Democratic Policy Without Ideology is just Random Activity
Regarding my commentary on the need for ideology, maybe this will help clarify my position.
Ideological Purge: DOGE’s Federal Layoffs Especially Target Agencies Perceived as Liberal
Two responses to my discussion questioned what are the policies positions. There were specific issues of concern presented. I was not addressing specific policy at all. That these questions were asked, exemplifies what I was presenting as to what happens when ideology is missing. You cannot know what a party is about or what they would suggest as solutions without knowing their ideology. Quoting myself: Why do you think people don’t know who or what the Democratic Party is, stands for? Practical is not an ideology.
Asking for 5 policy areas that I find important and would address is not how I’m thinking about the question: should the Democratic Party seek marriage counseling or a divorce. Plus, it is not my nature to view life in a segmented or hierarchical structure. I don’t have a favorite, a most, a special etc, etc, etc. It’s life. It’s all important. It all needs to be dealt with. Frankly, I believe the media always reducing our social condition down to a top 3, 5, 10 list has harmed us. It assumes we only need to or only can address and solve a limited list. We have been conditioned to refer to the office of the Presidency as the most powerful position on the planet then wonder why it is we have a president referring to himself as king.
This gets us back to ideology and the roll it plays in life, thus our political parties. I have a few core philosophical mottoes I live by. From my mom: I didn’t ask you if you liked it, just do it. As time has passed: Life is basically routine, mundane and boring. Not everything requires an emotional response. It’s not always about you, is another. A dictator is not the most free of people. My freedom ends where yours begins. There are other thoughts, but I think from these you can begin to understand my ideology and how I would go about solving a problem.
Without ideology, any policy is just a random action for the moment. It is void of any concept of how life should be lived or work. That is not to say you cannot get some idea of what the thinking is from a collection of policies. Unfortunately, there will still be a disjointedness to it as there will be policy actions that crash against each other.
Look at the Republican party and how it is presenting to the world. I doubt there are many who do not know the ideology of that party. There is no way not to see the connection among their policies, though depending on whether you view the Republican party in a positive or negative light will color the interpretation.
The reason the Republican party is known so well is because of their focus on culture issues. What is referred to as culture wars is actually the Republican party informing the nation of its ideology. They do it with what are best described as mottoes. Their focus on the Democratic Party being the enemy and labeling any action by the Democratic party as a negative further clarifies their ideology. Knowing this, one can easily infer a policy response and be very close to the final structure and desired results.
Can you answer the following from a Republican/Conservative position? …spell it out for us. What about Gaza and Israel? Ukraine? What about transgender minors’ medical care? What about the borders?
What if there is no ideological messaging from a party? What if you have let someone else define your ideology? You get exactly what I addressed:
“Are Democrats going to stick with their brain dead ways? So I would like to see what the progressive policy is.
Many times Democrats have the right goal but the mechanics of getting to the goal are incredibly stupid.
I am upset enough that I will probably vote Republican for the first time that I can remember and most likely will move out of the state in which I have lived 90% of my life.”
We have a voter that has no way to understand the Democratic Party. We have voters that have learned to view their life from the framing constructed by the Republican Party resulting in the idea that voting Republican will fix their problem, though recognizing that the immediate solution is to move. Why move? Because the natural environment cannot sustain life. Why? Because of the effects of the environment warming from man’s activities. And what party has worked to prevent actions and policy that would have at least minimized the warming to a life sustaining level? But the conclusion is to vote Republican because the person has no clear understanding of the Democratic Party’s identity and thus confidence in their vote for the Democratic Party. My motto: not everything requires an emotional response.
Without the Democratic Party presenting an ideology there is no way for the citizenry to judge the appropriateness, the character of the Republican ideology outside of their own personal ideological development. If there is only 1 example, one version there is nothing to judge. Duh!
For a Republican, the idea of liberal and progressive are defined. For a Democratic Party member or a person considering the party the words create a conflict which is represented in PreCambrian’s comment. The conflict is born from the self-doubt in the party leadership regarding their ideology. It is the result of incorrect analysis of the patient’s problem leading to advice leading to actions that have exacerbated the patient’s internal conflict. Fire the marriage counselors, they are the wrong profession for your problem.
The actions of the Democratic Party appear disassociated. They present as having no plan. They result in creating incomplete solutions thus the ever-present anxiety. There is no means to grow, to mature. In the case of the nation maturing, the goal is defined in the Declaration as:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Considering my analogy of needing a behavioral psychologist, maturation of the nation is presented in the Constitution as:
in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,
These are statements of inclusion. They are not statements of exclusion.
The problem with the Democratic Party is as I have stated; They have been beaten into doubting their ideology. They are fighting the very part of their brain (those that hold the progressive ideology) that is trying to remove the Republican ear worm. It has resulted in policy devoid of all meaning and ability to know the intent. Policy not led with ideology is empty of meaning. A prime motto of mine: Life is intention, what is yours?
Again, you want proof? When was the last time you heard this from a present-day Democratic Party leader? And while you read it, think about inclusion vs exclusion:
What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label “Liberal?” If by “Liberal” they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer’s dollar, then … we are not that kind of “Liberal.” But if by a “Liberal” they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people — their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties — someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a “Liberal,” then I’m proud to say I’m a “Liberal.” John F. Kennedy, September 14, 1960
“What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label “Liberal?”
As far as I can tell, they regard “liberal” as an insult and apply it as an epithet to anything and anyone they disagree with. Same with “Marxist,” “communist,” “socialist” and “leftist.” They aren’t interested in definitions or policies, just expression of their anger. Like when a middle school boy calls someone a “dumbass.” Like when Elon Musk calls someone a “retard.”
The problem for the Democrats is that as the GOP has become the extreme right-wing party, the Democratic Party has moved rightward to fill the void that used to be occupied by conservatives. The Democratic Party has become the Conservative Party. It wants the Democratic Party brand but has become unmoored from historically Democratic Party policies (e.g., pro-labor, pro-science, progressive taxation, protecting the most vulnerable). Instead of attacking the GOP on their policies, the Democratic Party has become reactive, ceding initiative to the Trump/Musk extremists. They can’t just be against Trump/Musk, they have to be *for* something. There is no significant liberal party in America, and liberals are mostly sidelined by geriatric Democratic Party leadership.
Democrats might start by reading George Lakoff’s “Think of an Elephant.” What I remember most is that he argues for clearly articulating values. Let’s take one: fairness. More detailed? “fair wages.”
You would think that such a value and such an issue would be a slam dunk for Democrats. However, the best I’ve seen from national Democrats is that “fair wages” might make a long list of bullet points. Such a lack of emphasis only destroys its salience.
And then you look at Democratic practice. Here it becomes truly depressing. There have been numerous state initiatives (most noteworthy Florida) where red states passed ballot initiatives raising the minimum wage, some requiring supermajorities. Where were Democrats? You would have thought they could have ridden that issue to victory. But they didn’t. They lost…big time. In fact, their support for raising the minimum wage was muted, apparently for fear of alienating their big donors.
It gets worse. Pelosi passed Union Card Check in the House in 2007 but knew that Bush wouldn’t sign it. And so Democrats ran on it in 2008. It was a signature issue. Democrats, if you remember, won the Congress and the presidency. They even had a veto-proof majority in the Senate. Even with a filibuster, Democrats huge majorities could have let them slip it into an omnibus bill or take advantage of the rules in some other way. But did Union Card Check become the law of the land? No, it was never even put up for a vote!!!
And you wonder why people like me are totally disillusioned? It’s best to abide by the words of Lily Tomlin: ” No Matter how cynical you become, it’s never enough.”
@John,
“And you wonder why people like me are totally disillusioned?”
LOL! Not at all. I can spot Republicans like you a mile away.
You couldn’t be more wrong, Joel. The world is not black and white I grew up in a staunchly Democratic family and remain true to the values I grew up with. It was the Democratic Party who abandoned its FDR values, not me. And so, I have been stranded without political representation. I criticize Democrats, because despite their abandonment or ordinary voters; economic issues, they somehow still manage to bask in the aura of the New Deal.
It’s time for voters to wake up to what Democrats have become. For starters you could read Thomas Frank. Or you might watch Lee Fang talk with Glenn Greenwald about the California way of campaigning, deemphasizing issues in favor of images and vague, meaningless sound bites, kind of like marketing soap…
Kamala Wins the Dem Nomination Without Expressing Views; Kamala Harris: The Vacuous Chameleon—with Lee Fang; The Sad Eternal Impotence of the Pro-DNC Left | SYSTEM UPDATE #310
@John,
LOL! You couldn’t be more fake, John. You admitted on this very thread that you have voted third party all but once in the past 30 years. So all your concern trolling is belied by your willingness to put Trump in office. Just own it, m’kay? Why would any Democrat take your advice?
Look, I was young and foolish once. In 1980, I voted 3rd party for John Anderson, believing that Reagan couldn’t win in North Carolina. I was wrong and I learned my lesson never to waste my vote on a 3rd party candidate again. The world may not be black and white, but in a winner-take-all election system like ours, more than two parties is unstable. So the US political system is Democrat or Republican. If you want more than two parties, you have to move to a country that has a parliamentary system.
JohnH
So, what is your solution? I can tell you what I have seen in 2016 and 2024 to which there are similarities. People seem to believe that voting for Mickey and Minnie, other candidates like Kennedy, or not voting will teach them-there politicians a lesson.
Moreso, a woman in each case? We are not going to vote for a woman.
It does not work and in both cases the public was the recipient of the worst which could happen in an election. I think Trump has only worsened since his first tour. I can not imagine what is in the minds of middle level income Republicans.
So what is it? W do not like Democrats, we do not like women in the presidency, we do not like a black woman as the president, we do not like Clinton as a president, etc.? So we will not vote, vote for a cartoon character, or others on the ballot.
Is it worth blowing themselves up?
My solution? Vote third party for President, something I have done all but once in the past 30 years.
It hasn’t made a difference…yet. But maybe people will eventually wake up and realize that neither of the two Evils is in the business of serving their interests.
For the foreseeable future, there is absolutely no cost to voting third party, except in a handful of battleground states or in highly contested congressional races. The outcome is predetermined almost everywhere.
However, there is an enormous upside to voting third party…if the two Evils see 20-25% of the vote going to third party candidates, eventually they will have to reconsider their knee-jerk fealty to the whims of Big Money and offer their constituents more than a few perfunctory crumbs.
Not voting is not an option. It only conveys disinterest. Voting third party conveys dissent.
Continuing on the current path has no positive endgame. It only lets politicians bloviate about how deeply they care about the nation’s interests and voter’s concerns (if they even bother to do that!) And then once the ballots are counted, they just turn around and genuflect to Big Money.
John:
So, you are ok with Trump being the president?
I really don’t like either Kamala or Trump–war in Ukraine, genocide in Gaza, pandering to Big Money and neglecting well being of the vast majority, etc.
Where is the candidate that I can vote FOR?
@John,
Who cares?
John:
You knew what the reality was when you cast your vote. Approximately or slightly more than 3 million voted for others. Another three million decided not to vote. They understood the reality of not voting also. You will not get forgiveness from me. By casting you vote the way you did, you voted for everything you do not like and the extreme of it all.
Kamala is the second woman who ran for president, Evidently the nation does not like women being the President either.
I’m not the only one saying what I’m saying:
Yes, there is more to Digby’s post but… https://digbysblog.net/2025/02/24/just-say-no-2/
John H, the candidate you can vote for is in the primary. You are correct about the Unions and card check. I pointed noted in the first post regarding how unions have been treated by the Democratic Party as an example of the lack of ideology.
Knowing at what point a liberal becomes conservative would be a good start. Currently there is no line of demarcation indicating when the left goes too far. When I ask most of my liberal friend’s basic policy questions and how far are they willing to go until they become conservative, I almost always get a blank stare. One can disagree with this assessment but one also need not look further than getting Trump after 8 years of Obama, then Trump again after 4 years of Biden.
Matt:
Because he is a liberal in his thoughts and mind, he is willing to accept you as a friend. Both Obama and Biden took office when the economy was starting to collapse. Both had to deal with Republican tax breaks causing massive deficits as they DID NOT pay for themselves.