Democratic fecklessness

This headline, from the Washington Post, is the sort of flabbergasting bombshell that could dynamite anyone out of a personal stupor: "Democrats vow to pursue Medicare message after N.Y. and Nevada losses."

I confess that I wasn't paying attention to these special elections; a personal crisis had kept my mind elsewhere. Yesterday afternoon, though, when I saw the headline land in my inbox, my scant attention to it registered only a half-caring awareness that, yep, it looks like Democrats screwed up again.

Only this morning did I open and read the story with palsied anticipation. And sure enough, it seems that in record time Democrats managed to take an ironclad winner of an issue -- the GOP's ruthless assault on Medicare, which had been "central to Democrats’ campaign efforts in the early part of this year" -- and warehouse it.

The Post is exceptionally kind to the Dems, reporting that Medicare (see "ironclad winner") had faded as the debt debacle ascended. But let us be more precise. The issue didn't just "fade"; Democrats, exercising once again their inimitable talent for political fecklessness, allowed it to fade by neglecting to push it, front and center.

Earlier this year, when the GOP House opted to gut one of the two most cherished programs for seniors -- who actually vote, as though this is some kind of a representative democracy -- most observers believed that Republicans had tied their own noose and then thoughtfully hurled it over the scaffold bar. All that awaited their political plunge was for Democrats to pull the lever, district by doomed district.

That Democrats did not is merely an eerie confirmation that Democratic fecklessness lives on and thrives, especially during times of greatest opportunity.

But at least my stupor remains undisturbed.

Comments

[CK MacLeod]

The pundits, the politicians, and lots of political junkies, too, are all paralyzed by economism or economic determinism. None seems to have recognized that reducing democracy to "relative credit/discredit for recent economic growth levels" is the death of democracy.

[You Don't Say]

It's been my mission the last couple days to shout that Amodei's win in Nevada means nothing. The district has never elected a Democrat, Marshall was a catastrophically bad candidate and the national Dems didn't lift a finger or a dime to help her. Our governor just endorsed Perry. You think they're gonna send a Dem to the House? (The district is most of the state save Las Vegas, where most of the Dems reside.)

We lost long ago when the stock market became the most important indicator.

[Frank Sinclair]

The Democratic Party, from Barack Obama on down, has been Alan Colmesified.

If Obama wins ten states next year, and the Dems have 150 in the House, it will be a miracle.

This stunning stupidity on their part never ceases to be stunning or stupid.

[Robert Lipscomb]

In the wake of the Iraq invasion, I wrote another mediocre pem with the opening lines, "I live in a land of fools./I live in a time of cowards."

Unfortunately, those sentiments have only increased since then. how does a society in the midst of an economic crisis decide to give up it social safety nets?

I suppose the answer is simple. For more than 45 years, the majority of white Americans have whored after politicians assured them that all their problems are caused by people that are different from them. For over 30 years, they queched themselves with the lie that the wealthy would ensure their economic security after they "took a little taste" before trckling down. And for ten years, they have enslaved themselves to masters who promisee to protect them from the Boogey Man.

I am close to sharing the cynical contempt for Americans that the likes of the Koch brothers have.

"God help us. Help us lose our minds."