Ready to Implode: The Dem Party


I was watching Lou Dobbs over the weekend, and for the first time his panel of political activists, columnists and other pundits agreed on one thing: They were all sick of the nitpicking and attacks that have been going on during the Democratic Primary.

All of them said that they’ve literally had it.

And while other panelists have not said it, it is clear that this primary season is too long and too bitter. Character assassination and vituperation have trumped the issues—and it is the voter who stands to pay the price.

Moreover, the pandering goes on and the serious stuff that they should really be addressing is sidelined.

If you don’t see this as symptomatic of a Primary season gone wrong, tune in your local Internet mailing groups and forums and you will see more polarization among democratic groups that any of us have remembered in a long, long time. This raises a very serious question: Has the long Primary season been self-defeating? Has it hurt more than it’s helped?

Increasingly, this is the impression being formed.

If the attacks and the calumny continue to the Convention floor, itself, we may witness the coming apart of a party that was guaranteed to take over the White House for the next four years at the very least.

Last year, I penned a book about how Democrats could win back the White House but it did not include self destruction or alienation of the rest of the immediate world.

Sadly, however, this has been a campaign that has been jarring in its insensitivity in one camp vs. the other and we, who call ourselves democrats, have all suffered.

The fact is that we are approaching the eleventh hour now and one thing is clear. The competing candidate who has no interest in giving up prior to the Convention---although she possesses the slightest chance of upsetting the delegate or voter count-- has set her goal on winning “whatever the cost!”

And that cost could be the unity and coherence of the democratic party.

Of course, each of the candidates travails have been amplified by the Republican controlled media, which only worsens matters and the candidates have fallen into their web seeking some little advantage. What they don’t realize is that this media is non-objective, non rational and biased to such a degree that it is virtually impossible to identify the real substance of the candidate’s positions..

Everyone senses that there is not going to be any easy answers that emerge from this struggle and there is serious question as to whether the party can survive intact after being buffeted in this way.

The Independents and cross-over voters, motivated by the decency and fair play of one of the candidates, is now rolling back unsure of itself as if the candidates have raised issues that reverberate through the ranks..

In the process, we have deviated from the most clear cut issues that have defined any political party in the last fifty years.

What will become of this is anyone’s guess at this point.

But the damage has literally been done.

And the hope and good wishes and the sense of fair play that had characterized the early days of this campaign have evanesced before our eyes in mind-numbing accusations and abandoned civility.

Increasingly, it seems to me that in assessing what has happened, we need to look deeper into our selves, our own prejudices and motivations.

For it seems, that while our technology has grown geometrically, our efforts to subdue bias and ignorance and eliminate it from the political equation has literally stood still.

And that is what’s saddest.

Les Aaron
The Armchair Curmudgeon