DISASTER The Culture War Begins At a friend's request I found myself at the Human Rights Campaign Election Party last night in West Hollywood. If there was a more liberal place to be standing on November 2nd, I don't know where it is. As the night wore on and the mood shifted to quiet talk of how fucked this country is, it became clear that I was standing in the crater of a social conservative a-bomb which had just destroyed the Democratic Party. I don't use that phrase lighty. The Democratic Party is gone. Toast. Finis. George W. Bush's neo-con evangelical movement has taken control of the country and in fact, the results point out that they really had been in control of the country all along. Let's not blame the Dem's too much. They did a remarkable job of energizing their base, moving to the center, creating grassroots orginizations and presenting an articulate vision for the country espoused by a candidate who- yes, is a liberal Senator from Massachusettes, but who really was the best they had. The party managed to unify progressives and liberal moderates, get minorities and the youth to vote in numbers they had not done so before, but at the end of the day, more people share George W. Bush's vision for America than John Kerry's. The Dem's didn't fuck it up, they JUST LOST. That is why this is a disaster. Forget for a moment the now inevitable overturning of Roe v. Wade, the prospect of unceassing bloody war and foriegn hatred. Dismiss the debt ceiling and our flailing economy. This is just the frosting on the NeoCon cake. What is truly frightening is that Bush and his cadre have gauranteed, short of a Bill Clinton rising up from some Southern backwater, thirty, perhaps fourty years of evangelical control of the government. Here's how: The Democratic Party will now fracture in two. One side will continue the old strategy of moderation from the center. The exit polls indicate that more than the war or the economy (which were liabilities for Bush after all), the deciding factor for voters are 'moral issues.' Expect the centirst dems to drop these issues like hot potatoes. Of course the biggest potato is gay rights and marriage. Though the Dems will never say it, expect them to privately blame gays and lesbians for costing them the election. Don't expect to hear them supporting any gay legislation for the next decade or so. The other splinter is the Progressive Movement. They wanted Dean, but played along with centrists because they wanted to see Bush go down so badly. This will never happen again. If Nader hasn't fully morphed into looking like the Evil Emporer by 2008, he should run again; he'll get huge numbers. Progressives are- oh who am I kidding, I am a Progressive. We're really bitter and dissapointed and the members who actually do vote will not be voting for a Democrat any time soon, especially since the Democrats will be morphing into what the Republican Party used to be. The country has shifted radically to the right and has done so by being scared into believing that it has been shifting left. I'm writing off the Democrats. I had registered Dem last October, but seriously, screw them. Hear that? Screw you. Here's why: You're an elitist party. My parents grew up poor. My first home was a trailer. Both of my parents are Republicans and part of the reason they are, I think, is because the Dems run their party like an Upper West Side cocktail soiree. How many times last night did I hear derision cast at the South and Midwest (which went totally for Bush) for being full of "ignorant" or "uneducated morons?" Guess what? Voters are unlikley to vote for a party that treats them like they are backwater hicks. They aren't. Get that through your skull, Democrats. Every major socially progressive movement has come from the lower class (the Civil Rights Movement, The Progressive Movement in the 30's, FDR's New Deal). Yes, you have lower class interest at heart. Yes, you deeply care about the plight of the poor, but get your hands dirty. Memo to John Kerry: Wearing an L.L. Bean jacket now and then does not constiute "getting your hands dirty." More to come.

posted by Japhy at 11/03/2004 01:37:00 PM || #