What is a Democrat?

I just got off the phone with yet another Democratic politician who complains to me about the same thing “publiustoo” does in his comment on my last missive – the Dems have no message, no plan, no strategy, no guts. He’s right and publiustoo is right. But they miss the point. The basic problem is there’s no Democratic Party. Of course there are the trappings of a party – conventions, meetings, state operatives, mailing lists, and so on. But compared to the Republican Party, Dems are a bunch of wild weenies in the wilderness.

In trying to describe the Democratic Party I’m reminded of what Gertrude Stein once said about Oakland, California: “There’s no there, there.” So here’s the question: Why is the Republican Party so well organized – with messages, plans, strategies, and all the rest? Why are Dems so much the opposite. Answer: It’s because Republicans tend to be authoritarian. Authoritarian personalities – who get off on control, order, and discipline – naturally gravitate to conservative Republicanism. Democrats tend to be anti-authoritarian. Anti-authoritarian personalities – who don’t like to take orders, who don’t care about controlling anything, who are inherently undisciplined – become liberals, progressives, and Democrats. This assymetry has haunted American politics for years. The Republican Party is much more conservative than most Americans, but they keep getting voted in because they’re more disciplined about politics.

What’s the answer? Progressives can’t change their personalities. But they can utilize their anti-authoritarian tendencies to organize at the grass roots, at the community, at the level of individual blogs and emails, through people talking to people and empowering one another. Highly-disciplined Republican machines are bad at doing this grass-roots work. Look, I’m as disappointed with the Democrats’ lack of message, plan, strategy, and guts as anyone. They’re out to lunch. They’re asleep at the wheel. But then I ask myself who “they” are? They’re me. I’m a Democrat. They’re also that Democratic politician who phoned a while ago to bemoan the Democrats’ lack of message, plan, strategy, and guts. And they’re many of you. To be a Democrat in America today is to NOT be a Republican, while at the same time NOT wanting to keep Republicans in power by voting for a third-party candidate who’ll only draw votes away from a Democrat (I’m still pissed as hell with Ralph). To be a Democrat is to believe in Democracy and not in Oligarchy, which is the form of government we have right now.