Well, everybody’s trying to figure out why the Democratic Party lost (umm, because there are more Republican voters? Nah, too simple); as Harold Meyerson put it in the Washington Post, “We are . . . post-morteming like nobody’s business.” Now FOXNews.com has gotten into the act with an article that really makes me wonder if they deserve their conservative reputation. Consider the following statements:
“Even though Democrats would’ve helped [Midwesterners] more, they still voted for Bush because they think he’s a good old boy.” (This from a Bostonian who thinks that just because he went to college in Indiana, he understands the Midwest. Sorry, bub, wrong culture.)
“It’s clear that on conservative moral values, people voted for those values over their own economic interests. I don’t understand it, and I think we need to go back and look at it.” (Leo Girard, president of the United Steelworkers of America)
Again, Perry Mason: “Objection—assumes facts not in evidence.” Does it ever occur to liberals that perhaps conservatives actually don’t believe that liberal policies are best for the economy? Mr. Union President, if you want to understand it, you might begin by considering the possibility that those of us who voted for Bush largely understood ourselves as voting both for those values and for our economic interests, not as voting for one over the other.
“Midwesterners don’t really relate to Democrats. Especially Kerry, he was much more intellectual than Bush, and that’s not what someone in Middle America relates to.” (That was Carol Kolb, editor-in-chief of The Onion; she went on to accuse the Democrats of “a little bit of condescension.” Pot, meet kettle.)
“That’s how [the GOP] creates divisions. You call them names. The right has done a very effective job at framing the left—they suck at responding.” (That quote comes courtesy of the president of spinArt Records, whatever that is. Apparently, not a history major, or he’d realize that the GOP didn’t start that war.)
The common thread in all these is the implicit belief that the Democrats lost because voters weren’t smart enough to realize the truth. From my perspective, the revival of the Democratic Party as a national party will begin once they toss that ego-salving belief out the window and face reality: we knew exactly what we were doing when we voted Republican. (Well, not all of us; but as many as knew what they were doing when they voted Democrat. As the Rocky Mountain News‘ Dave Kopel points out, “Political ignorance plays no favorites.”)
Finally, there’s this: “Ask [Republicans] what Jesus said about the difficulty of a rich man getting into heaven. What does this say about tax cuts, about cutting funding for schools, health insurance and apparent favoritism for the wealthiest contingent of our country?” The chap responsible for this quote is a schoolteacher in Austin, TX. I’m sorry to have to tell him, but he’s unqualified to do biblical interpretation. The point of that parable is that Jesus’ fellow Jews regarded the rich as the likeliest to get into heaven, for a combination of reasons, and thus that if the rich would have such a hard time, what hope did anyone else have? Hence Jesus’ comment, “What is impossible for human beings is possible with God.” In other words, salvation is utterly impossible by any human effort; it’s only possible through God’s action in Jesus Christ. That is the point of this parable—it’s nothing at all about “tax cuts . . . cutting funding for schools, health insurance [or] apparent favoritism for the wealthiest contingent of our country.” To be sure, the gospel does bear on these issues, but this passage doesn’t; and just as importantly, the Bible shouldn’t be applied so simplistically—by either side.