Who Democrats Need to Be

"I am not a member of any organized party — I am a Democrat." Will Rogers

I’ve used that quote to define my own politics for most of 50 years. While it’s true that most of the history of the Democratic Party is full of disorder and general stupidity, it wasn’t all like that. The Democratic Party that gave the country FDR and Henry Wallace was a lot more unified and a lot less concerned with bullshit. In 1933, Roosevelt desperately needed his Iowan farmer-intellectual Secretary of Agriculture New Deal star to bring order and discipline to the country’s collapsed and desperate agricultural economy. In 1940, Roosevelt dumped John Garner after the conservative VP opposed the attempt to stack the Supreme Court and ran against Roosevelt for the Democratic nomination. Roosevelt picked Wallace for the job and the Roosevelt/Wallace ticked won 449 Electoral College votes and won the election by 4,000,000 votes. Wallace was a practical Progressive who ran as a real Democrat along with Roosevelt’s more traditional ruling elite Democrat. The party hasn’t seen that many actual Democrats since.

That, however, is the solution to the party’s current schizophrenic lack of personality. The problem with what’s left of the Democrats is “the left.” If you read the stupid crap the DNC lists on its “mission statement,” you’d think the party’s purpose is to get anyone willing wear a DNC badge elected to any office they can afford to run for: “The DLCC's mission is to build and maintain winning, state-of-the-art campaign committees through a continuing partnership with legislative leaders, professional staff, and supporters.”

What the hell is that bullshit? The purpose of a political party is NOT to get elected, but to accomplish something useful for the country. Doing stupid, selfish, greedy, useless crap is why people elect Republicans. Democrats need to quit trying to appeal to every CEO, bankster, moderately liberal Hollywood actor or rock star, or, most importantly, any aspect of the usual crazy-assed left wing of the party. Let the progressives, LBGT’s, anarchists, BLM’s, socialists, communists, and whatever else has been swept up by the disorganized party of mostly losing candidates. If any of those groups can find a home or make one for themselves, they’ll be lucky to attract the usual 1% of the alternative vote; just like the Libertarians, Socialist, Communist, Progressive, Green, Independence, and the other responsibility-avoidance distractions.

Democrats, on the other hand, need to appeal to one group and only one group, the 91-99% of the American voter pool; working class Americans. Fuck their special interests, but everything that should matter to the 127 million working adults in this country should matter to the Democratic Party. Subtracting the 1-9% of that group who represent the faux-working bunch of executives, that leaves 126 million voters whose votes should be the exclusive property of a functioning Democratic Party.

The problem the voters have is figuring out who the actual Democrats are. Nobody, right or left, wants to vote for a Republican wearing a DNC badge. Harry Truman said, "Given the choice between a Republican and someone who acts like a Republican, people will vote for the real Republican all the time." I suspect that is true for real Democrats, too.