Did Bush destroy the "DLC" powerbase? (a rambling rant)

By DLC, I mean the (traditionally) southern/conservative democratic power block that has held power for about a generation, or since Reagan re-aligned electoral demographics (i.e. the "reagan democrat." ) It has been 28 years, or a generation, since that last ground-breaking election.

Since then, the U.S. elected one democratic president to office, as we all know. The presidency has gone like this:

Reagan
Reagan
Bush
Clinton
Clinton
Bush
Bush

The DLC argued that, to win an election, the party must appease the conservative southern democrat to keep him/her from switching parties. Then, along came George W. Even though he had to resort to a judicial coup, and had to rely on third party votes to peel off a slim majority, Bush took office and Rove crowed that the Republicans were going to bury the Democrats for a hundred years, or some such bluster.

But George W.'s presidency has been the apex/nadir of the Republican southern coalition. With Bush, the United States has become a pariah and a laughingstock, in great part because of the "cultural conservatives" who have tried to replace reality with their nightmare of ignorance and xenophobia in science, foreign policy, education, health care... and on and on.

George W.'s presidency allowed the corporatists to steal from the taxpayer to fatten their own "contractor/consultant" coffers. They fired/pushed out distinguished public servants in the military and pretended that facts don't matter when you wage a war if you have "god on your side." We see how well that has turned out.

Over those years, in spite of the Republicans, people who were kids in the civil rights movement, both blacks and whites, have had kids, made sure they got a college eduction or the best-paying job they could find as our infrastructure was outsourced. They built lives based upon values that reflect the best of America, values that the political leaders of the sixties showed were lacking. From those leaders, we got desegregation, women's rights, attempts to level the playing field rather than pretending, as Hightower said about Bush, that you don't hit a home run when you already start out on third base. We got an end to a "war" that was based upon lies... lies that came from a democrat, but lies all the same. Johnson, of course, was a southern democrat. The promise of the sixties, of those values, was cut short by assassinations.

That time has passed. We go forward from where we are.

Of course these historical changes weren't universally loved, and even to this day we have Republicans acting like that Japanese guy who was found on some obscure island who was fighting WWII long after it was over because no one made him face reality. Because of these same Republican/Swiftboater's failure to acknowledge that reality, of course, we got Iraq.

But it seems to me the Republican Party has been shattered by the George W. southern conservative coalition. THEY are responsible for this current economic mess. The military quagmire. They are so beaten that they could not even field a candidate if they hoped to even have a chance to get votes from independents, much less democratic hawks.

This election is a generational change. Not in the sense that only one portion of the demographic supports Obama. He has support across ages/races/classes. Rather, this is a generational change exemplified by a regional change. By a move away from placating southern conservatism. This election is a repudiation of the portion of the U.S. population that has forced this nation to pander to their prejudice, their religious intolerance, their xenophobic response to any perceived threat. Hell, the south is full of people who find their conservative elders more than a little embarrassing.

While the south has traditionally represented the problems of our national tragedy, slavery, the midwest has represented the way out for the poor as they migrated north for jobs in the industrial sector. Now that sector has been disseminated by poor choices on the part of CEOs - btw- who decided to build even bigger SUVs while Japan was already branding their cars as the future? Who decided to send jobs down the NAFTA highway and leave American workers with nothing in spite of their generations of hard work?

It is time for another "industrial revolution" in this nation - a "post-industrial revolution" - for a move to new ways of looking at the way life is lived and how we will build those ways. When the world moved from an agrarian to an industrial economy, the nation in Europe that had the hardest time, the one that didn't go through an industrial revolution until the early 1900s because of its aristocrat's intransigence, was Germany. All they had to offer were Hessian soldiers and war. And that's what the world got. Once. Then they gave the world Hitler because Germany just didn't like the modern world. It was too... modern. We cannot let these same sorts in the U.S. to continue us down this path. Therefore, the oil-igarchy and the southern agrarians must be replaced by leaders who are willing to create a future, not mourn for a romanticized past.

Fact: under the oligarchy, U.S. manufacturing of solar panels has dropped to 4% of the world's total. We were once leaders in this forward-looking manufacturing sector. It doesn't really take much thought to figure out why that might be. That's the sort of backwardness we have to beat in this election.

K&R!

the point is that there are coaltions in the democratic party that have been ignored or taken for granted and now these groups will have to vote smart - which includes voting in a way that provides a paper trail in some places, unfortunately.

Get Out The Vote is the most important job for any democrat from now until November.

Too bad, so sad.

Clinton won. he had third party help for the first term, but this big issue, to me, is that the American public re-elected him even after the cultural conservatives went after him over a blow job.

that was the beginning of the end of their over-reaching. the only reason they've stayed in power this long is that they started an illegal war based upon lies. I don't honestly know of any election in which Americans have voted to remove a prez in the middle of a war. Johnson chose not to seek office.

It's also my understanding that, even with voter manipulation, Gore won Florida when the votes were finally tallied. Gore couldn't carry TN, his home state, b/c it's the head of the Southern Bapt. Convention... the base for the talibornagains ... that's how hard right the south has become, for some.

I don't like to use this rhetoric, but honestly, I think the U.S. needs a Sherman's March to undo the damage the south has created by aligning with corporatists. The less power they maintain, the better off the rest of the nation will be.

;)

reconstruction was too easy on the powers-that-were/be.

I'm from the south and I don't have hope for it in my lifetime. too wrapped up in an apocalyptic world view to be part of the future.

I get it now. Maybe I'm a little distracted by all the naked screaming inmates streaking across the lawn of gd-p today crying "Hiiiilllllarrrrryyeeeeeeee!"

I'm a female, and suddenly females only supported Hillary? get. a. grip.

n/t

who are stuck in the southern conservative social issues mindset. I know they're around, but honestly I do not think they are the majority of the U.S. population.

where I live, kids have friends from different races. so do adults. people do not care if someone else is gay. straight people go to gay bars for karoke. straight kids wear ribbons of support for their gay schoolmates.

my next-door-neighbor is Af-Am. She's an educated professional. I have more in common with her than any white southern baptist. She's more conservative than I am.

I don't claim that where I live is like everywhere else. But the reason where I live is like it is is b/c education is emphasized here. it's the leveler and the racism and homophobia killer.

and it's the opposite of what has been the symbol of the republican party for decades.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070620f3.html

Just over 3 million kilowatts at the end of 2006.

over the next few years. I was in Germany last year and all along the autobahn going to Berlin there are windmill farms up and running. they're beautiful to see, to me. they represent a hopeful future.

I could be wrong, but they're either the leader there or rank among the highest.