Leadership & Conviction
Molly Ivins is a bit ticked* off with the Democrats, but then, who isn't?
What kind of courage does it take, for mercy's sake? The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.
The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF?
One reaction I had to these paragraphs was the shock of discovering that I — an old-fart homosexual white boy — am mainstream. Tarnation! After spending all these years thinking I'm a social outlaw, I end up discovering that I and most of my fellow Americans actually think the same way on most important social issues. I am shocked.
Ms. Ivins point, of course, is that the Democrats 1) are spineless non-leaders, who 2) have bought into the fundamentalist Republican rhetoric about where the much-beloved "center" is to be found in American society that they are missing the point altogether. Winess
…people like Rahm Emanuel superciliously explaining elementary politics to us clueless naifs outside the Beltway ("First, you have to win elections"). Can't you even read the damn polls?
She is, of course, correct. The real heartland center of America is far, far away from the oily, smelly blob that the Republicans keep pointing to. Trust me, I'm from Kansas, I know these things.
But there's more to my mind. Democrats should be espousing these principles not because the majority support them. Good heavens! I'm gay and I'm never going to suggest blindly following the majority opinion. However, the positions that she mentions above, all approved of by the majority, also happen to be the correct positions. "Correct", you might wonder? Sure, I believe that they have behind them the full force of a sensible, coherent, liberal philosophy, and I'm arrogant enough to call them "correct".
Even so, there's more. People seem to want leadership even more than they want correct leadership. So, in this case where the ideas to support are even "correct", strong leadership from conviction is even more important — and winning (pace Mr. Emanuel) than ever.
I guess this means that I agree with Ms. Ivins. Vehemently agree. What kind of courage does it take?
__________
*Molly Ivins, "I will not support Hillary Clinton for president", The Free Press, 20 January 2006.
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on Monday, 23 January 2006 at 22.24
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Count me into this as well. I don't know how many more times Democrats can go up against the likes of Bush/Rove/Cheney, and Hastert, DeLay & Associates, and their execrable record, and snatch defeat from the gaping jaws of victory. I do know there just can't be too many more.
One more defeat like the '02 debacle and it's going to be time to look into trying to form a new party. No kidding. What Democrats did and didn't do in '02 was so lame that I swear, Republicans could've stood by passively to watch as Democrats lost.
Maybe you saw my post lambasting Democrats. If not, you should give it a read. I, too, have a mad on at them since last week. They're like a no-account teenager who needs to be hauled up short and introduced to the prospect of his own mortality, for his own good.