Message

The Democrats are bewildered these days. They seem to be having a hard time coming to grips with their declining popularity. It's perplexing. Their superiority is evident. Why don't people just see that?

Coyote Blog has a wonderful post (via Accidental Verbosity) entitled "Respecting Individual Decision-Making". He divides those who favor government interference above individual decision making into four categories: Nannies, Moralists, Technocrats, and Progressive/Socialists. All groups have one thing in common. They are all superior. The Nannies, Moralists, and Technocrats each have a specialized superiority, but the Progressive Socialists, the most superior of the four groups, have an absolute superiority. They are superior in all regards.

There's an evolutionary aspect to this thing. In the struggle of ideas, the Progressive Socialists recognized early, the importance of being able to spread the word, and so they moved into positions from which the word goes out. They're well represented in the press and in academia, and from these heights they've been spreading the word for decades. In academia they convince young minds that they possess a superior sense of justice and an intellectual superiority, and they instill a sense of selflessness and obligation to shape the world as it should be.

They've had some success. Over the years the progressive media have made an impact on the shape of Congress. This Republican majority is a recent phenomenon. In the middle of the last century, media compassionates championed liberal Democrats while portraying Republicans as cold hearted agents of big business. Liberal Democrats in return maintained focus on the progressive message. While it's true that smart politicians had learned to play the media, pitting reporters and news agencies against one another in their quests for the big story, at the same time the media learned they could sink a candidate by the tone of a news item. They accommodated each other, the media and the Democrats, and for decades the Democrats enjoyed solid majorities in both the House and the Senate. As the power of the news media has grown the Democrats have tended more and more to shape their messages for favorable media reaction, rather than favorable voter reaction. Voters, after all, aren't very smart. Voters must be instructed.

It got to the point that the media believed themselves to be governing partners with the Democrats. The partnership had mixed success. How many times had they put together a Congress controlled by the Democrats only to find themselves up against a Republican President? And when they finally got their guy, Bill Clinton, the Republicans took control of Congress. The apparent conclusion is that it's not quite enough to just spread the word. Sometimes there are bad thoughts that should be suppressed, and sometimes the small truth obscures the larger truth. Sometimes the word needs help. Who would ever have guessed that Woodrow Wilson was as racist as a person could possibly be?

Upon taking power in Washington, Wilson and the many other Southerners he brought into his cabinet were disturbed at the way the federal government went about its own business. One legacy of post-Civil War Republican ascendancy was that Washington's large black populace had access to federal jobs, and worked with whites in largely integrated circumstances. Wilson's cabinet put an end to that, bringing Jim Crow to Washington.

That's not something you're going to find in your high school American History text book. Besides, it's widely known that only Republicans are racists, not Democrats, and certainly not Woodrow Wilson, champion of progressive internationalism.

Time and technology wear on and new messages slip out in spite of media's progressive efforts. Heresy found voice in talk radio and weblogs, and the heretical and antiquated notion that individuals can make responsible decisions regained favor. Now, all but the progressive core constituency of the Democrats is drifting away, and what's left is a party whose message no longer resonates.  But to suggest that the Democrats don't have a message is off the mark. The truth of the matter is, Democrats think they are the message.

Consider John Kerry's flip flops. There is a consistent message in all that vacillation. The message is this. "I will tell you what you want to hear so you'll vote for me. I'm a person of superior quality and intellect, and you can trust my judgment. Don't worry about what I'm telling those people over there. I know what's best, and even if I happen to be wrong at the moment, don't worry. I'm very smart and I'll figure it out. My compassion will guide me."

Oddly enough a great many were receptive to the message. It was as if they thought, "This is my candidate, and I don't care what he's telling those red state people. There are things he has to say to them to get himself elected, but I know once he gets in office he's going to do the right thing. His compassion will guide him." Of course, the right thing will be a progressive program of entitlement, diversity, equality of results, and pacificism. What's not to like?

Well, the Democrats have four years to figure that out. John Kerry has already begun his 2008 presidential campaign. He's gone over to Iraq to tell a tiny group of Massachusetts soldiers about the horrendous judgments and unbelievable blunders that have undermined the war effort. What a patriot. He could turn out to be our indicator. If we see him as the standard bearer once more it will signal that Democrats haven't figured out a thing.