We’re having a bad week here of rather mythic proportions, so it’s time to distract myself with talk of politics.
Continuing our discussion of what’s wrong with the Democratic Party, Atlantic Monthly has a multi-book review along those lines. Three recent books attempt some analysis of why the Democrats can’t win an election: Don’t Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate–The Essential Guide for Progressives, What’s the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America, and Nation of Rebels : Why Counterculture Became Consumer Culture.
Mark Cooper, the review author, goes to town on latte-sipping, self-indulgent, elitist, narrow minded liberal Democrats who go around seeing themselves as “a persecuted minority, bravely shielding the flickering flame of enlightenment from the increasing Christo-Republican darkness…”
He pans the Ladoff book.
Much more than an offering of serious political strategy, “Don’t Think of an Elephant!” is a feel-good self-help book for a stratum of despairing liberals who just can’t believe how their commonsense message has been misunderstood by the eternally deceived masses. Liberal values are American values, they say, but somehow Americans just keep getting tricked–by Fox News, Sinclair Broadcasting, AM talk radio, conservative think tanks — into thinking and voting against their own interests.
The Frank book gets a much better rating, but Cooper prefers the harsher criticisms of liberal Democrats that Frank has made elsewhere.
In a February 2004 essay in the obscure “Le Monde Diplomatique”, Frank mercilessly attacked aloof, self-absorbed liberals. “Leftists of these tendencies aren’t really interested in the catastrophic decline of the American left as a social force… If anything, this decline makes sense to them: the left is people in sympathy with the downtrodden, not the downtrodden themselves. It is a charity operation.”
And in a post-election piece in the “The New York Times,” Frank concluded that the Democrats “lost the battle of voter motivation before it started,” by choosing high-profile assistance from “idealistic tycoons” overa more natural class-based alliance with common people. As a result, “they imagined themsleves the ‘metro’ party of cool billionaires engaged in some kind of cosmic combat with the square billionaires of the ‘retro’ Republican party.”
There is no doubt that elitism and snobbery is one factor that explains the teetering Democratic party. Perhaps it is a huge factor. However, other forces are at work as well, which hopefully I’ll blog about more in the next couple of weeks. (I’m going to try to stay on topic for a change.)
Apt. 11d 
I think it is a matter of complexity, rather than snobbery.
Republicans have been able to take very complicated subjects and boil them down to a simple position. The War, Social Security, The 10 Commandments supersized on courthouse walls. Everything is black/white; right/wrong; with us/against us.
Most Americans don’t know the history of the US involvement in Iraq or Iran. They don’t know the difference between a Shiite and a Sunni. They don’t know what Intifada means. They are too busy making a living and perhaps watching Reality TV.
I think the Democratic party, and John Kerry in particular, tend to approach the world in a more complex manner. That’s how he could fight in Vietnam and then come home and protest the war. It’s all gray-area stuff.
Gray is harder to sell than black/white.
But I just re-read this and I realize I do sound like a snob. So, maybe there’s something to that too. (But I don’t like lattes, at least.)
LikeLike
Snobbery and reverse snobbery (they think they’re better than us , we’ll show them) did play a role in South Dakota, at least.
The Republicans used it to their advantage through very, very smart tactics. For example, in South Dakota’s Daschle v Thune race, Thune’s campaign made it a point to use local volunteers. The people handing out leaflets in Aberdeen were from Aberdeen, in Sioux Falls, they were from Sioux Falls. They played up that fact when talking to people. The campaign volunteers were told to point this out, and tell people to ask themselves “If Daschle is so connected to this state & really represents our interests, why doesn’t he have local volunteers?” (From friends in the area (on both sides) I have been told that the Daschle campaign used paid college students from out of state. This was a source of much frustration to some of my Democratic friends – who said their concerns over this were ignored. One claims she was told they didn’t need volunteers. I find this hard to believe, but whatever.)
Now, didn’t the tactic of bringing campaign workers from out of state cause problems for Dean in Iowa? So why didn’t the Democrats adjust their tactics?
Neighbor to neighbor just seems as though it would be much more effective. I don’t know if this was a pattern elsewhere, but if it was, it surely made a difference. It shouldn’t be that hard for the democrats to follow that tactic.
LikeLike
I just discovered your blog, I think from PenElayne’s blog. I’m enjoying it a lot! Funny, I wrote about Cooper’s article too, about the same time here.
His article really pissed me off, but made me think, and finally resonated with me enough that I had to comment, and agree, somewhat, with what he said.
Interesting point about SD. I didn’t know that, but having worked on the Dean campaign, I know it was a reason we lost Iowa, though not the only reason.
LikeLike