By Otto
A recently posted article at a site called Vox has driven home a point that many of us already know; the Democratic Party is in peril. The Article is called "Democrats are in denial. Their party is actually in deep trouble."
“And at present it has no plan to save itself,” said the Vox article.
It is all true. The party has been in decline for most of the last 15 years. While the Republican Party has perfected its techniques for winning elections, the Democrats has lagged behind, barely making any attempts to invigorate itself.
The only real fine moment for the Democrats has been their ability to elect Barack Obama and to re-elect him. The Democrats have fought an impressive fight for the white house and a few senate seats. But on offices below that, they are doing miserably.
Several years ago the Republican machine decided it could become better entrenched by wining local and state elections. If they could win these elections they could and would try to push their far-right policies at the local level. It is harder to remove changes state to state than it is at the federal level. The policy has worked.
According to Vox:
“And the vast majority — 70 percent of state legislatures, more than 60 percent of governors, 55 percent of attorneys general and secretaries of state — are in Republicans hands. And, of course, Republicans control both chambers of Congress….
…In what Democrats should take as a further bleak sign, four of the 11 states where they control both houses of the state legislature — Maryland, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Illinois — have a Republican governor. This leaves just seven states under unified Democratic Party control.”
This is all bleak for the Democrats. Here in Kansas
One of the things in this article, and many like it, that I disagree with is that the Democrats are chastised for backing the wrong issues. The Democrats have supported gay rights, immigrant rights, environmental protection and unions. Some Democrats have actually backed away from union support. But the problem isn't that the Democrats have championed the wrong issues — the problem is that they don't support their issues as passionately as the Republicans. The Democrats are very re-active, while the Republicans pick their battles and push for them as hard as they can. The Democrats are always on the defensive. One of the worst night-mares for the Democrats is the unions. Only about 7 percent of workers today are in unions. Nearly a third were in them back in the middle of the 20th century. Some Democrats have actually walked away from union support. Attacking unions has been a major move by Republicans who believe that unions associate themselves with Democrats so the more they kill unions off the easier it is to kill of Democrats.
Two of the biggest issues for Republicans are abortion and gun rights. Actually slightly less than half of the US voters are totally against abortion. But to the Republicans this simple near majority has allowed them to create a holy crusade against those who support abortion rights. They have painted abortion as an evil similar to slavery and murder. A friend of mine went to a precinct meeting for Republicans and found there was a precinct committee person there for one issue only—
abortion. Some of these people might not have ever supported Republicans if they were not so hyped up on that one issue. But they are convinced that it is the Republicans who are part of their holy campaign to end abortion.
Guns are another issue. There are those who vote only on the gun issue. The NRA might just as easily be called the National Republican Association rather than the National Riffle Association. They nearly always support Republicans over Democrats. They accuse anyone who votes for any type of gun restrictions as someone trying to "confiscate guns."
The Democrats just simply haven't developed their issues to the point of being able to use them to make or break elections.
This article is very detailed and it is very accurate. If the Democrats don't wake up and smell the coffee they may end up as just another third party and we may end up living in a one-party country. And a one-party system is just another name for a dictatorship.
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Pix by reverbpress.com.