Quote Of The Day: Are Democrats On The Brink Of Civil War?
The news is now dominated by stories, opinion pieces, and blog posts about turmoil in the Republican party — a party that has seemingly morphed into the Rushublican party with its most visible mass media symbol repeatedly leading what now seems to be a virtual litmus test mantra of hoping President Barack Obama will fail (a mantra now cushioned with word-splitting qualifiers to allow plausible deniability that will mean little to many voters who have lost their homes and jobs).
It’s a party where another big media symbol and perceived 2012 Presidential candidate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, has been stubbing her toe more than often than New Yorkers during a power black out. Or having John McCain or other Republican elites stub it for her. It’s a party that promises to finally unveil it’s own budget, but initial reports suggest that when it does it’ll likely come under fire for essentially tilting to help wealthier Americans and cut funding for kids or lower income Americans. True or not — that’s the perception.
But mostly, the new and old media blitzes focus on a struggle for the GOP’s political soul. Will moderates be driven completely out? (A silly question since Arlen Specter doesn’t exactly appear to be the wave of the future). Will Rush and Sean provide its spiritual impetus? And will the party shed itself of the Bush-Cheney elite and allow younger GOPers to take full spotlight, and let the baby boomers retire to nurse or display their (Good)Us-Versus-(Bad)Them Vietnam War era-derived hubris off the early 21st century main political stage?
Yet, in our Quote of the Day, centrist writer John Avlon notes that there is another political storm brewing — or, rather, one he likens to a civil war: the battle between liberal Democrats more in tune with the Internet “netroots” and more centrist Democrats descended from older school liberalism. Avlon raises the question whether this impending war could short circuit Democratic hopes for 2010 — and perhaps beyond:
The most important debate in Washington today isn’t happening between Democrats and Republicans—it’s happening between centrist Democrats and liberal Democrats. Not just the budget, but control of congress in the 2010 elections could hang in the balance.
Late last week, 16 Democratic senators declared independence by forming a new centrist caucus. Led by Indiana’s Evan Bayh, Arkansas’ Blanche Lincoln and Delaware’s Tom Carper, the group includes senators from every region and some of the party’s rising stars, including Virginia’s Mark Warner and Missouri’s Claire McCaskill. Together, their numbers are more than sufficient to deny liberals a rubber-stamp majority in the Senate. The center is flexing its muscle and now holds the balance of power.
This development now means that Republicans are going to have to contend with some members of their party (more moderate Republicans) who aren’t buying into Talk Radio Political Culture typified by Limbaugh and Hannity….while Democrats will have to contend with some members of their party (more moderate Democrats) who aren’t buying into some of the demands and policies advocated by the Demmies’ lively and powerful “netroots” and emerging liberal talk show host stars.
Avlon contends this centrist Democratic opposition could benefit Obama:
The group quickly came under fire from both the netroots and old-line liberals as a traitorous “over-class” challenge to the Obama agenda because of its focus on fiscal responsibility…[T]hey may actually prove to be the president’s best allies in the long run. Because the Obama administration cannot allow itself be defined by the liberal House leadership’s agenda if they want to unite the nation and usher in a post-partisan era. And right now this centrist coalition is the only constructive force that can check liberal excesses and prevent a broad-based backlash.
We’ve seen this movie before. A charismatic new Democrat president blessed with unified control of Congress gets his legs cut out from under him when the electorate decides that the combined package is more liberal than they’d like.
Indeed: many writers (including yours truly) raised the issue during the campaign of whether once Obama got in his biggest problem could be in possible overreaching by his own party’s left since unless there was a)massive success b)overwhelming support what Avlon calls “liberal excesses” can be adeptly exploited by the GOP to discredit all Democrats. He further notes that Americans like checks and balances and Obama won a mandate to govern center and adds:
So what do voters in the center believe? A post-election survey by TargetPoint Consulting shows that 96 percent of centrist voters consider themselves conservative to moderate on fiscal issues, while 86 percent of centrist voters see themselves as liberal to moderate on social issues. To put it another way, only 4 percent of centrists describe themselves as fiscal liberals while just 14 percent describe themselves as social conservatives.
He issues this warning:
This fight is far from over. MoveOn.org has taken out advocacy ads against the centrist coalition, borrowing a page from the playbook of conservative Republicans who make it their hobby to hunt down party heretics. But tearing down the big tent is precisely what has led Republicans to be irrelevant in the current debate—they are too busy playing to the base to be concerned with constructive outreach to the center. At a time when the American people want solutions, not hyper-partisan bickering, it’s a recipe for self-defeat.
The new centrist coalition exists not to block the president’s agenda but to provide ballast behind his rhetoric of fiscal responsibility in the face of liberal congressional leaders who want to listen only to the stimulus spending side of the Obama equation. They are trying to help President Obama realize the still ill-defined post-partisan vision he promised the American people. That’s why now is the right time to assert the strength of the center.
There’s a lot more — so read it all.
7 Responses to “Quote Of The Day: Are Democrats On The Brink Of Civil War?”
The New Republic – Why the Democrats Can't Govern by Jonathan Chait
That's what happens when you spend fifty years shafting the only wide spread popular left leaning organization: Labor…
I thought about this a few weeks ago when I realized I was reading Democrat's comments complimenting GOP moderates Specter, Snowe, etc on coming to an agreement on the stimulus bill but also Democrat's comments savaging moderates in their own party. I had thought that seemed a little schizophrenic but I guess I was seeing the split mentioned in the article above. Maybe Democrats aren't a monolith any more than the GOP was in 2000 (I believe the GOP is much more homogeneous now).
Whether it becomes a problem for Democrats depends a lot on what they do at this point. If they tilt to the far left and things go badly they will be in the same position the GOP was in 3-4 years ago. I think Democrats are certainly capable of acting just as stupidly as the GOP did. From reading other boards I see Olbermann and Maddow taking some of the same roles Limbaugh and Hannity played for the GOP. Could they or someone new sway the party further to the left? The MoveOn crowd is already working to provide more liberal competition for existing Democratic moderates. These are moves the GOP made that backfired, could it turn out the same for Democrats?
Interesting article, thanks!
DQ
I'm still optimistic. Throughout the Primaries, it was obvious that none of the other Democrats knew who they were dealing with. Likewise, the Republicans couldn't figure out how to beat him either.
So far, despite the hue and cry of day to day partisan politics, Obama has gotten almost exactly what he's wanted. Sure, the congressional democrats made changes, but he still got what he asked for.
You may be right ; he may need to actually veto a bill to bring Dems back in line. The thing is his style is such that he tends to get what he sets out to achieve while making people feel it was their idea. A 66% approval rating certainly helps.
I personally cannot get behind the spending we have been doing the last 6 years. Bush spent too much and Obama is doubling down.
Obamas approval ratings simply mean most of the country does not care about spending way more than we make. A lot of people including me were complaining about the Spending under Bush but I am the only one in that crowd still complaining about the spending.
I guess since Obama says so it must be OK. I sure hope it is.
What far left?
Kucinich & Sanders are about as far left as the elected democratic party goes, and if you bother to actually listen to their positions and not the malarkey that the mass media puts out about them, you would discover that they hold positions that would be defined as center-left in any other modern democracy.
DQ, this (partial) statement of yours struck me:
“…they hold positions that would be defined as center-left in any other modern democracy.”
I assume (perhaps erroneously?) that you're thinking of the European model(s)s? But the US did not develop in the same way as “other modern democracies”, politically. There's a very serious core value here, I think, that simply doesn't mesh with government intervention at the depth and breadth accepted elsewhere.
I think that many Americans would consider elsewhere's “center-left” to be nearly over our left edge.
European, Japanese, Australian, New Zealand, Canadian…
Pretty much every industrialized country has some form of universal health care except the US, our unemployment benefits are a joke.
Yeah, we had a frontier to which we could send people to, and we did… but it's gone. And we had a multi-ethnic state from day one in which the majority was perfectly happy to eat shit just so the minority would not get any thing. How is that shit sandwich tasting America?