The Democratic Party and the Future of American Politics
David Friedman
February 2007
files.tikkun.org
(A shorter version of this article appeared in New Politics, Vol XI, No 2)
1. Fiddling While Rome Burns
After six years of the Bush administration, the initial public euphoria over the midterm election was understandable. The Democratic victory was rightly interpreted as a referendum on Iraq as well as a reaction to Republican scandals and mismanagement of the economy. However, the subsequent emphasis on "bipartisanship" and jockeying for position over the 2008 Presidential election has already cast a pall over the prospect for significant change even on the burning issue of the Iraq war. A weakened President has nonetheless taken the initiative by escalating the war with the so-called surge and threats against Iran. People whose hopes rest on the Democratic Party as a progressive vehicle should take note that "their" party is in fact lagging well behind the public on the war issue, supports an aggressive foreign policy and has little to offer on domestic issues, notwithstanding small or rhetorical gestures toward the base.
Thoughtful people who see beyond the intellectual blinders of party affiliation are becoming aware that things are going terribly wrong for America, and politics-as-usual are not dealing with it. We can see multiple catastrophes on the horizon: larger wars, resource shortages and global warming, a growing national debt and trade deficit, health care and pension systems in crisis and a working class whose very livelihoods are under attack. The major parties help rather than hinder wealthy elites and powerful corporations to bloat themselves with riches and plunder the earth. Feeling powerless, people look to one section of the country's political elite to save them from the other. Feeling alienated and with no positive vision of a future for the nation and the world, people are vulnerable to demagogues who use patriotism and religiosity to manipulate the public and turn one group against another.
For most of the liberal and labor left the central idea has been to "take back the Congress" in 2006 and then "take back the Presidency" in 2008. This is based on the belief that the Democratic Party is "our party" -- albeit a party that may need some changes. However, the actual record of the Democratic Party is one of complicity, not opposition, and if it is changing it is in the wrong direction. People who see only that the Republicans are worse -- which is undeniable -- overlook the ideological similarities of the two parties and their collaboration on issues of the greatest importance, such as the erosion of democracy from the Patriot Act of 2001 to the Military Commissions Act of 2006.
2. Congress and the Two-Party System
An analysis of American politics should be based on actions and results rather than wishful thinking, the rhetoric of professional speech-writers and the manipulations of cynical political "handlers." In this section we will do an exercise in reality testing by reviewing some important decisions passed by overwhelming votes in Congress. These votes -- and many others that could be cited, as well as inaction where action is direly needed -- expose the bipartisan consensus of America's political elites as expressed through the major parties.
The Imperial Presidency
The central threat to America's constitutional democracy is the ascendancy of the Executive branch with its huge bureaucracy, covert agencies, ever-growing military establishment and global operations. Heading this Executive is the President, who is endowed with more power than any Emperor in the history of the world. It is not simply a matter of the individual occupying the office: George Bush as a person is a mediocrity; it is the political system (in the broadest sense, including the political parties, the mass media and the prevailing national ideology) that gives him the power to plunge the country into insane wars and set it on the path to bankruptcy. As global affairs come more and more to dominate all other issues, militarism and the principle of the Imperial Presidency has become dominant among America's elites as well as the general public. See Senator Robert C. Byrd's book, Losing America (2004), for an eloquent account of the abdication of the Senate and the security-based demagoguery and rush to war in the post-9/11 period.
The Terry Schiavo Bill
In March of 2005, Members of Congress met in emergency session to pass a bill backed by the Bush administration which allowed the parents of comatose Terry Schiavo to seek a special federal court review after normal judicial processes had been exhausted. This grotesque attack on the Rule of Law and the Constitutional Separation of Powers cleared the Senate on a voice vote and passed the House by a late-night vote of 203 to 58 -- an unprincipled disregard of the Constitution to curry favor with America's religious right.
The Patriot Act -- 2001 and 2006
Shortly after 9/11, both houses of Congress passed the original Patriot Act in a near-unanimous vote. This perhaps could be attributed to the panicky atmosphere at the time, but no such excuse exists for the 2006 renewal of the Patriot Act, a bipartisan decision that legitimized the abuses of the Bush administration and further empowered whatever future ruling group controls the Executive branch.
On July 14, 2005 the New York Times reported that Democratic Senator Feinstein had joined with Republican Senator Specter in sponsoring a bill to make fourteen of sixteen expiring provisions of the Patriot Act permanent. On February 17, 2006 the Associated Press reported a Senate vote of 96 to 3 to extend the expiring provisions of the Patriot Act.
The Military Commissions Act of 2006
This bill, which guts the U.S. Constitution and lays the juridical groundwork for an American dictatorship, passed by a vote of 65 to 34 in the Senate, and 253 to 168 in the House. The Military Commissions Act is not normal law; in gross disregard of the U.S. Constitution and the norms of civilized society, it wipes out a centuries-long principle of habeus corpus, gives the Executive branch the power to indefinitely detain anyone it determines to have "purposefully and materially" supported anti-U.S. hostilities, allows evidence collected through hearsay and coercion, and immunizes U.S. officials from prosecution for cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of prisoners. See, for example, the September 29, 2006 Washington Post article by R. Jeffrey Smith, "Many Rights in US Legal System Absent in New Bill". One ought to ask why the 34 Senators who voted against this bill did not filibuster. It's hard to imagine a more important issue on which to wage an all-out fight. The standard explanation based on "political cowardice" is a weak kind of analysis which, in a subtle way, passes blame onto the public by suggesting that American voters would not support political leaders who fight for the U.S. Constitution.
Immigration and the Border Fence
The controversy over illegal immigrants has given rise to the most massive working class demonstrations of recent decades, in a country beset with anxiety over the disappearance and degradation of jobs. The showboating proposals in Congress only pit one kind of worker against another, reflecting the elitist and predatory value system of the bipartisan consensus.
Instead of considering jobs programs and joint economic development projects with Mexico that could alleviate both illegal immigration and the justified concerns of American workers, Congress passed a border security bill that contributes to anti-immigrant xenophobia and exacerbates relations with Mexico.
On September 29, 2006 the Senate voted 80 to 19 to approve 700 miles of border fence which would span only a fraction of the U.S.-Mexico border even if it were actually funded and built. Meanwhile, the President has called for a program to import millions of "guest" workers to satisfy employer desires for cheap labor. Ironically, much of the opposition to this idea comes from conservatives in the Republican Party, while leading Democrats support a guest worker program allegedly sweetened by a lengthy, punitive and unreliable "road to citizenship."
Illegal immigration owes much of its recent impetus to massive loss of jobs in Mexico due to NAFTA, which was passed with Bill Clinton's support. See Jeff Faux's book, The Global Class War (2006) for a highly educational account of how NAFTA was approved.
Authorization and Continued Funding of the Iraq War
On October 11, 2002 Congress authorized President Bush to invade Iraq. The vote was 77 to 23 in the Senate, and 296 to 133 in the House. In both houses, the fatal resolution passed by more than two-thirds, far exceeding the simple majority held by Republicans.
On March 16, 2006 the House voted 348 to 71 for an emergency spending package that included an additional $72 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, bringing the costs of these wars to many hundreds of billions of dollars.
Senate Confirmation Votes
• Condaleezza Rice by 85 to 13
• Alberto Gonzales, the defender of torture, by 60 to 36
• Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito with no filibusters
The lackluster opposition to Justice Alito made a farce of earlier claims that Democrats were avoiding small battles in order to fight the big ones. The vaunted struggle over the Supreme Court ended with a whimper. The consequences could prove catastrophic. In addition to the right to abortion, forthcoming issues include the ability of Congress to use its power to regulate interstate commerce for environmental purposes, and the constitutionality of domestic surveillance and oppressive detention without habeus corpus.
Anti-Consumer Legislation
The "class action fairness act" of 2005 passed the Senate by 72 to 26, and the House by 279 to 149. The "bankruptcy reform bill" of 2005 passed the Senate by 74 to 25, and the House by 302 to 126.
Support of Israel's Attack On Lebanon
On July 20, 2006 the House voted 410 to 8 for a shameful resolution that unconditionally endorsed Israel's ongoing attacks on Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, praised President Bush for “fully supporting Israel,” and praised Israel for “minimizing civilian loss.” The Senate passed its own supportive resolution by voice vote.
Nuclear Proliferation
In November 2006 the Senate voted 85 to 14 for a deal to support India in developing nuclear power technology. This only a few years after India and Pakistan went to the brink of a nuclear confrontation. Never mind that America's hawks were already beating the war drums over the Iranian nuclear power project. On November 20, 2006 the San Francisco Chronicle editors applauded the India nuclear deal in these glowing terms:
"President Bush was right to take up the issue. He has resolved to cultivate a powerful new friend -- the world's largest democracy, a surging industrial power and regional counterweight to China and Russia.... The 85-14 Senate vote in Nov 2006 was that much-promised example of bipartisanship. The two eminences grises of foreign policy -- Republican Richard Lugar of Indiana and Democrat Joe Biden of Delaware -- both supported it. India's future plans to expand nuclear-power generation could be a $100 billion market for American firms."
There we have it: The problem of nuclear proliferation subordinated to the two dominant elements of the bipartisan consensus: geopolitical power and corporate profit.
Somini Sengupta, writing from New Delhi in the December 10, 2006 New York Times, makes the point explicitly:
"Ask the champions of the landmark nuclear deal with India that President Bush is expected to sign into law next week why only that country will be allowed into the world's nuclear club while others are denied, and a common reason you will hear is this: unlike those others, India will be a responsible nuclear citizen.
But beyond simple good will, unique commercial and strategic imperatives have driven a bipartisan swell of support for the deal, even though New Delhi steadfastly rejects the global nonproliferation treaty and advances a nuclear weapons program....
That a contentious bill has enjoyed so much bipartisan support is revealing. Neither Democrats nor Republicans, it seems, think that the opportunity can be passed up."
The danger of nuclear proliferation cannot be overstated. It has become fashionable to focus on the threat of one or several nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists,
but that terrible prospect pales by comparison with a war between countries armed with nuclear weapons and effective delivery systems. Thom Shanker, writing in the May 27, 2002 New York Times, summarized the prospects of an exchange of nuclear weapons between India and Pakistan as follows: "An American intelligence assessment, completed this week as tensions between India and Pakistan intensified, warns that a full-scale nuclear exchange between the two rivals could kill up to 12 million people immediately and injure up to 7 million, Pentagon officials say."
Even that could understate the danger. Keay Davidson reports on this subject in the December 12, 2006 San Francisco Chronicle:
Small nuclear war could severely cool the planet
A regional nuclear war between Third World nations could trigger planetwide cooling that would likely ravage agriculture and kill millions of people....
For many years, Western military scientists and strategists have assumed that the damage from small-scale regional nuclear wars would be limited to continents on which they occurred. Now, in a revamping of the "nuclear winter" debate of the 1980s, new and far more sophisticated computer models show that even these little nuclear wars could create global devastation.
Scientists, reporting their findings at the American Geophysical Conference in San Francisco, said vast urban firestorms ignited by war would send thick, dark clouds into the upper atmosphere, blocking the sun's rays and cooling much of the planet, with severe climatic and agricultural results.
The soot might remain in the upper atmosphere for up to a decade.... In some places, the planet could cool more than it did during the so-called Little Ice Age of the 17th century, when glaciers advanced over much of northern Europe, said Alan Robock of Rutgers University, speaking Monday at a news conference at the Moscone Center, where the conference is being held this week....
The climatic effects of the regional nuclear wars were computer-modeled by Turco and colleagues including another veteran nuclear winter theorist, Owen Brian Toon, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Colorado; his student colleague, Charles Bardeen; Robock; scientist Georgi Stenchikov, also of Rutgers; and Luke Oman of Johns Hopkins University...."
The worst case scenario is still nuclear war involving the U.S. and Russia. Despite the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties begun in 1991 and the (worse) Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty signed by Washington and Moscow in 2002, both countries possess thousands of nuclear devices and missiles -- enough to destroy all of civilization and make the planet uninhabitable for human life.
In a speech at an international security conference on February 10, 2007, the authoritarian Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who is as steeped in geopolitical maneuvering as any American politician, attacked the U.S. for provoking a new nuclear arms race. New York Times writers Thom Shanker and Mark Landler reported on Putin's speech:
Putin Says U.S. Is Undermining Global Stability
By THOM SHANKER and MARK LANDLER
MUNICH, Feb. 10 --President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia accused the United States on Saturday of provoking a new nuclear arms race by developing ballistic missile defenses, undermining international institutions and making the Middle East more unstable through its clumsy handling of the Iraq war....
Mr. Putin joked that he worried the United States was hiding extra warheads under the pillow despite its treaties with Moscow to reduce strategic nuclear stockpiles. And he indicated obliquely that the new Russian ballistic missile, known as the Topol-M, was being developed at least in part in response to American efforts to field missile defenses.
He expressed alarm that an effective antimissile shield over the United States would upset a system of mutual fear that kept the nuclear peace throughout the cold war. That means the balance will be upset, completely upset, he said...."
Emphasizing the bipartisan character of America's posture as the world superpower, the Times article quotes Republican Senator John McCain and "Independent Democrat" Joe Lieberman in "rebuttals" to Putin that treat his remarks as nothing but confrontational rhetoric. Only an American audience, protected from the international facts of life by a stultifying mass media, would fail to recognize the harsh realities expressed by Putin in this unusual speech.
3. A Conceptual Framework
How is all this to be interpreted? Some people try to explain the performance of the Democratic Party office-holders solely as maneuvering and political cowardice. The implication is that their hearts are in the right place and if only we can give them even more support, and avoid embarrassing criticism or demands, they will grow backbones and act on their true beliefs. (Conservatives, by contrast, are more likely to give their politicians a swift kick in the rear if they disappoint -- for example, forcing President Bush to withdraw his Supreme Court nomination of Harriet Miers.) There is no lack of political cowardice in Washington, but more important is the actual conservatism of the Democratic Party leadership, functionaries and their big money backers. America's political elites share a broad bipartisan consensus on most major issues. By objective standards and compared to any other half-way democratic country, the spectrum of acceptable ideas is extremely narrow.
The bipartisan consensus includes a commitment to "free market" economics (which is both a license for corporations to steal on an international scale and an ideological impediment to socially progressive projects and policies), and a drive toward world hegemony with its concomitant bloated military establishment and chauvinistic concept of American exceptionalism. For some deep insights on this subject, see Andrew Bacevich's books, American Empire (2002) and The New American Militarism (2005), and Chalmers Johnson's trilogy: Blowback (2000), The Sorrows of Empire (2004) and Nemesis (2006).
The bipartisan consensus supports the Global War On Terror, a slogan that masks an aggressive foreign policy and may lead to a war with the Islamic world. While alarms ring about North Korean and future Iranian nuclear weapons, there is little talk of nuclear disarmament by our own country and other major powers, or Israel and the potential tinderboxes of India and Pakistan. It should be noted that a part of the American left shares this reticence, based on the idea that nuclear weapons can serve as an "equalizer" for weak countries. This shows that "crackpot realism" (the term coined by C. Wright Mills fifty years ago in The Causes of World War Three) has its devotees in the left as elsewhere. It is a logic that can lead to the incineration of entire populations and the end of all hope for humanity.
In summary, when it comes to basic policy, the two parties seem more like a single bipolar organism. To understand this phenomenon, we have to think beyond the mechanics and machinations of electoral politics. The essence of a political party is the active, organized expression of a class or sector of society, struggling in a variety of ways for their social, economic and national goals, beliefs and values.
In this deeper sense of "party" America is governed by one party with Democratic and Republican wings. The two wings are not "the same." They have different styles and somewhat different voter bases, and they compete with each other over jobs, but they collaborate in a single system of governance whose primary allegiance is to the country's wealthiest elites and corporations, who fund both parties and make sure that they have a near-monopoly of access to the public. Because of the differences there are some benefits to a Democratic Party victory, such as occasional raising of the minimum wage, but this doesn't come close to offsetting the continung loss of good jobs to offshoring, the prospect of importing cheap "guest" labor from Mexico, the disappearance of pensions and affordable health care, tax benefits for millionaires and billionaires, inaction on global warming, and the terrible human and financial costs of war.
The Party of Davos
In The Global Class War, Jeff Faux observes that "the politics of the global market reflect a virtual one-party system." Faux coins the phrase "Party of Davos" for the constellation of wealthy elites and powerful economic and political institutions that collectively represent the interests of the global investor class and share in its prosperity. Davos is a resort in the Swiss Alps "where managers and agents of the world's most important enterprises meet annually among themselves and with political leaders to discuss the state of the world.... " There are, of course, many other meetings of that nature, but Davos is one of the best known and provides a fitting symbol for our conceptual framework.
The Democratic and Republican parties with their elected and appointed officials, functionaries, patronage machines and intellectual defenders, represent the Party of Davos in American politics and government.
The Cases of Joe Lieberman and Howard Dean
Howard Dean's rapid transformation from an outspoken critic of the Iraq war and leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004, to a party figurehead and fundraiser illustrates one form of power wielded by the Party of Davos. In a single barrage of newspaper headlines based solely on the triviality of a "war whoop" at the end of a speech, Dean virtually overnight became "non-presidential and unelectable."
For Senator Leiberman it was the other way around. Democratic voters rejected him as their candidate, but with continued funding, respectability and Republican support, he won reelection as a putative Independent and has lost none of his influence in the Senate. It is naive to think that the Democratic Party can be taken over or moved to the left solely through its official structures and primaries. The Party of Davos has many mechanisms of control and is not easily subordinated to simple majority votes.
4. America Needs a Second Party
One of the tenets of the bipartisan consensus is that "class war," including any serious initiatives that threaten corporate profits or prerogatives, must be avoided at all cost. In reality, a one-sided class war is being waged unrelentingly by corporations, governments, international financial institutions, well-funded think tanks and the mass media. The offshoring of jobs, for example, is not due to a natural force; it is a strategy to maximize profitability, drive down wages and working conditions, and undermine trade unions. In many cases the mere threat or possibility of offshoring exerts an enormous intimidating effect on workers and their organizations.
America needs fundamental changes that can only be won by mass movements organized for struggle on many fronts including the political -- a true second party and not just in the narrow sense of electing candidates to office. As long as people depend on saviors from above -- presidents, senators or benevolent billionaires -- they will remain subject to the Party of Davos. Obviously a credible new party cannot be pulled out of the air or just declared by a few good people. It will require support from the rank and file and leaders of substantial liberal and labor groups that are currently committed, albeit grudgingly in many cases, to the Democratic Party. Until a foundation is laid and a critical mass of support achieved, this is a perspective, a strategy that can give direction to opposition movements and labor militants, and can be the basis for steps in that direction.
The Shape of a New Party
When people hear "new party" they tend to visualize campaigns, candidates, and elected officials. This is like imagining a building without a foundation, a professional athlete without years of training and development, a tree emerging fully grown from the earth. It assumes that political action must resemble the mode of operation of the Democrats and Republicans. On the contrary, a party that is to be an active, organized expression of working people and progressive movements must be based on democratic mass organizations and commitment to developing a new vision and program for society. A new party should grow out of existing struggles in which people educate themselves to understand complex issues and seek common themes that have broad appeal to the larger public. There are no quick fixes: electoral victories might be won along the way, but more likely that will happen over time as the fruit of the growth of a mass movement.
There is no single organization today that embodies this perspective or which, by itself, has the numbers or credibility to serve as the nucleus of a new party. There are, however, ongoing efforts which can contribute to such a development, given sufficient depth and force of vision. There are streams running in more or less the same direction which might converge in a common current with enough power to move America away from the pursuit of Empire and toward a world of cooperation, peace and plenty.
PDA and the Inside/Outside Strategy
Some say that the Democratic Party can be transformed through the power of numbers and victories in the primaries. More likely, this would result in the Joe Lieberman phenomenon on a larger scale. However, a serious effort by rank and file Democrats to transform their party requires most of the same tasks as building a new party and could lay a foundation for the latter. The most promising development along these lines is the Progressive Democrats of America (see their web site at pdamerica.org. PDA is a movement organization carrying out public education and action, not just a cheering section for politicians. They have a membership structure with the capacity for expansion and for building associations with "ally" organizations that are not necessarily in the Democratic Party. There is a great deal of potential here, if PDA can meet the challenge of retaining their independence and energy in the face of Democratic Party pressures and betrayals.
The Green Party
The Green Party sees itself as a rival and alternative to the Democratic Party. This single idea is both its main contribution and its greatest weakness. Despite its independence, the Green Party emulates the major parties in ways that are too serious to ignore. Their chief characteristic is a candidate-centered electoralism based on campaign committees and small, transient branches of activists with a one-note strategy of running as many races as possible.
Internally the Green Party often operates on the basis of a mushy notion of "consensus" that is an invitation to manipulation by leaders and cliques. There is no real membership organization; for the most part, candidates and their entourages, together with small circles of loyalists, speak on behalf of uninvolved Green voters -- a familiar pattern in American politics. The Greens could play a more positive role if they adopt a serious approach to democratic rank and file organization and seek fraternal relationships with PDA and other like-minded groups, instead of viewing them as rivals.
Tikkun/NSP
It is worth taking note of the Tikkun Community and Network of Spiritual Progressives, whose founder and intellectual leader is Rabbi Michael Lerner. An outgrowth of Tikkun Magazine, The Tikkun Community is a voice of progressive Judaism counterposed to the increasingly right wing, Israeli-loyalist positions of many American Jewish leaders. The Network of Spiritual Progressives now plays a similar role as a progressive alternative to the religious right. TC/NSP are developing a vision, values and an intellectually serious analysis of issues, and building membership chapters of people who share those goals. Lerner is one of the few prominent people on the left who has had the nerve and insight to stand up publicly against authoritarians of both the left and the right. TC/NSP is following one of many roads that can converge on an alternative to the Party of Davos.
Organized Labor and the Religious Right
The trade unions depend exclusively on the Democratic Party for their political voice, pumping millions of dollars and enormous energy into that vehicle. Union leaders are not known to the public and mostly confine themselves to issues of immediate concern to the trade unions. There is no network of labor-based newspapers or radio stations, and little ongoing involvement in the affairs of local communities. Most union members do not participate in their locals, with occasional exceptions during contract disputes. The dominant approach is a stultifying and increasingly ineffectual "business unionism" rather than a vibrant mass movement with an active political voice and militant leadership. There are partial and localized exceptions, such as the strike of New York City transit workers last year, and organizing efforts among some of the lowest paid workers in the country. However, the labor movement as a whole is stagnant and in decline, due in no small measure to its failure to come to grips with the power and ideology of global capitalism, and its embrace of the narrowest kinds of self-interest.
By contrast, the religious right has thousands of congregations that meet regularly, sponsor community activities and have outspoken pastors, publications, a multitude of right wing radio stations, and television personalities with audiences in the millions. This enables the religious right to exert a strong pressure on the political parties, to influence the thinking of larger communities, and to form alliances with corporate conservatives and militarists. The messages and alliances are largely demagogic and do not truly serve either the practical needs or higher aspirations of those communities, but they are effective because they combine organization, militancy and independence.
Organized labor with its millions of working families, can deliver votes but can't exert much pressure on the Democratic Party because it has no independent ground to stand on. The case for independent political action by labor -- even if it is done on a selective basis at first -- is that it could extract real concessions from the political elites while developing a program, social vision and mass organization that can transform the politics, economics and the quality of life in America.
Conclusion
The central political task of a progressive movement in America is to transform or replace the Democratic Party, both organizationally and in the realm of policies, programs and values. Toward this end, people need to build mass, democratic membership organizations, develop a new kind of politics that embodies the finest aspirations of all humanity and fight for it against the inevitable opposition of powerful political and economic elites. The alternative is to follow the Party of Davos down a long road into darkness. |
