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The fierce urgency of now and the GOP's withering impotence of 'then'... [1]

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Date: 2022-12-04

the party of no

Dr. King had a way with words. His were always measured, always spoken in the present tense. He speaks of “now” and warns that “this is the time.” It is troubling that his talk of urgency was spoken more than 50 years ago. Today we find ourselves in a place very similar to the one Dr. King had hoped was in our past. Just as then, political will was all that was needed to move us forward. The progress made during Dr. King’s time was achieved because one of the national political parties recognized that the times were changing—America was changing.

Wise politicians understand what hacks never learn— party affiliation is really a mirage. Voting is an anonymous act. Voters who affiliate themselves with a party are part of an anomalous “movement” that has similar aspirations. Most members realize that the vagaries of politics are always in play and the most members can expect of their party is that it provides a common direction and not necessarily a destination. Political parties are and should be an accumulation of compromises, not dictates. The current Republican Party has lost that distinction as it has become a loosely joined coalition that is controlled by its loudest elements who are themselves controlled by donors. Republican Party leadership has devolved as its base has taken it over. Whipped up by unseen forces that have overtaken its apparatus, the GOP has been overtaken by a base, one that has perverted the relationship between its members and its elected leaders. GOP “leaders” follow the whims of its fanatical base, an echo chamber of dubious voices that have rearisen from a not-so-distant past:

‘The modern Republican Party was built upon the Southern beachhead that Goldwater established more than half a century ago. Johnson rightly worried that his embrace of civil rights would lose the South for the Democrats for at least a generation. In 1968, Richard Nixon won the Presidency, employing the Southern Strategy—an appeal to whites’ racial grievances. By 1980, the G.O.P. had become thoroughly dependent on the white South. In 2018, some seventy per cent of “safe” or “likely Republican” districts were in Southern states. Prior to last year’s election, Southerners composed forty-eight per cent of House Republicans and seventy-one per cent of the Party’s ranking committee members. The South remains the nation’s most racially polarized region and also the most religious—two dynamics that factor largely both in the Party’s political culture and in its current problems. “The South,” Patterson writes, “is a key reason why the GOP’s future is at risk.”’ -- The New Yorker, What Is Happening to the Republicans? by Jelani Cobb

the red riptide

Political parties work best when they are aspirational. Republicans of late have resorted to aspirational relativism— what matters is who matters. The recent evidence of a party without a compass is awash with members and leaders supporting antisemitism, racism, misogyny, and anti-gay bias. White nationalism has inserted itself where a party platform used to exist.

Democrats sometimes question our own party’s lack of urgency, or its ability to appeal to voters who disagree with us— traits Republicans seem to own in spades. While the recent midterms brought promising results, the closeness of the margins of our victories suggests caution. While Democrats averted a “red wave” there were some disconcerting notes. A Wall Street Journal election post-mortem reveals:

White voters represented 72% of the total vote and Republicans outpolled Dems 58% to 39%

Women outvoted men (52% to 47%) but Dems won that demographic by only 1 point (49% to 48%)

The corresponding male vote was decidedly in favor of the GOP 54% to 43%

The age distribution showed that Democrats won among younger (18 to 49) voters who represented less than 43% of the total vote

The demographic advantage among this group ranged from 14% (18 to 24-year-old) down to 1% for the 40-49 year-olds

Republicans took the older demos 50 to 65+ by margins of 14% to 10% respectively— a group that represented over 54% of the total voter profile.

In addition, a CNN early exit poll review showed that Democrats lost support in all major demographics among its major coalition when compared to 2018 results.

Clearly, the parties themselves are polarized to the extent that divided government will continue into the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, inflation and culture war issues like abortion rights and immigration cut more into Democratic voters’ considerations than their Republican counterparts. The WSJ review listed the economy/jobs as a much more important consideration among voters by a wide margin and Republican candidates won among “economy” voters 65% to 32%. The same article notes that Democratic positions on climate, guns, abortion, and healthcare were favored by voters but were ranked much lower as motivating issues than the economy.

the gift of “crazy”

Democrats can take heart in recent reports that the economy is turning around, It is also fair to note that, given the war in Ukraine and the domestic conditions left behind by the previous administration, this is a manufactured issue that this administration has inherited. The truth is that the 2024 election cycle will be impacted by a separate portfolio of issues that arise in the next two years.

The next election may indeed turn on a far different concern— the perception of competence and rational judgment present in the opposing parties. The current level of “crazy” present in GOP ranks has given Democrats a crucial advantage among independent voters in both recent midterm elections. Even though the margin narrowed in 2022, independents gave Democrats a 4% advantage, and in 2020 Biden bested his rival among independents by 9%.

If Trump wins the GOP nomination and Biden decides on a second term the lunatic factor goes up— and that should be an advantage to Dems if the right’s fascist fever has been broken. The level of damage to our democratic institutions is still uncertain. The time remaining for anti-democratic forces to prevail is dwindling. Demographics are against them. Younger, more educated, and urban and suburban voters are allied if not with Democrats, then with progress. The Republican Party as currently constituted has a limited appeal that exists almost entirely among white, less educated, rural, southern, and older voters.

While the arguments that separate the parties may seem political and to an extent reasonable, the most important differences are reducible to one untenable obstacle— they fear change:

‘Conversely, Republicans have moved further away from emerging groups in the electorate, resurrecting political tactics that are reminiscent of the segregation-era South. “If your base is ninety per cent white, and you’re losing Asian-Americans by two to one, the Black vote by nine to one, and the Hispanics by two to one,” Thomas Patterson told me, “voter suppression becomes the only viable strategic option.’ — Jelani Cobb

we are it

Race divides us as no other issue can because we allow it to. The change referred to above this quote is unrelenting and not at all optional. It is not coming, rather, it is here. I remember listening to Barack Obama and his speech on the night of the 2008 Super Tuesday primaries. He had just lost New Hampshire to Hillary, as I recall, and his words reminded me of the eloquence of Dr. King, and the hopefulness that wells up in those who know hardships:

“You see, the challenges we face will not be solved with one meeting in one night. It will not be resolved on even a Super Duper Tuesday. Change will not come if we wait for some other person or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek... We are the hope of the future, the answer to the cynics who tell us our house must stand divided, that we cannot come together, that we cannot remake this world as it should be.” — Senator Barack Obama, February 5, 2008



And so, it is up to us. There is no more time for us to wait for others to pass the torch on. We have run out of tomorrows—and there is no urgency “of then.”

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/12/4/2135173/-The-fierce-urgency-of-now-and-the-GOP-s-withering-impotence-of-then

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