The Democratic Party, with its current cast of characters
in charge, has refused time after time to stand up and fight for its
underlying principles. Its recent incoherent or wimpy positions on the
Iraq War, electoral fraud and the Alito nomination make clear that it's
stuck in a self-destructive rut and isn't terribly eager (or can't figure
out how) to climb out of it.
As I see it, we have two options in dealing with this deficient, bumbling,
weak-kneed crew. 1) We get rid of them, work to take over the party from
the grassroots up (similar to what the Republicans did after the Goldwater
debacle of '64), and eventually bring some coherence and dynamic
initiatives back into the party. Or, 2) We give up on the Democrats as an
embarrassing joke, and begin thinking seriously about joining with others,
similarly disenchanted with the political choices offered, and found a
viable third party.
There is another option: doing nothing, just continuing on as a rag-tag,
undisciplined, weak OINO -- that's "Opposition In Name Only." But I think
we all know that simply makes no sense. Being rolled regularly by the
Republicans, or refusing to fight them in ways other than symbolic, gets
old real fast.
OPTION#1: REFORMING FROM WITHIN
The first option, in a sense, is already happening. Folks like Paul
Hackett in Ohio and Bernie Saunders in Vermont, both running for Senate,
Diane Lawrence in a Florida Congressional district -- plus Cindy Sheehan
thinking about a Senate race in California -- are willing to put
themselves out there. Good people, good Democrats, willing to step out and
step up in an effort to try to change the face of party, and American,
politics.
So it's possible that many young, and not-so-young,
activists from the Democratic base can start reforming from within --
starting at the precinct and municipal level, emerging from state
legislatures, moving into statewide offices, taking the leap to running
for Congress and so on.
That kind of activist movement, whether coordinated or run on the fly by
individuals, takes a tremendous amount of energy, courage, money, and
clear-headed planning. It may require a decade or so to even begin to see
demonstrable results. Can the Democratic Party afford the luxury of the
decade or more it might take? Can the country handle the amount of
Bush-like corruption, authoritarianism, wars, torture, moral lassitude
that will transpire during that period while the foundation is being laid
for a new, re-energized Democratic Party?
Perhaps more important, will the big bucks (George Soros?
Peter Lewis? show-biz wealth?) see what needs to be done and provide the
required financing and political infrastructure building? When the
conservatives got over their '64 humiliation, they didn't sulk; they
started a decades-long campaign to take power by buying or creating media
organs to get their message out, established think-tanks where policy and
philosophies and strategies could be developed, created ways to get
college-age youths involved in conservative politics.
EDUCATION COMES FROM EVERYWHERE
In short, they were dead-serious about changing the system that had locked
them out for so long. Their big-buck magnates and foundations (Coors,
Scaife, Olin, et al.) footed the bill. And, eventually, as we know, they
wound up taking over the Congress, the White House, much of the media --
and now are in the process of locking up the Judiciary as well.
Am I suggesting that we imitate the rightwing tactics and strategies --
and smash-mouth politics -- that brought them to power? No way. But, while
not abandoning our morality and principles, we have much to learn from
that level of commitment and tenacity and patience.
Are we in the Democratic "base" ready to sign on, to sign up, for that
level of work and the dedicated slog it will take? Or will we remain a
base that energizes itself every four years and then wonders why we keep
getting blind-sided by an organization (Rove Inc.) that thinks, breathes,
acts politics every waking second? Take your pick.
I think it's not necessarily too late to make the attempt to reform the
party from within. But it is late, and it will require a humongous amount
of toil, sweat, and lots of tears to turn this supertanker around and then
bring this party back to speed and coherence and courage. We must first
make the Democrats into a true party of opposition, and then convince the
American people that it's capable of governing.
(We're talking about elections here, which means that the Democratic Party
is going to have to step out and point out forthrightly that our current
voting system is a corrupted mess. It outsources ballot-counting to
private corporations with secret software easily open to manipulation from
the companies that own the e-voting machines and vote-counting computers,
or to hacking from without. Those corporations are Republican-supporters
at present, and key recent elections probably were fiddled with, according
to scholars and other experts who have examined the shoddy system. If we
can't overhaul the current manner of voting and ballot-counting, taking
corruption and partisanship out of it, it won't matter how clean and
transparent and dynamic our refurbished party is. We'll still continue to
"lose," even when we win.)
OPTION#2: REFORMING FROM WITHOUT
I can't tell you how many liberal friends have expressed the same thought
to me in recent months, in variations of these words: The Democratic Party
is, and probably will continue to be, an embarrassing disaster, and it's
time to at least start thinking tentatively about political life without
it. That is, a viable third party.
Obviously, we're talking longer-range here, not about what is likely to
happen for the 2006 midterm election, although events and scandals are
unfolding at such warp speed these days that in some areas of the country,
progressive insurgent candidates might have a real chance.
In 2008, if the choice is between a Bush-type clone (maybe even Jeb) and a
middle-of-the-road Democrat, with no electable third-party candidate also
in the race, we on the Left -- and even many in the middle -- may once
again be put in the position, for the sake of the Republic, of holding our
noses and voting and working for the Democratic candidate.
PASSION AND PRIDE IN OUR PARTY
But many of us would rather not have to go the nose-holding route again,
preferring to have a party and candidates of which we can be passionately
proud.
If it can't accomplished within be a refurbished, restructured Democratic
Party, the thinking goes, then perhaps it's time for building a new,
citizen-based party from the bottom up -- one that is less beholden to
corporate and traditional power- and -financing sources, and therefore
more free to speak out and act boldly in support of systematic reform and
an adherence to policies and programs that make moral and political sense.
What might some of those principles be? Here are a few, which could apply
as well to a renovated Democratic Party, if some of the old baggage can be
jettisoned: war only out of of necessity, never a choice; more devotion to
most peoples' actual needs (affordable health-care, improving public
schools, infrastructure repair, clean air and water, enforcing safety
regulations in mines and other workplaces, etc.) and less to giving even
more tax breaks to the already wealthy and rapacious corporations; more
fiscal responsibility in budgeting; paying down the humongous deficit;
paying serious attention to reality (including science) and less to mere
belief and political fantasy; going after terrorists without fatally
compromising our morality or civil-liberties, etc.
If there were to be a new, viable third party in 2008, it's possible that
this potential alliance could field candidates for President and Vice
President -- assuming somebody of great character and political savvy
emerges to help lead the way. But if the 2008 scenario unfolds something
like what is described above, and if we've been busily building a
grassroots alternative party from the ground up -- getting candidates
elected on the local, district, state and congressional levels -- this new
movement will be able to flex its growing political muscle by forcing the
Democrats more toward a progressive agenda, all the while it prepares a
future national slate of electable candidates for President and
Vice-President.
A PROGRESSIVE'S ODYSSEY
Before I go deeper into this possible scenario, and where the starting
base for a viable third party might originate, it may be important for
readers to know where I'm coming from politically and that I'm not
speaking totally off the top of my head. So here's a brief chronological
history.
Raised in the South, I was a Democrat up until 1968; along with many other
young people, I become more radicalized by events in "The Sixties."
Appalled by the Democratic Party's sell-out on the Vietnam War, I joined
with Marcus Raskin, Dr. Benjamin Spock and others to help found The New
Party, and was active mostly in Washington State, where I was teaching
college, in promoting that new, more radical alternative party. When the
Vietnam War ended in the mid-'70s, and The New Party demonstrated that it
had no legs for the long haul, I returned to the Democratic fold as the
electable alternative to the Republicans. I worked as an activist
journalist for, among others, Northwest Passage in the Pacific Northwest,
and then later as a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, and as a
free-lancer for The Nation, The Progressive, the War Resisters League's
WIN magazine and others.
In 1996, I supported Ralph Nader's insurgent candidacy for President. In
2000, even while more closely aligned with Nader's point of view, I
supported Al Gore, as the one candidate who had a chance of stopping the
Bush juggernaut. After 9/11, I began writing on a free-lance basis for a
wide variety of progressive and liberal websites (TruthOut, CounterPunch,
BuzzFlash, SmirkingChimp, et al.), and in November of 2002, Ernest
Partridge and I founded The Crisis Papers (www.crisispapers.org) as an
independent progressive voice. In 2004, despite my deep revulsion at his
position on the Iraq War, I worked for the election of John Kerry, as the
only viable alternative to a second Bush term, which promised to be one
dedicated to even more White House horrors.
As you can see, though I have an long-term affinity for the Democratic
Party, that relationship is not set in cement and I have no animus toward
the establishment of third parties, though starting one up requires much
more difficult work than taking over an existing institutional party. My
aim always is to work toward enactment of forward-thinking, progressive
legislation and policies, which can be most effectively accomplished by
getting honest, dynamic, progressive candidates elected. I believe, along
with many others, that a party, Democratic or otherwise, has to be serious
and (eventually) electable to justify putting lots of my time, energy and
money into it.
A TRUE PARTY, NOT AN EGO-RUN
And that alternative party would have to be organized as a genuine
grassroots political organization, around for the long haul, not an
election-specific movement dependent merely on the candidate. That was
Nader's weakest link; it seemed to be solely about electing him, not in
building a true, small-d democratic party. Indeed, virtually all
"third-party" movements in recent elections have seemed to have been
designed more to garner "protest" votes -- John Anderson, Ross Perot,
Nader, et al. -- rather than aimed at building a full-fledged party that
could assume power at some point.
So, looking around the liberal-to-progressive political landscape these
days, where might a new alternative party come from? Things are much in
flux, of course, and what seems reasonable and logical now might not hold
true six months or a year from now. (Who knows? Given Bush's Iraq deceits,
lies and incompetence, plus the fallout from the Abramoff scandal, plus
the likely indictment of Karl Rove, plus the aversion folks have to being
spied on by government agents without a court-sanctioned warrant, we may
by then be seeing Bush and Cheney in the impeachment well in the Senate.)
THE ALLIANCE'S CHARTER MEMBERS
So who would make up the core of this party? I would guess that the base
of a party -- for want of a better name, let's call this entity the New
Democratic Party (NDP) -- could be constructed from elements within the
Progressive Democrats of America, Green Party, the Change to Win union
coalition, angry Guard and military troops and veterans, peace groups, and
other similar disenchanted organizations and individuals.
This new alliance might also attract a wide variety of distressed
Libertarians and traditional Republicans horrified at how their party was
hijacked from them by rightwing extremists. These disenchanted
conservatives, unable to bring themselves to vote for Democrats, might be
willing to join together with liberals on civil-liberties and sound
money-management grounds -- or as a vehicle to defeat the dangerous forces
that have captured their party, which would provide an opening for their
more moderate conservatism to fight for power in a reconstituted
Republican Party.
As you can see, this proposal is the merest outline of the possible. My
main objective here is to get some discussion started about the
advisability of both staying with and reforming the Democratic Party, and
testing the political waters for a third-party movement. If there is
genuine and widespread acceptance to either idea, then it will be time to
brainstorm about how best and most effectively such a movement can be
actualized.
All we know for certain at this stage -- looking at the current
badly-warped, deficient Democratic Party -- is: Never Again! We have to
move, and quickly, one way or the other.
If you have ideas about either possibility, I'd love to hear your
comments, suggestions, alternative scenarios, etc., which will be
distilled into a future article to help continue the dialogue and build
political momentum. Onward!
Copyright 2006, by Bernard Weiner
Bernard Weiner, Ph.D. in government & international
relations, has taught at various universities, worked as a writer/editor
for the San Francisco Chronicle, and currently co-edits The Crisis Papers
(www.crisispapers.org). To comment, write >> crisispapers@comcast.net <<.
