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Onward,
Alexander, Jeffrey, Becky and Deva
November
14, 2006
The Aftermath
Democrats,
Born to Compromise
By SHARON SMITH
Commenting on the results of Election
Day 2006, Republican Party pollster Bill McInturff told the Wall
Street Journal that Republicans faced "the most difficult
environment since Watergate," referring to the scandal that
forced then-President Richard Nixon to resign from office in
1974.
This is encouraging news for
everyone who has spent the last week celebrating the Republican
Party's "thumping'" by the angry electorate-to quote
the visibly disoriented president, fumbling for words, in a White
House press conference the day after.
Within 24 hours after the polls
closed, we were treated to the sight of Donald Rumsfeld-no longer
sneering, but instead choking back tears-during his brief Oval
Office "resignation" ceremony, before Bush's handlers
permanently shuffled him out of sight.
The seemingly unstoppable Bush
regime unraveled with stunning rapidity when faced with a massive
voter rebellion last Tuesday. The widely accepted notion of
the apathetic (and, presumably, politically contented) American
majority also took a thumping last Tuesday.
The angry
electorate
According to the New York
Times' exit polls, six in ten voters said their vote was
based on national, not local, issues. The same percentage disapproved
of the war in Iraq and said the war had not increased the security
of the United States. Six in ten voters also disapproved of the
way Congress was handling its job. Six in ten voters who described
themselves as "independents" voted Democrat, while
two-thirds said they were dissatisfied or angry with Republican
leaders.
There was also a class component
to the Democrats' victories. About half of all voters said they
had just enough money to continue at their present standard of
living (otherwise known as living a paycheck or two away from
poverty), while one-fifth said they were falling behind financially.
The Wall Street Journal
reported that exit polls showed that of the 31 percent of voters
who said they are "getting ahead financially," 63 percent
voted Republican; among the 51 percent who reported they are
"maintaining their living standard," 39 percent voted
Republican; and among the 17 percent who said they are "falling
behind financially," only 21 percent voted Republican.
Indeed, 66 percent of those
who hadn't completed high school voted Democrat.
Race also played a key role
in voting patterns, although a higher percentage of whites also
voted Democrat. The percentage of white voters going for Democrats
was 48 percent in 2006, compared with 41 percent in 2004. African-Americans
continued their long-standing loyalty to the Democrats, by an
88 percent margin (identical to 2004). Asian voters voted by
a margin of 67 percent for Democrats in 2006, compared to 56
percent in 2004.
But Latino voters showed the
greatest increase in Democratic voting: 73 percent in 2006, compared
with 53 percent in 2004. Only 27 percent of Latinos supported
Republicans, in contrast to the more than 40 percent of Latinos
who voted for Bush in 2004.
The 2006 election also drew
the highest percentage of young voters (under age 30) in a mid-term
election in 20 years-up by more than 4 percent since 2002. According
to exit polls, 61 percent voted Democratic in House elections,
playing a key role in close races that pushed Democrats over
the top.
Enter stage
left: the other corporate party
The Democrats must also appreciate
that their victories in the November 7 elections were due in
large part to a shift in corporate loyalties. The Republican
Party has traditionally been the preferred party of America's
corporate class, openly parading the virtues of laissez faire
capitalism. But the Democratic Party remains the corporate party-in-waiting,
ready to cloak the same class loyalties with compromises aimed
at curbing mass discontent when it threatens the class status
quo.
The Bush administration served
the corporate class well, providing tax cuts for the wealthiest
percentile in the midst of a major war. But the electorate apparently
caught on to this increasingly transparent hoax.
Corporate dollars began a significant
shift to the Democratic side in the weeks before the 2006 election,
signaling a ruling-class consensus on the need to shift from
"Plan A" to "Plan B". It cannot be a coincidence
that Rep. Mark Foley's sexual indiscretions became media fodder
just six weeks before the election-since they were well known,
apparently, years ago. While it is a pleasure to watch the mainstream
media attacking Bush ruthlessly now, their corporate sponsors
have approved and encouraged the media's about-face.
Given the limits of the two-party
system, the Republicans' loss was the Democrats' gain. But the
message was unmistakable. As the Chicago Tribune noted
on November 8,
"Americans finally got
to vote on the war. They want change. They got to vote on one-party
rule. They rejected it. They got a chance to vote local. They
voted national. Indeed, the Democrats essentially beat something
with nothing. They offered no clear agenda, no Contract with
America, not even a memorable bumper sticker. This was an election
driven by feelings of rejection far more than embrace."
The Democrats are rejoicing
in their successful "centrist" strategy in this election-deliberately
running Democratic social conservatives opposed to abortion and
gay marriage against Republican social conservatives also opposed
to abortion and gay marriage in several key races. These included
abortion opponent Bob Casey Jr., who beat Republican abortion
opponent Rick Santorum for his Pennsylvania Senate seat; the
also victorious Indiana sheriff Brad Ellsworth, who won a House
seat while opposing abortion rights and same-sex marriage; and
Christian Heath Shuler, an evangelical who won a House seat in
North Carolina last Tuesday. And they will seek to continue this
"centrist" strategy into the 2008 presidential election.
But the election results were
definitive on only one issue: discontent with the Republican
Party. The red-state vs. blue state formula adopted after Kerry's
defeat in 2004 was extinguished by voting results, in which Republicans
who just months ago were on top in opinion polls were voted out
in many "red states."
Rising
expectations: the Democrats' dilemma
But the Democratic victories
have led to a rise in mass expectations for an end to the Iraq
war, a raise in the minimum wage, and an end to political corruption.
The Democrats, of course, have
no plans to shake things up. This election was widely touted
as a referendum on the war. But so far, Democrats have provided
only a vaguely worded "phased withdrawal" of U.S. troops
from Iraq at an unspecified future date.
In a post-election interview
with ABC News' Diane Sawyer, likely 2008 presidential contender
Barack Obama backpedaled on his earlier pledge to begin withdrawing
troops by the end of this year:
"I think now it's too
late to try to start something before the end of the year. What
I would do is sit down with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the
military that's actually on the ground and figure out, how do
we fit together a military strategy that can start that phased
redeployment, but ensure not total collapse in Iraq, and also
make sure that we engage the Iraqi government [We need] to make
sure that they [the Iraqis] know we're serious about not being
there permanently."
Michigan Democrat Carl Levin,
in line to become chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee,
was more explicit. "We have to tell the Iraqis that the
open-ended commitment is over and that we're going to begin to
have a phased withdrawal in four to six months," he threatened-as
if Iraqis invited the U.S. to invade and occupy their country
in 2003 and are now taking advantage of Americans' waning goodwill.
So far, Democrats have gone
no further than deferring to the recommendations of the (Republican)
James Baker-led Iraq Study Group-which is rumored to embrace
a strategy for significantly lowering down U.S. troops at an
unspecified date.
Overall, the watchword of the
victorious Democrats remains "bipartisanship." Despite
the venom of their own campaign ads, they seek compromise with
the Republican Party.
This is not surprising, since
a U.S. defeat in Iraq would be on par with the humiliation U.S.
imperialism suffered after its defeat in Vietnam. And both Democrats
and Republicans are, after all, pro-war, imperialist parties.
The electorate has spoken.
But it is worth noting that the Watergate scandal, while ending
Nixon's presidency, did not lead to a seismic shift leftward
in the political climate. On the contrary, U.S. politics moved
decisively rightward in the following years, as the mass social
movements of the 1960s and early 1970s pinned their hopes on
the Democratic Party to spearhead social change. As it turned
out, the Democrats responded to corporate pressures to tack rightward,
leading eventually to our present predicament.
We should not repeat the mistakes
of that past generation of leftists. The Democrats, like the
Republicans, must respond to mass voter discontent. But their
shared goal is a return to politics-as-usual.
The Democrats will not deliver
an end to the Iraq war without substantial pressure from below.
And that requires large-scale, grass-roots struggle. This should
be a wakeup call to everyone who wants an end to the Iraq war,
a raise in the minimum wage, a step forward for immigrants' rights-and
an end to politics-as-usual in Washington. The door for social
change is opening, but we must take action to achieve it.
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