The Democratic Party Has A Long And Proud Tradition Of Standing Up For Working Families-- What Happened To It?

Friday we took a look at why voters are increasingly turning off to the two Establishment political parties. We looked particularly at why turnout among Democratic base voters is so low. For example, the Queens Democratic Party boss, Congressman Joe Crowley, the former New Dem chairman and a House leader, only managed to persuade 47,370 of his constituents to bother voting for him last month-- in one of the deepest blue districts in the entire country, which Obama won 136,783 (81%) to 30,978 (18%) in 2012. The Democratic Party of Joe Crowley isn't doing squat for people, predominantly Hispanic, black and Asian, (medium household income- $46,900) who live in Woodside, Jackson Heights, Sunnyside, Maspeth, Elmhurst, Corona, Willets Point, and College Point in Queens and Throggs Neck, Schuylerville, East Bronx, Morris Park, Middletown-Pelham Bay, Van Nest and Pelham Gardens in the Bronx. Crowley serves Wall Street; that's it. He hopes the harried people who live in his district never figure out the only thing he has in common with the Democratic Party is his ironic membership in it.

It's worth noting that where stalwart progressives who constantly carry a clear message of economic populism and social justice-- we looked at Barbara Lee (CA), Keith Ellison (MN) and Mark Pocan (WI)-- the results were the polar opposite of Crowley's. Pocan, who, like Crowley, didn't have a credible challenger, saw a huge wave of grateful Democratic voters turn out for him. He drew nearly 5 times the number of voters Crowley did, 224,548. Should that be a wakeup call to the DC Democrats? It isn't.

Last week Walter Dean Turnham and Thomas Ferguson, respectively professors from the University of Texas (Austin) and University of Massachusetts (Boston), penned a powerful 5 alarm analysis that DC Democrats miss at their own peril. Writing for Alternate, their premise is that last month's Democratic Party debacle-- which the scleratic and ostrich-like Democratic leadership refuses to see as a debacle; Israel claiming he saved the day by not losing more seats, for example-- "likely heralds a new stage in the disintegration of the American political order" and it's based on an undeniable fact, that "increasing numbers of average Americans can no longer stomach voting for parties that only pretend to represent their interests." They estimate that only 36% of eligible voters even bothered showing up last month. Among drop-offs from a presidential election to a midterm, this was the second largest of all time-- 24 percentage points!

Turnout in Ohio, for example, fell to 34 percent-- a level the state last touched in 1814, when political parties on a modern model did not exist and it had just recently entered the Union. New York trumped even this: turnout in the Empire State plunged to 30 percent, almost back to where it was in 1798, when property suffrage laws disenfranchised some 40 percent of the citizenry. New Jersey managed a little better: turnout fell to 31 percent, back to levels of the 1820s. Delaware turnout fell to 35 percent, well below some elections of the 1790s. In the west, by contrast, turnout declined to levels almost without precedent: California’s 33 percent turnout appears to be the lowest recorded since the state entered the union in 1850. Nevada also hit a record low (28 percent), as did Utah at 26 percent (for elections to the House).

...It seems plain that the American political universe is being rapidly reshaped by economic and cultural crisis into something distinctly different. The Democrats’ messaging this year was, indeed, almost eerily spectral. But its otherworldly feebleness was rooted in fundamental facts that are not going away and cannot be fixed by switching media advisers.

The first problem was the administration’s dismal economic policy record. Though some Democrats try to sugarcoat the dismal facts by focusing on changes since 2009, when the President assumed office, the truth is that the fruits of the recovery have gone lopsidedly to the very richest Americans. Wall Street and the stock market boom, but wages continue to stagnate, and unemployment remains stubbornly high, with millions of Americans withdrawn from the labor force or working only part time. As incomes recovered from 2009 to 2012, for example, 95 percent of all the gains went to the top 1 percent of income earners.  The rest of the population was left far behind. As of July 2014, real median household income was still more than 6 percent below its value in early 2008. The administration’s continuing efforts to court Wall Street, along with its reluctance to sanction even flagrant misconduct by prominent financiers just pour salt into these wounds.

The other reason for the messaging failure is graver, because responsibility for it cannot possibly be fobbed off on the Republicans. Though the full figures are still coming in, we are confident that what Ferguson, Jorgensen, and Chen demonstrated to be true in 2012 will hold for 2014, despite claims to the contrary in parts of the media: The President and the Democratic Party are almost as dependent on big money-- defined, for example, in terms of the percentage of contributions (over $500 or $1000) from the 1 percent as the Republicans. To expect top down money-driven political parties to make strong economic appeals to voters is idle. Instead the Golden Rule dominates: Money-driven parties emphasize appeals to particular interest groups instead of the broad interests of working Americans that would lead their donors to shut their wallets.

...Exit polls from the 2014 House races suggest that the old New Deal political formula has become like the grin of the Cheshire Cat. Traces of the ancient pattern are still there in the aggregate: In the lowest income bracket (under $30,000 in the 2014 exit polls) voters overwhelmingly prefer the Democrats by 59 percent to 39 percent.  As income rises, that percentage falls off steeply, with the slightest of hiccups in the very highest bracket.  Conversely, upper income voters were much more likely to vote Republican, though a modest gender gap remained in the national electorate, if not that of every state. (Nationally women voters preferred the Democrats by only 51 percent to 47 percent; the Republican advantage among men was much larger – 57 percent to 41 percent.) But after six years of profound policy disappointment, not enough lower income voters bothered to go to the polls.

Right now Hillary Clinton’s strategists appear to be pinning their hopes on firing up another ritualized big money-led coalition of minorities and particular groups instead of making broad economic appeals. That hope might perhaps prove out, if the slow and very modest economic recovery continues into 2016, or the Republicans nominate another Richie Rich caricature like Mitt Romney, who openly mocks the poorest 47% of the electorate. But exit surveys showed that in 2014 many women voters thought economic recovery and jobs were top issues, too.  And one may doubt how robust the recovery can be in the face of a steadily rising dollar, which now seems baked in the world economic cake for a considerable time to come.

But if the time has perhaps passed when a Democratic Party dominated and financed by Wall Street and Silicon Valley can mobilize anything but remnants, the Republicans can hardly count on smooth sailing for very long. In 2016, if voters are offered another choice between Republican Lite and real Republicans, the affluent Americans who will mostly turn out may well once again cast ballots for the real thing... In any case, both direct poll evidence and common sense confirm that huge numbers of Americans are now wary of both major political parties and increasingly upset about prospects in the long term.  Many are convinced that a few big interests control policy. They crave effective action to reverse long term economic decline and runaway economic inequality, but nothing on the scale required will be offered to them by either of America’s money-driven major parties. This is likely only to accelerate the disintegration of the political system evident in the 2014 congressional elections.

How can we be sure the DC Dems are ignoring the 2014 warning and hustling down the road to their own doom? The first garbage candidates the "new" DCCC chairman Ben Ray Luján has worked to recruit are New Dem Emily Cain in Maine and "ex"-Republican Monica Vernon in Iowa, neither of whom has anything to do with what makes working families chose to be Democrats rather than Republicans and neither of whom has even the slightest ability to inspire working class voters. And now we get word that the DCCC is furiously trying to re-recruit defeated retreads who already lost out to Republicans because of their inability to carry a progressive message. Blue Dog Michael McMahon, the lame-o who "Mikey Suits" Grimm beat to win his seat, is a perfect example.

How many DC Dems would feel comfortable even listening to, let alone giving, a speech like the one Franklin Roosevelt delivered to Congress in January, 1936 after his stunning landslide rout of the Republicans 27,747,636 to 16,679,543 with every state but Vermont and Maine-- an election that delivered the Democrats a 76-16 seat majority in the Senate and a 334 to 88 seat majority in the House? That's when it meant something to be a Democrat aside from catering to aggrieved bits and pieces of the electorate. You can read the whole speech here; I'm just going to present a few excerpts to mull over.

Within our borders, as in the world at large, popular opinion is at war with a power-seeking minority.

That is no new thing. It was fought out in the Constitutional Convention of 1787. From time to time since then, the battle has been continued, under Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.

In these latter years we have witnessed the domination of government by financial and industrial groups, numerically small but politically dominant in the twelve years that succeeded the World War. The present group of which I speak is indeed numerically small and, while it exercises a large influence and has much to say in the world of business, it does not, I am confident, speak the true sentiments of the less articulate but more important elements that constitute real American business.

In March, 1933, I appealed to the Congress of the United States and to the people of the United States in a new effort to restore power to those to whom it rightfully belonged. The response to that appeal resulted in the writing of a new chapter in the history of popular government. You, the members of the Legislative branch, and I, the Executive, contended for and established a new relationship between Government and people.

What were the terms of that new relationship? They were an appeal from the clamor of many private and selfish interests, yes, an appeal from the clamor of partisan interest, to the ideal of the public interest. Government became the representative and the trustee of the public interest. Our aim was to build upon essentially democratic institutions, seeking all the while the adjustment of burdens, the help of the needy, the protection of the weak, the liberation of the exploited and the genuine protection of the people's property.

It goes without saying that to create such an economic constitutional order, more than a single legislative enactment was called for. We, you in the Congress and I as the Executive, had to build upon a broad base. Now, after thirty-four months of work, we contemplate a fairly rounded whole. We have returned the control of the Federal Government to the City of Washington.

To be sure, in so doing, we have invited battle. We have earned the hatred of entrenched greed. The very nature of the problem that we faced made it necessary to drive some people from power and strictly to regulate others. I made that plain when I took the oath of office in March, 1933. I spoke of the practices of the unscrupulous money-changers who stood indicted in the court of public opinion. I spoke of the rulers of the exchanges of mankind's goods, who failed through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence. I said that they had admitted their failure and had abdicated.

Abdicated? Yes, in 1933, but now with the passing of danger they forget their damaging admissions and withdraw their abdication.

They seek the restoration of their selfish power. They offer to lead us back round the same old corner into the same old dreary street.

Yes, there are still determined groups that are intent upon that very thing. Rigorously held up to popular examination, their true character presents itself. They steal the livery of great national constitutional ideals to serve discredited special interests. As guardians and trustees for great groups of individual stockholders they wrongfully seek to carry the property and the interests entrusted to them into the arena of partisan politics. They seek-this minority in business and industry-- to control and often do control and use for their own purposes legitimate and highly honored business associations; they engage in vast propaganda to spread fear and discord among the people-- they would "gang up" against the people's liberties.

The principle that they would instill into government if they succeed in seizing power is well shown by the principles which many of them have instilled into their own affairs: autocracy toward labor, toward stockholders, toward consumers, toward public sentiment. Autocrats in smaller things, they seek autocracy in bigger things. "By their fruits ye shall know them."

...[T]he challenge faced by this Congress is more menacing than merely a return to the past-- bad as that would be. Our resplendent economic autocracy does not want to return to that individualism of which they prate, even though the advantages under that system went to the ruthless and the strong. They realize that in thirty-four months we have built up new instruments of public power. In the hands of a people's Government this power is wholesome and proper. But in the hands of political puppets of an economic autocracy such power would provide shackles for the liberties of the people. Give them their way and they will take the course of every autocracy of the past-- power for themselves, enslavement for the public.

Their weapon is the weapon of fear. I have said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." That is as true today as it was in 1933. But such fear as they instill today is not a natural fear, a normal fear; it is a synthetic, manufactured, poisonous fear that is being spread subtly, expensively and cleverly by the same people who cried in those other days, "Save us, save us, lest we perish."

I am confident that the Congress of the United States well understands the facts and is ready to wage unceasing warfare against those who seek a continuation of that spirit of fear. The carrying out of the laws of the land as enacted by the Congress requires protection until final adjudication by the highest tribunal of the land. The Congress has the right and can find the means to protect its own prerogatives.

We are justified in our present confidence. Restoration of national income, which shows continuing gains for the third successive year, supports the normal and logical policies under which agriculture and industry are returning to full activity. Under these policies we approach a balance of the national budget. National income increases; tax receipts, based on that income, increase without the levying of new taxes. That is why I am able to say to this, the Second Session of the 74th Congress, that it is my belief based on existing laws that no new taxes, over and above the present taxes, are either advisable or necessary.

National income increases; employment increases. Therefore, we can look forward to a reduction in the number of those citizens who are in need. Therefore, also, we can anticipate a reduction in our appropriations for relief.

In the light of our substantial material progress, in the light of the increasing effectiveness of the restoration of popular rule, I recommend to the Congress that we advance; that we do not retreat. I have confidence that you will not fail the people of the Nation whose mandate you have already so faithfully fulfilled.

I repeat, with the same faith and the same determination, my words of March 4, 1933: "We face the arduous days that lie before us in the warm courage of national unity; with a clear consciousness of seeking old and precious moral values; with a clean satisfaction that comes from the stern performance of duty by old and young alike. We aim at the assurance of a rounded and permanent national life. We do not distrust the future of essential democracy."

I cannot better end this message on the state of the Union than by repeating the words of a wise philosopher at whose feet I sat many, many years ago.

"What great crises teach all men whom the example and counsel of the brave inspire is the lesson: Fear not, view all the tasks of life as sacred, have faith in the triumph of the ideal, give daily all that you have to give, be loyal and rejoice whenever you find yourselves part of a great ideal enterprise. You, at this moment, have the honor to belong to a generation whose lips are touched by fire. You live in a land that now enjoys the blessings of peace. But let nothing human be wholly alien to you. The human race now passes through one of its great crises. New ideas, new issues-- a new call for men to carry on the work of righteousness, of charity, of courage, of patience, and of loyalty. . . However memory bring back this moment to your minds, let it be able to say to you: That was a great moment. It was the beginning of a new era. . . This world in its crisis called for volunteers, for men of faith in life, of patience in service, of charity and of in- sight. I responded to the call however I could. I volunteered to give myself to my Master-- the cause of humane and brave living. I studied, I loved, I labored, unsparingly and hopefully, to be worthy of my generation."

Which elected officials could you imagine giving a speech like that today? Barack Obama? Not a chance. Hillary? Don't make me laugh. Besides Bernie Sanders, Alan Grayson, Elizabeth Warren, Barbara Lee, Keith Ellison, Mark Pocan, I can't think of anyone with both the will and the capacity. Can you?