It looks as if Andrew Cuomo bit off more than he can chew. He asked Wall Street Journal columnist and former presidential speechwriter Peggy Noonan to write an essay on the future of the Democratic Party for an upcoming book. Noonan complied. She wrote the essay and published it in The Wall Street Journal on March 3.
It is dandy, a haymaker right to the jaw of the Clinton-wing of the Democratic Party.
Noonan argues that there is little hope for the Democrats. She charges that the party seems “interested only in thwarting the trek of the current president and his party, who are, to the Democrats, ‘the other.’” She makes the case that this is more than routine political partisanship: “Partisanship is fine. But Republicans by and large don’t suffer from blind loyalty or blind antagonism. They would think it irresponsible to the country. They will bolt on one of their own if he insists on a route they think is seriously wrong (the first Bush on taxes). They will kill his presidency if they conclude he is essentially destructive (it was his Republican base in Congress that ended Richard Nixon’s career).”
Noonan focuses on the debate over going to war with Iraq as an example of the Democrats “win-at-any-cost mindset.” She maintains that Democratic leaders “have by and large approached Iraq not with deep head-heart integration but with what appears to be mere calculation. What will play? What will resonate?”
She also holds that the Democrats “have become the party of snobs,” the “party of Americans who think they’re better than other Americans.” She recalls when the Democrats were once the “party of the working class and middle class – the party of immigrants, strivers and those who adhered to an expansive reading of the American dream.” She feels the modern Democrats have deserted this old base, adopting the spirit of the 1960s counterculture, preferring the “ideological purity of Ho, Fidel, Mao” over the needs of blue-collar Americans. She recalls when she “worked in an all-news radio station” in the 1960s with liberal colleagues who were “almost all for busing” and who revealed a patronizing disdain for the “racist poor-Irish-Catholics-who-have-nothing people of South Boston.” She says, “it was like Henry Cabot Lodge looking down on the help!”
This snobbery is also evident, she notes, in the liberals who acted “as if street crime was an inevitable result of societal injustice,” rather than the deeds of “street criminals” who should be “caught and thrown in jail. But how can you find time to do that when you’re busy reforming society top to bottom like little Pol Pots?”
It is this image of the Democrats, says Noonan, that accounts for the massive defections from the Democrats in the 1980s by what we now call “Reagan Democrats,” the blue-collar and middle class voters who became “the ground troops of the Reagan revolution. They left the Democratic Party… To this day they haven’t come back. And they’re not teaching their kids to love” the Democratic Party. “Hence the Democrats have been left to “protecting their market share by bribing” minorities and various pressure groups: environmentalists, government employee unions, racial minorities, gay activists, and anti-gun groups.
And also the pro-abortion forces. She observes that thirty years after Roe v. Wade, “after all the things we’ve seen and pondered, after all that science has shown us, the Democratic Party has grown not less radical on abortion, but more,” a party that won’t even agree to ban third-term abortions which is the abortion of a baby who looks and seems fully human and capable of life because he is. The Democrats oppose parental consent even in the cases of 14-year-olds who are themselves children…. This is so radical. So out of touch with the feeling and thought of the vast middle of the country. So at odds with our self-image as a nation. We think we try to protect the vulnerable. We think we’re kind.”
Moreover, the country is beginning to grasp that “Democratic leaders are radical on abortion because they live in fear of brace yourself, more snobs coming a pro-abortion lobby that has money, clout and workers, and that can kill the hopes of any Democratic aspirant who doesn’t toe the line…. The Democratic Party’s complete obeisance to this lobby makes Democrats look bought, frightened and craven.”
Powerful and perceptive stuff, I would say. But there is a pebble in my shoe. Here’s my reservation: If what Noonan says is true, why haven’t the Democrats already gone the way of the Whigs? I don’t like to bring it up, but Al Gore did get more votes than George Bush in the last presidential election. The Republican majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives are narrow. Polls indicate that the country is evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats. All the pundits agree the Democrats have at least a fighting chance of retaking the Congress in upcoming elections. It seems to me that things are not as bad for the Democrats as Noonan alleges.
The question is why that is the case, if what she says about the Democrats is on target. My suggestion is that the Republican image is not much better. I say this as a Republican, even if only a recent one. (I was a member of New York’s Conservative Party up until a few years ago when I moved from New York.)
I would argue that the Republicans are about as guilty of hypocrisy and flip-flopping for political advantage. The voters can see that. Look at their track record on abortion and immigration. The Republicans ran for cover on these issues as soon as the polls indicated the political risks in standing firm. Nowadays Republican politicians do nothing on abortion beyond including a line or two in their campaign speeches to placate pro-life voters. And I haven’t seen any Republican effort to stem the tide of illegal immigration now that they control both houses of Congress. Or have I missed something?
I would also argue that Noonan goes overboard in characterizing the Democrats as “snobs” and counterculture elitists. While the old flower-power crowd tends to be Democrats, the party also attracts working class Americans who wisely or not have made a calculated decision to back politicians who will take their side on economic issues. Hollywood and academic elitists exist in the Democratic Party, but so do country club elitists in the Republican Party. I am thinking of economic libertarians and free-trade partisans. Look: Maybe it is true that in the long run free trade will lead to the economic betterment of the great majority of American workers. But the long run can be pretty long.
One would think that an American who makes the case for free trade would make it with some sympathy for workers whose lives will be seriously disrupted when they are laid off as their employers shift operations to China or Thailand to take advantage of lower labor costs. But that is not always the case. One frequently hears disdain from economic libertarians for “overpaid union members” who seek to protect their jobs by denying American consumers access to low priced imports. Often enough the American jobs in question are $40,000 a year factory jobs. The Democratic Party is not going to disappear as long as people associate the Republican Party with soft-handed talking heads who mock Americans who are unwilling to deal with the competition from foreign workers paid a tiny fraction of the American wage rate. The Democrats have problems, and for the reasons cited by Noonan. But let’s keep things in perspective.
James Fitzpatrick's new novel, The Dead Sea Conspiracy: Teilhard de Chardin and the New American Church, can be ordered directly from Winepress Publishers 1-877-421-READ (7323); $12.95, plus S&H. You can email Mr. Fitzpatrick at jkfitz42@aol.com.
(This article originally appeared in The Wanderer and is reprinted with permission. To subscribe call 651-224-5733.)