Protecting Democracy in America

2004-12-09T18:40:00.000-08:00

When I woke up the morning after the election, I didn’t expect Bush to win just yet. While it true that Kerry did so well the previous night, I knew that not all votes were counted in Ohio, so the Democrats could keep fighting for the election. Needless to say, they did not. Kerry didn’t strive to make sure every vote was counted. I was stunned. Even if the Democrats would lose the election any way, there was no harm fight for the last vote. I thought that it was a good thing that the Democrats would not give up their election hopes, and not let the republicans claim a mandate that easily. Instead, Kerry made his concession speech as if loss were inevitable. But if Kerry didn’t concede, the voting irregularities would make big news, and keep the spirit of the vote alive. Now, things seem worse than ever. With republicans claiming a mandate on the American people could try to turn this country into a neoconservative sanctuary. And worse yet, a permanent GOP congress could be on the way.

The eminent concern is not winning the election; it is winning the people’s values and trust. Right now, same-sex marriages could be endangered of being non-existent. Americans are still against gay marriage by a considerable margin. You can even say that Ohio was went republican because of Karl Rove’s move to introduce a anti-gay marriage proposition. As expected, the proposition passed. Even though the constitutional amendment defining marriages between a man and a woman didn’t pass through Congress, the right wing has done that on a local level. Abortion may become tarnished as well. Government funds may drop, and more of the public may see the action as cruel and immoral. Medicare is also taking over, and the public also seems to be okay with the money given to HMO giants increasing their control over drug distribution and the lack of money going into social security. Democrats have been shifting to the right accordingly, nominating the anti-abortion, pro-NRA Harry Reid as their Senate minority leader.

But shifting to the right might as well have disastrous effects on splitting the party. Republicans could use that as a concession to their point of view, and try to lobby Democrats into the party. They could also use a variety of other tactics on us in that situation. Now the views of Democrats seem disorganized, and a switch to the right wing could cause the party to disintegrate, something that is devastating as well. It seems that no matter how we try to reform our party, it will cause conservatives to dominate the country. I believe that there is only one solution to this: revolutionize the party.

We need to switch to socially and economically progressive policies. In the past, the issue of slavery and the imperialistic nature possessed by us during the Wilsonian era and the Cold War has made the Democrats a socially flawed party. Democrats have not really been a party from the left, but rather, a socially permissive businessman’s party. A good way to restore Democratic credibility is to make us the “Party of the People”. This can be done by framing our pro-choice, pro-marriage, and pro-equality politics as the designated freedoms of the American people. As the moderate republicans and democrats get stuck in the middle of the road, we have to reach out to them. Instead of bashing the far right, we should focus more on making ourselves the protagonists.

Pro-people economic policies will help us as well. Forget about the rich Democrats who support us. Go after the large bulk of the population. Many of them do share our pro-freedom and anti-business politics, but rather, they find their similarities to the republicans (i.e. security, leadership) more associable. Brining a new perspective of leadership will definitely help.
There are a lot of things that can springboard us into success. Although we’ve been slowly and slowly adopting more and more anti-war policies, we need to form a much stronger, more stable, and more commanding view for peace in Iraq. For example, not only do we have to say that the war was wrong, but that we need to get our troops home! This will have a residual effect on the American people. Why is this so? Americans too have been increasing against the war on Iraq. When election time comes in four more years, the increasing American casualties (which will probably be thousands more) and Iraqi instability will have caused a lot more Americans to be against the war. By adopting strong policies now, people will jump on our bandwagon. The same goes with Affirmative Action and reparations: we shouldn’t be advocating political correctness; we should adhere to social justice. In fact, the more racism and tragedy that the people experience, the more they’ll recognize our position to fight for the common person.

Staking claim to new territory is monumental accomplished. Pioneering a revolution is not going to be very easy. But if we straighten our party up and start to act progressively. If we need to abandon a few rich supporters, we should do that. Progressive leadership already somewhat present in the Democratic Party. Leaders like Dennis Kucinich have been campaigning on the grounds of such policies for years. The youth vote is also with us. We can rise up to their problems and dilemmas early in life and gain faithful, trustworthy support.

We may have lost the election. We may have lost a lot of ground in Congress. But one thing is for sure; we have to start acting NOW!!! Not four years later, but NOW!!! Spreading of grassroots, finding common ground with the general public, framing out our ideals, and adopting strong pre-emptive policies early will allow the opinion of many Americans to shift toward our side.

But of course, if we don’t, the effects of conservatism will spread. And as I said earlier, they will start to dismantle us. We can win support of the moderates calling for bipartisanship, or we can move to the center, forever being lobbied toward the right wing. Right now, it’s basically a win or lose situation for us. If we can’t act now, we lose for sure. And Karl Rove will make sure of that.

I can’t imagine such what will happen to our country if that happens. If the Democratic Party gets reduced to satire and publicly rejected academia, then we set ourselves in for a world of neoconservative dominance. And if my theory is correct, the world will fail if that happens. Our military goes crazy because of such invasions like Iraq, setting the stage for a draft, unity will be destroyed in the world when we abandon the UN, America’s income equality will be completely destroyed and forgotten about due to tax cuts, our deficit will be one of the worst in history, crime and civil unrest will result from protest, and still our people will be blinded by the deceits of “moral values”. This is not a fight to scramble over political interest, but a time to protect and perverse the democracy of the United States for ourselves and our posterity.

The Liberal REVOLUTION

Protecting Democracy in America