SOME TRUTH THAT'S REALLY INCONVENIENT

Marie Cocco, with whom I normally disagree, gets it right in this column arguing that class, not race, is what divides the Democrats.  It's something the Democratic Party simply can't face because it's the source of such embarrassment.  Putting it bluntly, the party, since the 1960s, has turned its back on many of the same people who built the Roosevelt-Truman-Kennedy coalition.  When these people went into the election-day confession booth in 1980 and gave themselves to Reagan, many in the party didn't seem to care.   They had the ready answers that have come to define modern liberalism:  These were racists, sexists, militarists...definitely not our kind.

Thus, the Democratic Party changed places with the GOP. The Republicans, once retrograde, pathetic and unimaginative, became the party of optimism, of the future.  The Democrats became the reactionaries, nostalgic not for the strong national-defense stance that had been a hallmark of their great days, but only for the purity of the 1960s.  Race, gender and ethnicity replaced "Keem 'em Flying" and decency toward labor.  The Dems simply wanted to feel good about themselves, to announce their goodness, and celebrate the wonder that was them.  "The Star Spangled Banner" was out.  "I Feel Pretty" was in.

So we find, as Cocco reports, that wealthy white Democrats are going for Obama, whereas the heart of the old coalition, the working stiffs, and stiffettes, are siding with Clinton. Despite her catalogue of faults, both volumes one and two, she does seem to address basic economic issues.  And, despite her recent groveling to the guerrilla bands in San Francisco, her record on defense is sane. 

I doubt if the well-heeled Dems are siding with Obama because they believe in him.  They are the modern incarnation of the limousine liberals.  (Today they're Lexus liberals, who always opt for the better sound system.)  They feel no pain when the policies and leaders they support fail badly.  This is no insult to Mr. Obama, who has many worthy qualities, but we've seen this crowd before.  Bad schools?  They can afford private schools.  Crime in the streets?  Why, darlings, one moves to the suburbs or into a doorman building.  War?  Why, of course we're against it.  Aren't all the good people?  They side with Obama because it's the stylish thing to do.  He's the latest cause, trotted out when the whales are asleep.  They can feel good about themselves. 

I recall some years ago reading about an incident at the headquarters of the New York Civil Liberties Union, then the most politically correct satellite of the ultra-correct ACLU.  A group of older citizens, outraged by the Union's constant defense of criminals, picketed out front.  An NYCLU  lawyer looked out the window, a curious look on his face.  "What do those people want?" he asked.  It reminded me of the song sung by the king in the musical, Camelot:  "What Do the Simple Folk Do?"

Many Democrats, especially in the Obama battalions, are detached from a large part of their party.  Do the Republicans have an opening in November?  They have an opening big enough to drive that Lexus through, if they only prepare for it.  And don't turn the sound system down.  Turn it up.

Posted on January 18, 2008.