicide for liberals in the Democratic Party to look down their noses at those who define much of themselves through their religious faith.
Democrats need to get better with messaging. Part of this problem lies in the particular candidate representing the party, but part of it is institutional – the democrats represent too many competing interests. And while that is good for governance, it’s awful for electability. Representing lots of interests gives the Republicans ample targets to point to when listing why the Democrats are bad for America. For a while it was the teachers unions, or unions in general. Even despite the Department of Homeland Security, democrats are still associated with big government programs. The democrats are attacked as being the party of trial lawyers. Of gun restriction. Of trade protectionism. There exist all these interests in the party, and they’re not disciplined. Republicans represent a far narrower band of interests, and those interests have traditionally been more aligned. Now there are conflicts between the religious base and the economic conservatives, but while only ˝ of that truly scares left, there’s something in the Democratic party to scare everyone on the right. This means the Democrats have to consider narrowing their interests in order to attract more supporters. And, perhaps most difficult, it needs to stop looking outside out borders for justification on issues. The countries of Western Europe will not help the left in presenting its case because Western Europe is seen as “godless” largely because they shrink away from outward displays of religious conviction the same way liberal elites do.
The left needs to stop hoping the media will point out hypocrisy, lies, distortions, etc. Equally important, the left needs to seriously curtail their own hypocrisy, lies, distortion, etc. It needs to generate a cleaner, more streamlined worldview to present to the public – back to messaging – and one which is seeped in concretes but also appeals to “faith/values”.
- Alex 4:52 PM - [PermaLink] -
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