Do you want to actually debate the subject, or continue to take drivel pop shots?
If you actually want to debate the subject then I will give it a miniscule try.
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]The Clinton experience suggests some painful questions about the probable outcome of the recent Democratic election triumph. Some liberal-left commentators are claiming that the swing to the right is over and the left is now on the march (A Big Step in Nations March to Left, BaltimoreSun). [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]But Clinton turned out to be only a brief slowup in the longer-term move to the right and in some ways he accelerated the move, as in his support of the Personal Responsibility Act of 1996 that ended federal responsibility for poor people. It has been argued that it would have been hard for conservatives to get this responsibility ended so quickly; it required bipartisan support provided by the leadership of a Democratic president. Most important, by pushing for NAFTA and fiscal austerity and failing to carry out any program that served the mass constituency of the Democratic Party, Clinton set the stage for a return of the right wing. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]The lesson was that unless the Democratic Party can actually meet the demands and needs of its mass constituency, its triumph can be short-lived. There are ample grounds for thinking that this problem is more acute now than 14 years ago; and that the existing Democratic Party is likely to fall short of meeting constituency demands. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]The Democratic Party has benefited from a widespread disaffection and distrust of the Bush administrationits wars, corruption, mismanagement, and lieswith votes falling into Democratic hands not because of what the Democrats have done or even promised, but because they are not Bush and company. Bill Fletcher and others have called this the I am fed up vote. Beyond this, if we examine what the Democratic Party stands for, who leads it, who it represents, and what it is likely to do, it is hard to be optimistic. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Frank Rich, John Nichols, and others contest this, arguing that the newly-elected Democrats are almost across the board to the left of the displaced Republicans. Rich acknowledges that disengaging America from that war is what the country voted for overwhelmingly on November 7 and thats what the Democrats almost uniformly promised to speed up, whatever their vague, often inchoate notions about how to do it (Its Not the Democrats Who Are Divided, New York Times). Nichols points out that the Progressive Caucus of the Democrats in the House (about 64, but growing) is substantially larger than the collections of Blue Dogs (perhaps 40) or New Democrats (possibly 50) and that virtually all of the newly-elected Democrats were to the left of the displaced Republicans (The Crowded Progressive Caucus,)[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]One difficulty with Nicholss argument is that the Progressive Caucus is still a minority bloc and on his own count it is smaller than the Blue Dog plus New Democrat total even within the Democratic Party. The problem of the Democrats for years has been that with substantial numbers of Blue Dogs (self-described as conservative to moderate) and New Democrats ready to abandon the progressive ship on the basis of non-progressive principle, or at the drop of a lobbyists check, progressive actions are easily stymied. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Thus, in earlier years under Carter and Clinton, progressive legislation and actions were regularly blocked in Congress, despite Democratic majorities and Democratic presidents. There have been no comparable dissident liberal blocs of Republican legislators, so that George W. Bush has had an easy ride with Republican legislative majorities. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]With a splintered and not very well disciplined Democratic majority in the House, a majority in the Senate with Bush ally Joseph Lieberman as the balancing voter, and with George W. Bush still president and in possession of a veto power, the possibilities for progressive Democratic action are sharply limited. [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]It is hoped that the Democrats will at least launch some serious investigations of Bush administration corruption, law violations, and mismanagement, but while this may transpire, there are questions about how many and how aggressively and effectively they will function. The Democratic leaders will have to work with the executive to get many things done and they have already indicated that they are keen to avoid partisanship. But non-partisanship will discourage or compromise the needed investigations and legal actions within congressional power. [/FONT]
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