Democrats Are Victims of Their Own Success

I’m going to suggest a reason for the Democratic Party’s fall from grace that I have yet to see mentioned and that a great many people won’t want to admit. Namely, that they are a victim of their own success.

The Democratic party of the twentieth century was one built upon movements – labor, civil rights, feminism, the environment, the war on poverty. Each of those battles brought to the party a sizable and passionate constituency that propelled it to political dominance for nearly sixty years.

Today, however, an ever-increasing number of voters view many of those battles as fought and won.

Consider that little more than a generation ago blacks were prohibited from using the same drinking fountains as whites and polluted rivers were catching fire. Such atrocities were rallying points that spurred the nation to action. That action brought real change.

But today, when the heads of American Express, Time Warner, Pontiac/GMC and other large corporations are African-American, when our lawyers, doctors, professors, senior government officials and most importantly, our friends and neighbors are often black, it is difficult to rally people to the cause of racial fairness.

The same with the environment. A generation ago eagles were dying and our rivers were burning. Today, with deer running through our yards, bald eagles no longer endangered and Great Lakes boaters able to see the bottom in twenty feet of crystal clear water, environmentalists lack the powerful symbolic images necessary to spur real movement on the environment.

Thus Democrats find themselves catering to an ever-shrinking coalition of activists and followers whose causes lack the emotional wallop of days gone by. And hence the rise in the importance of undefined “moral values”, which exit polls showed to be voters’ number one issue. With the declining urgency of traditional Democratic causes, values rise in relation to them. It’s like rehabbing a house – once you’ve repaired the roof and broken windows, the squeaky hinge becomes priority number one. It does so only because the bigger problems aren’t as urgent.

But that doesn’t mean it will remain priority number one. Therein lies a lesson the Republicans would be wise to learn.

For the Republicans are now on a path similar to the one the Democrats followed to political dominance. Their coalition is even more diverse - divided would be a better term - than the Democrats. You’ve got limited-government libertarians who want government out of their life consorting with the religious right, who don’t mind government as long as it’s keeping others from doing things they don’t like. It’s a coalition that often has only one goal in common – to elect Republicans to office.

If the Republicans move too far in any one direction, they risk alienating key parts of their constituency. And if they do not act decisively and successfully on a few key issues, especially healthcare, the deficit and social security, they’ll find themselves up against an inflamed electorate that the Democrats will be only too happy to oblige.

Movements occur when a critical mass is reached in the number of people willing to fight for a cause. If Republicans control the cost of healthcare, reduce the number of uninsured, restrain spending and successfully reform social security, they will ensure their continued political dominance by preventing that critical mass from moving in the Democrats’ direction.

But if they fail, “moral values” won’t mean a thing. And the pundits will be searching for answers to the end of Republican dominance. Unlike the Democrats, however, it will not be due to their success, but their failure.