Democratisaurus

According to Howard Fineman (NewsWeek) a nasty civil war is brewing within the Democratic Party, a fight between the ‘governing class’ within the Washington Beltway and ‘activists’ elsewhere.

The modern party has been molded by the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) founded in 1985 to combat the Reagan Revolution. The DLC philosophy propounded cultural traditionalism, pro-market economics and hawkish foreign policy. It’s not clear that they really meant it, but Bill Clinton became DLC leader in 1990 and used the platform to defeat George Bush I in 1992, even running to the right of Bush by advocating welfare reform.

Then came 2000 and the Party loyalists were shocked and dismayed by the George Bush II victory. Since then, with growing ferocity, Democratic activists outside the mainstream have adopted the hysterical Deaniac brand of extremism motivated by hatred for Bush and fondness for leftist ideals. The activists (George Soros, Moveon.org, the victimhood alliance, Hollywood,..) accuse the Democratic Party of yielding to George Bush on the Iraq War, tax policy, judicial nominees and more.

Since the last electoral cycle the lefty fringe has become ever more vitriolic and it appears that they are winning the ideological battle. From Michael Moore’s movie; Dan Rather and the CBS memo scandal; the Joe Wilson - Valerie Plame fiasco; 70+ front page NY Times stories about Abu Graib and Gitmo; defending the UN despite oil-for-food; slandering John Bolton and John Roberts; glorification of Cindy Sheehan; to the recent finger pointing in New Orleans, it’s clear that the inmates are now in charge of the asylum.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, mainstream national Democrats have adopted the disgusting race hustling ways of the Jackson-Sharpton-NAACP alliance.

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill) lamented about the president's inadequate "empathy" and criticized the government's "historic indifference" and its "passive indifference" that "is as bad as active malice." Since Obama is only 44, he probably does not know about the $6.6 trillion of anti-poverty spending by the indifferent government since President Johnson’s "war on poverty" began in 1964.

Behind the Great Society was a socialist principle: By giving the poor welfare, subsidized food, public housing and free medical care, government would end poverty in America. There is only one problem: it doesn’t work!

In 1935 FDR spoke to a nation mired in the Depression about the danger of welfare dependency: "Continued dependence induces a spiritual disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To dole our relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit."

The American spirit held that government must help in an emergency, but in normal times men provide the food, clothing and shelter for their families.

FDR was right. A ‘spiritual disintegration’ has overtaken some of us. Government-as-first provider, the socialist idea of the Great Society, has proven to be ‘a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit.’

Mark Steyn noted in the Daily Telegraph that “charges of Republican ‘racism’ rang particularly hollow in the context of New Orleans, where sodden blacks might be better advised to ponder what they have to show for being a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party for four decades.”

Democrat strategist Donna Brazile summed up the Party deficiencies saying, "Democrats are in the Stone Age when it comes to African-American outreach."

So what are the Dem’s to do? The Party base includes teachers unions who put their welfare first and deny vouchers to poor families; public employee unions who enjoy healthcare and retirement benefits far better than the middle class average; personal injury lawyers who drive up the cost of medical care for all of us; Hollywood and university elites who are sadly out of step with middle America; atheists and the ACLU who strive to drive any mention of God from the public square; poor blacks who have relied on the Democratic Party for decades with meager progress.

The American people are fully fed up with the antics of the unions, lawyers, elites and the ACLU. Blacks are waking up to their dependency. After close to $7 trillion has been spent on liberal solutions to eradicating poverty it is clear to all with a brain that the Democratic Party is “bookless” and is going the way of the dinosaur.