May 10, 2008

If you still don’t understand how the Democratic Party is destroying itself, Anglachel explains it all for you.

If you read nothing else today, read Anglachel’s brilliant “Revolution of the Saints.” Excerpts don’t begin to do it justice, so I hope this will whet your appetite and compel you to click the link and read it in full — along with several dozen of the most thoughtful, intelligent comments I’ve ever seen on any blog:

I watch the mass psychosis that has overtaken half of my party and I am left stupefied. While I have had a cynical view of the netroots for several years, what I see now so thoroughly surpasses the worst I had imagined that I am struggling to come up with ways to comprehend the dissolution of what should have been a solidly unified party.

. . .

I reach for religious language and examples to explain this, even as a large number of this contingent are functional atheists. At its root, we are looking at the separatism inherent in much Protestant political thought and causes. Instead of confronting difference and coming to an accord, the saints wish to banish the fallen from the world and thus make the world more perfect.

There is a religious element to the Obama campaign, and it takes the form of distinguishing oneself from the fallen political world. … From this campaign we have literally heard language of “coming to Obama” and of having faith in the One. There was never much attempt to persuade voters to support the candidate and less with each day that passes. We are exhorted to simply acknowledge truth and surrender to this leader. … It is charisma in the oldest sense of following a leader because he has been anointed. This is not simply or merely cynical posturing. This campaign’s followers really believe that there is nothing more needed than to be faithful to the messianic leader.

. . .

The political “base” is seen as base — low, uncouth, adulterated, impure, unworthy. They are not among the saved and the saints. I honestly cannot remember a previous time when so many people in the party were reviled for doing nothing except vote for a conventional candidate. These are not Naderites or Wallace supporters. They are middle-of-the-road solid Democrats who voted Kerry, Gore, Clinton, Clinton, Dukakis, Mondale, Carter, Carter, and so on down the line. The contempt of the saints for the fallen has always been there, but is emerging without a filter or much in the way of self-consciousness this time. … I read claims of being rid of the old evil “white working class” … in a final conflict to end all conflicts and there will be a purified party to which will flock millions of new, young, untainted followers, ready to be led into the land of Goshen.

. . .

The concrete has no place in Obama’s campaign narrative. Speaking too much about material benefit pulls you down into the weeds and you are no longer shiny and new and unifying. You take on interests which incur expectations and interfere with the abstract pursuit of the ideal, a government cleansed of politics, run according to bipartisan, technocratic and efficient methods. Kind of like the 50s, but without all that civil rights and women’s rights stuff.

. . .

Those who say “Show me what you’ve got,” are reviled as racist, stupid, retrograde, besmirched and fallen. We don’t need no stinkin’ working class! We will get new and shiny young voters to replace you, untouched by your peculiar love of solid wages, health care and Hillary. Why would the Democrats want to cast off the heart and soul of the New Deal coalition? Where does the animus come from? These people are acting out a separatist fantasy and make up one half of Obama’s support. …

. . .

H/T to The Real Spiel

Posted by: Sapphocrat

Permalink | |

Testing comment system — Don't use the Comments link below unless you want your comment to disappear later. Use the Comments link above, instead.