The decline and fall of the Democrat empire
Written by: Beck
Dale Franks over at Q&O has a fantastic analysis of the origins and causes of the Democratic party's ailments. His conclusion: they're living in the past. His prediction: they're going the way of the Whigs.
I might as well go ahead and say it. I can't escape the feeling that the Democrats are about to go the way of the Whigs. It struck me as the Democrats gathered around the statue of FDR to proclaim their undying devotion to Social Security: FDR has been dead for 61 years.
Is that really the picture the Democrats want to present? An undying devotion to the victories of the distant past?
Much the same devotion to the past is evident from their rhetoric about Iraq. "Iraq", thunders Ted Kennedy, "Is George Bush's Vietnam!" Everything, it seems, is Vietnam to these guys. Indeed, just two years ago, Afghanistan was George Bush's Vietnam.
But 30 years on, that's starting to sound sort of stale, especially coming as it does from a generation of leaders who, in 1975, were pooh-poohing WWII analogies vis a vis the struggle against Soviet Communism as relics from an almost antediluvian age.
It's amusing in some ways. The Democrats are led now by a generation of people who once warned each other never to trust anyone over 30, and who are now approaching retirement age themselves. And yet, they can't seem to escape the mental universe they inhabited three decades ago. The same people who declare that the Constitution is a "living document" that must evolve with the times are the same people who refuse to reform social security's 70 year-old structure.
Read the whole thing.
I agree entirely. Opposition to a plan is not itself a plan, but the bulk of the Democratic platform seems to be opposition to anything the Republicans want to do. The whole "There Is No Crisis" movement--they even have a
webpage--is emblematic.
