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Voices

Dear Democratic Party:
Posted May 23, 2005 thepeoplesvoice.org

By: Michael Haddock

In last year’s memorable season finale of Real Time with Bill Maher conservative uber-blogger Andrew Sullivan and former Wyoming Republican senator Alan Simpson chastised Maher (and everyone else on the Left) for marginalizing and ridiculing American Christians. 

Actually, Simpson also found time to spew righteous indignation at anyone who would deign to lampoon the honor of god-fearing homosexuals throughout our great land (but especially Wyoming), the same fine American homosexuals who benefited so greatly from his 1996 vote of YES on prohibiting same-sex marriage. 

In Simpson the oppressed homosexual contingent has found its own self-proclaimed messiah. Apparently, politics not only creates strange bedfellows; it invites unwanted ones, too. 

Both men, however, were correct in their assertion that the Democratic Party seems out of touch with the American people, so much, in fact, that George W Bush—a man whose patriarch couldn’t function in a grocery store check-out line at a photo-op during his own presidency—won reelection because he appeared more attuned to the simple ways of the common man than the other candidate who also attended Yale. 

Bathe in the implications of this absurd notion; allow its sheer idiocy to soak in. To our president the everyday, hardworking American is no more tangible than the topless natives one might see on the pages of The National Geographic. We are mere curiosities, nondescript specks of color composing an abstract painting he neither understands nor cares to ponder. Yet somehow your party has allowed the czar to pose as the peasant.

Yes, in a world in which perception is truth your party is out of touch with the majority of the American public, yet not in the way you might assume. 

Ironically, the democrats lost not because of underestimating the intelligence of the electorate, but rather from clutching to a faith in its virtue. In 2004 you believed the American people would do the right thing—if not for the world, at least for themselves. You were incorrect, and your miscalculation has been costly.

Therefore, the Democratic Party must halt the futile endeavor of appealing to the American sense of good and capitulate to its predilection for blame and paranoia. The Republican’s “We really hate gay people…oh yeah, and getting blown up” theme of the 2004 election was beyond genius because Carl Rove realized the only idea more profoundly disturbing to the average voter than domestic terrorism is the possibility of being invited to a same-sex wedding.

Combine these two issues, add some God, and the result is a coalition of plebeian scorn, a boondoggle of misguided indignation (picture that old “I’d like to teach the world to sing” Coca Cola commercial from the ‘70’s, yet with everyone holding semi-automatic assault weapons). Indeed, Carl Rove and the Republicans most definitely proved that if you build it with hate and fear, they will come.

Quite simply, if you ever again want to view a presidential election from the winner’s circle, you guys must get mean: I’m talking vicious, lethal mean; ethnic cleansing mean; teenage girl mean; Bobbie Brown at home with the wife mean. Of course, what I’m really talking about is Karl Rove mean. 

The Clintons, God bless their collective soul, tried to remind the American public that Democrats can be just as sinister as their Republican counterparts, but they can’t do it all; after all, Bill and Hillary are just one man.

Your party must continue the fight. You must adopt not only the tactics of the Republicans, but their mindset—the simplistic belief that not only do the ends justify the means, but the really mean means can be really fun, fun.

After all, it must be fun to politically eviscerate a triple amputee Vietnam War veteran or somehow manage to make another war hero with three purple hearts seem less gallant than his opponent, an effete, macho poseur who spent the Vietnam War years taking bong hits while hazing fraternity pledges. And, let’s be honest, spending the last three years rounding up immigrants based solely on nationality while passing sweeping legislation that profoundly limits the freedoms of every American must provide at least a smidgen of mirth.

Perhaps you guys could learn a little by returning to the origins of modern political thought—you know, the classics. And by classics, of course, I mean The Godfather films—specifically from the Tao of Michael Corleone. 

In other words, keep your friends close and your enemies closer; go to christenings while Cheney gets a back massage; and tell Zell Miller he’s dead to us, just before inviting him on a fishing trip. 

Finally, and perhaps most important, please stop confusing the American public with the facts. In other parts of the world it might take a village to raise a child, but in the U.S. all we need is a television. Any future candidate you dispatch should know better than to confuse the populace with any message more complex than “Mission Accomplished.” 

You must understand, we Americans want our political facts delivered like those disclaimers on pharmaceutical commercials: inaudible and accompanied by pretty pictures—preferably sunset related.

We don’t want to be reminded of an annual defense budget totaling $399 billion while the education of our children is funded by the same amount as Ben Affleck’s latest engagement ring. If it helps, let’s consider that amount in conceivable terms: that’s nearly 400 billion same-sex couples living in your neighborhood. 

Now, let’s really bring it home in a way the average American might fathom: that’s more than each cast member of Friends was making when the series concluded its final season in 2004. 

The Democrats must not be alone in this battle and should be careful to focus the attack not on the entire Republican Party, but rather its most dangerous faction: the right-wing fanatical religious extremists, or as Southern liberals have come to know them…“everyone else.”

Irrespective of what political course you choose to navigate in the next few years, always keep one buoy of truth in your sights: our president is nothing more than a corporate hack masquerading as a public servant; he’s the insect who dreamt he was president and found a slumbering nation with whom to share his vision. 

The time has come for you to wake us up so that we may squash the bug.

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© Copyright 5/23/05 by Michael Haddock. Permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media if this credit is attached and the title remains unchanged.