Monday, October 23, 2006

Atrios On Brand Democrat
Originally posted 7/31/06

I like reading Eschaton. Lots of good stuff there. But in this particular post, Atrios quotes an excellent piece by Mark Schmidt and makes a great point about those who call themselves Democrats, and what that means. Both use a recent legislative example, the pro-Citibank anti-human being bankruptcy bill, to underscore what that means on the ground.

Read it and weep, bitches:

Checklist Liberalism

Mark Schmitt writes:

[snip]

The second reason is that Lamont supporters actually aren’t ideologues. They aren’t looking for the party to be more liberal on traditional dimensions. They’re looking for it to be more of a party. They want to put issues on the table that don’t have an interest group behind them - like Lieberman’s support for the bankruptcy bill -- because they are part of a broader vision. And I think that’s what blows the mind of the traditional Dems. They can handle a challenge from the left, on predictable, narrow-constituency terms. But where do these other issues come from? These are “elitist insurgents,” as Broder puts it - since when do they care about bankruptcy? What if all of a sudden you couldn’t count on Democratic women just because you said that right things about choice - what if they started to vote on the whole range of issues that affect women’s economic and personal opportunities?

But caring about bankruptcy, even if you’re not teetering on the brink of it or a bankruptcy lawyer yourself, is part of a vision of a just society. And a vision of a just society - not just the single-issue push-buttons of a bunch of constituency groups - is what a center-left political party ought to be about. And at the end of this fight, I don’t expect that we’ll have a more leftist Democratic Party, but one that can at least begin to get beyond checklist liberalism.

[snip]

The bankruptcy bill is the perfect example of legislation no one claiming to be a Democrat should support, and more than that one that every good Democrat should have opposed by any means at their disposable (including filibuster, Joe). It's the kind of legislation which is often marked as "centrist" by the media, as it's supported by a coalition of evil Republicans and self-described "moderate" Democrats, but there's nothing centrist or moderate about it. Unlike some other awful Republican legislation which conservatives have been trained to support (any tax cut, tort reform...) there was no popular support for this bill. It was a complete givewaway. It was just stealing from people and giving to campaign donors.

Failing to oppose the bankruptcy bill is one of the reasons brand Democrat has such problems. It's the type of thing which shouldn't require outside pressure. The bill was wrong. Everybody knows that. It was an evil sadistic piece of legislation which will destroy lives. Good Democrats shouldn't have needed to be pushed to oppose it.

Then, he names names. Goddamn, that was good!

Emphasis is mine, bitches.

There really are a lot of people like me, who share my vision of what our society could be and ought to be. These people really do understand the issues and what they mean to average people. Oh, and not a goddamned one of you motherfuckers posting on here has enough money to be a real Gooptard constituent. You are just fucking yourselves (which is fine) and by doing so you are fucking others (which is NOT fine).

--
"Go fuck yourself!"
-- VP Dick "I gots other priorities, bitches" Cheney on the floor of the United States Senate
And isn't it a bad thing to be deceived about the truth, and a good thing to know what the truth is? For I assume that by knowing the truth you mean knowing things as they really are.
-- Plato

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