I just launched xdem.org, which I’m billing as an organizing tool for democrats who have left the Democratic party behind.
I’m one. I quit in 1992 when Clinton came to Connecticut to trash the other Democratic candidates with money he got from rich white people in and around Washington, DC.
It was a clever ploy by Clinton, embracing both the right-wing agenda and conventional right-wing tactics, and it won him two terms. He got to drop bombs in foreign countries. He got to pardon some favored crooks. He got women in abundance. He and his rich friends got richer as a result of his tenure, and the poor got poorer. Positioning himself politically between Nixon, to his immediate left, and Reagan, to his immediate right, he was the first Republican Democrat in the history of the presidency. Since leaving office, he’s been adopted by the Bush family, fulfilling a lifelong wish.
Clinton exemplifies everything we should despise about today’s Democrat. He’s a hypocrite, and his motives are purely venal. He’s a Democrat because being one is a good way for a popular fella to get elected to office. He’s the model for Democratic office-holders, a self-dealing hack who wears the party label to ingratiate himself with the voting public.
Suckers alone can’t keep these con-men in office long, but that’s the audience they’re playing to. My representative John Larson was a vocal opponent of the Iraq war, but he remains prepared to fund its continuation. He claims to care about the Constitution, but he refuses to hold the executive accountable for high crimes. Is he for national health insurance? Not quite yet. And he makes no audible complaint about the saber-rattling over Iran or the mayhem in Afghanistan.
He’s typical of today’s Democrat, and his seat is considered safe and secure from all challengers. Maybe not, if ex-Dems organize to hold him and his associates accountable. If you’re still a Democrat, quit (including you, Dennis Kucinich), and find a fresh approach to the redemption of our democratic republic.
STEVE FOURNIER writes at Current Invective. He can be reached at: stepfour@stepfour.com