I know this much: The Democratic base is awesome. This story about people from around the country rallying to support the public workers in Wisconsin makes my New-Deal-loving-Woody-Guthrie-singing, heart leap up in my chest.
When I read stories like that, I can’t help but think that if we ever had a Democratic leadership that decided to be forthrightly on the side of the Democratic base, and was able to screw up the courage to take a break from bowing a scraping to Wall Street – we cold accomplish great things in this country.
Whether is cynical politics, economic exigencies, or something else, we have a generation of Democratic leadership that has decided that it can be socially “progressive” and economically “regressive.” While that strategy might be good for the career prospects of individual Democratic politicians, I don’t like it as a long term Democratic strategy, and more importantly, I don’t see it as a viable path back to peace and prosperity for the country.
America is the first and greatest middle class country. By turning to Wall Street and seeking to comfort the comfortable under the false belief that the DJIA is the economy, we’ve turned our back on our greatest strength – economic mobility.
Opportunity, drive, ambition, and innovation, are sucked out of the economy as the game continues to tilt toward inherited wealth. It has always been Democrats who have policed the gap between the rich and the poor and the country needs Democrats to take up that job once again.
Please Note: None of this is meant to suggest that I will not work for Obama and Markell to get reelected. We’ve lost our way as a Party, but we are still infinitely better than the alternative presented by Republicans. Wanting to be better does not mean that we are not good.