Can Democrats Be Bold and Wise?

We Need To Go Beyond Reacting
To Symptoms
To Transforming Root Causes

I found myself checking, or trying to check, recently, the exuberance of an exuberant blogger whom I thought was greatly exaggerating the significance of the recent election. What follows is a revision of my comment to that blogger.

I like your exuberance. But someone fresh from Mars who might read your blog could conclude that you are reporting that our republic has been blessed with some sort of unanimous enlightenment. You seem to be overstretching a little. You say, “the same electorate that bestowed benefit of the doubt two years ago called it all back.” This statement, of course, is not true. A great amount of the electorate, in fact, stayed true to the Republicans -- as evidenced in the fact that there were a great many Republicans who were elected, and, evidenced in the fact the margin of victory for many Democrats was very narrow.

The polling data shows that there were a significant number of independent voters who changed their minds about the Republicans, but, the data also shows that there were many independent voters who did not change their minds.

Excuse my wet blanket, but the political situation we will find two years from now is one almost impossible to predict. I just don’t think there is sufficient reason to make your proclamation that, “Republican hegemony is dead.”

Democrats have an opportunity for hegemony -- but I have no evidence, as yet, that convinces me that Democrats will not simply fall back into their old self-destructive habits, and lose the opportunnity that has been given to them. My point is: It behooves the Democrats to use their opportunities now to prove their worth — to use whatever opportunities they can to define and show their commitment to the constitution, to justice, wisdom, liberty — to make hay while the sun shines.

It is time, well past time, to deal with the difficult questions of economy, justice and peace -- nationally, as well as globally. Terrorism is a symptom. Poverty is a symptom. Hatred is a symptom. Fanaticism is a symptom. We need to go beyond reacting to symptoms to transforming root causes. We need to extend our vision of our society and our world to a comprehensive view at least twenty-five years into the future -- rather than simply to the next elction cycle. The truth is, today’s trends portend terrible world wide disasters -- unless there is wise intervention. I can't help but make that drear conclusion, one contrary to my desire for positive thinking. And this drear realization of impending doom, I believe, more and more will impress itself on voters and will influence voters to demand that political processes produce solutions to profound questions.

Democrats need to show conviction and boldness. Our Democratic members of congress need to demonstrate that they are serious problem solvers who seek to deal with profound questions. For example, raising the minimum wage is a good start to help the working poor, but, it does not deal with the question of the working poor in a profound way and it should be advanced only as a start. Raising the minimum wage, by itself, fails by a large margin to really address or fix the root causes of the economic injustice at the heart of our economic system. To address the economic question, Democratic members of congress must find and articulate better and bolder economic solutions, to better deal with the issue of economic injustice (and also to better deal with the issue of the tremendous un-used potential in America for the production of wealth).

I believe that, as the problems of our society and our world beome more evident, that the gap between our potential as a nation and our fulfilment as a nation becomes ever more dramatic. There is a growing majority of voters who see this gap and who see the purpose of politics as finding profound understanding of root problems and as creating solutions to those problems. The growing majority, I believe, will increasingly reward those politicians who will take bold stands. Yes, Republicans have been punished in this election cycle -- most of all, it seems to me, for their incompetence. Democratic congress members have an opportunity to show that they are competent. The danger is that they will waste the opportunity by being too conservative, too reserved, too politically safe. After all, boldness in politics is seen as dangerous.

The long lasting politician traditionally is one who rejects boldness and who has found ways to not rocked the boat. But we are in an era, I believe, where those who persist in the pursuit of traditional politics will be rejected. Maintaining the optimism of this election, it seems to me, will turn on whether Democratic congress members will be bold -- in the use of wisdom, and in the exercise of competence -- in advancing the American ideals of liberty and justice, and in pursuing profound transformations at the root cause of problems.