As Americans start to see how right-wing theocrats and kleptocrats have robbed them of their hope, Bob Herbert challenges Democrats to respond

"For perhaps the first time in history, there is a large swath of Americans who are worried that over the long haul their children will not fare as well as they have.

"For resurgent Democrats there is no better touchstone right now than Franklin Roosevelt. He understood the corrosive effects of prolonged economic insecurity and the essential need for cooperation in the effort to build a successful society. His goal was 'to make a country in which no one is left out.'"

--Bob Herbert, in his New York Times column today, "The Fading Dream"


Lately I've been thinking more and more about hope. Hope is what the right-wing Republican greed machine has stripped away from so many Americans, with the silent acquiescence of too many greedy-in-waiting Democrats.

Ronald Reagan proclaimed "morning in America," and the right-wing loons claimed to be the bearers of optimism and clear sailing into the future. The only problem is that they were thugs and liars. Reagan told Americans they were free to hate and grasp and trample on their less fortunate fellows, while kowtowing to the wealthiest among us. And they did, and it made them feel good in the short term.

After some moderation in the Clinton years, George W. Bush declared full-scale open war on decency, a savage onslaught on behalf of the economically overprivileged, for which he pandered beyond anything previously imaginable in the history of the republic to truly sociopahtic ideologues and theocrats.

Of course, for the legions of ordinary Americans who were dragged along for the ride, the new would-be-totalitarian regime offered nothing, at least nothing real. Meanwhile the Democrats, hiding behind the skirts of people like the corporate whores of the DLC and would-be power brokers like Master Rahm Emanuel, squandered the opportunity to offer a real vision for the future.

The best message the DLC-ers and Emanuelites and all the other Democratic "centrists" could come up with was: "See, we're just like that George W. Bush fellow you like so much, except . . . except . . . well, just vote for us."

Now, fortunately, it turns out that Bob Herbert has been thinking about hope too. An America without it seems unimaginable. Herbert's has been one of those lonely voices that have been there to help us keep our sanity throughout the Bush nightmare. I hope Jack Murtha and Steny Hoyer are tuned in.

November 13, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist

The Fading Dream
By BOB HERBERT

"America moved me all over again--it was an amazing place, the idea of it astounding."

--Arthur Miller

Rumsfeld is exiting stage left and the curtain is coming down on George W. Bush's Theater of the Absurd. A rival company is setting up shop and expectations are high.

O.K., Democrats. Now what? Inquiring minds want to know if the new troupe will make us laugh, cheer, or cry.

First, let's stipulate that there are limits to what the party can achieve in the next two years, even with control of both houses of Congress. But the two most important tasks facing the Democrats are doable. The first is to ensure that Congress fulfills its constitutional obligation to impose a check on the excesses of the executive.

The second task is to respond to the anxiety that has seeped through much of the electorate about the state of the nation. Americans are worried about the war, the political and economic situation here at home, the way the U.S. is perceived by the rest of the world, and the direction in which the country is heading.

The Democrats didn't win the off-year elections, the Republicans lost them. And I'm convinced that the Republicans lost because while they were in charge ("Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job") millions of Americans began to lose confidence in those things that had moved them about America--its awesome power to do good, its ethical underpinnings, and most important, that incredible array of qualities that fell under the magical, mystical heading, the American dream.

A real-life metaphor for what has happened to America occurred last week on the west side of Manhattan. After inviting hundreds of well-wishers to watch, officials had planned to tow the aircraft carrier Intrepid from its dock to a facility on the other side of the Hudson River, where it would undergo a major overhaul. But when the time for its departure arrived, the Intrepid, which has served for years as a popular Sea, Air and Space Museum, could not be budged. It was stuck in the mud beneath the river.

The Intrepid was commissioned in 1943, when the U.S. still knew how to win wars. Its active history encompassed that extraordinary post-World War II period when bold leadership and a sense of common purpose transformed the U.S. and made it the envy of the world. That leadership and sense of common purpose has since been largely lost.

The elite now send other people's children off to fight and die in wars that are unwinnable. On the home front, a two-tiered economy has been put in place in which a small percentage of the population does extremely well while a majority of working Americans are in an all-but-permanent state of anxiety about job security, pensions, the economic impact of globalization, the cost of health care, college tuition, and so on.

For perhaps the first time in history, there is a large swath of Americans who are worried that over the long haul their children will not fare as well as they have.

For resurgent Democrats there is no better touchstone right now than Franklin Roosevelt. He understood the corrosive effects of prolonged economic insecurity and the essential need for cooperation in the effort to build a successful society. His goal was "to make a country in which no one is left out."

Roosevelt had both the vision and the political skills, including an indestructible sense of optimism, to galvanize the nation in some of its darkest hours. Those qualities have been in short supply among the terminally timid Democrats of recent years.

Last week, the voters gave the Democrats another opportunity to lead, not just on the war in Iraq, but on such questions as how best to deal with globalization, how to make real progress toward energy independence, and how to ensure that the economic benefits of a wealthy nation are more equitably shared.

What voters really want to know is whether the American dream will still be there for the next generation.

In Congress over the next two years, and in the presidential campaign of 2008, the Democrats will have to respond to that question with a coherent vision of the nation's future and a cadre of leaders who, like Roosevelt, can convey that vision convincingly and optimistically.

There's a reason why the Democratic figure generating the most excitement at the moment, Barack Obama, titled his latest book, "The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream."