Democrats in disarray over national defense...

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by DanS
Interesting analysis, Rufus.

Perhaps if the Dems funded a defense policy institute, it would help them craft a coherent message. (Or perhaps they already do, but it is particularly ineffective.)

I would be interested in what you think the reason is for a lack of a deep bench on defense matters and how to solve it.

Well, off the cuff, here's what I'd say. The Dems have been, since Roosevelt, a basically domestic issues party. Their coalition was founded on progressive/populist ideals that united northern urban progressives (the idealists) with southern and midwestern middle- and working-class folks (the recipients of the largesse such ideals brought forth).

The problem is that this coalition was united by the idea that government can be a force for good, but divided on questions foreign affairs. Specifically, the progressive, northern, urban wing of the party tended to be internationalist, while the southern and midwestern populist wing of the party tended to be isolationist. Faced with that tension, the Dems really just ignored foreign policy and hoped their domestic profile could carry the day. I read Pelosi's comment as the latest chapter in that story.

Now, first of all, this means they're doomed to failure any time foreign policy helps shape the electoral agenda.

Beyond that, though, it means that they're failing because they refuse to understand their own situation. The party, at this point, has lost its isolationists to the GOP, and I've been reading some interesting analyses lately about how neo-coservative interventionism and paleo-conservative isolationism might be a new GOP fault line. The Dems, having lagely lost their Southern and the Plains-States support, at this point are left with internationalists, period. Virtually every singe Democratic voter believes in the UN, in multi-lateral force, in international law. At the level of belief, the Dems actually have a more unified vision of foreign policy than of domestic policy.

So why don't they just say this? Hell, why don't they shout it from the rooftops? I don't know. Maybe it tests badly in focus groups. Maybe they're afraid to be too sharply distinct from the GOP. Maybe they've just plain forgotten how to be a political party, how to stake out ideological turf and fight for hearts and minds. But bullsh!t like the stuff Pelosi's spouting is not what anyone wants, or needs, to hear right now. It's certainly not teh stuff that will bring teh Dems back to power in any branch of government, anytime soon.

[Guynemer]

As always, Rufus speaks the truth.

It is precisely that sort of of stuff that keeps me from calling myself a Democrat. They are just so completely, utterly hopeless as a political party, and as a result they are hurting our nation.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Sava
Life sure is interesting in DanS's world...

what are Bush's approval ratings now? 42 or so?

33% last i heard.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly
If the Dems had a larger coherent message, they could use it to paper over the differences they have on individual policies. This is the lesson the GOP learned ages ago, which is why it's now the majority party.

But the Dems don't have an overall message. They only have a blizzard of self-contradictory position papers. And when your party position is the sum of the positions of its members, and the members are all over the map, that's not a Big Tent, it's chaos. Put another way, when you stand for pretty near everything...you stand for nothing. That's the problem.

Hey, I agree that they should settle on one message, however, DanS's orignal troll post said Democrats don't have honest debates when the exact opposite is true. All they ever do is debate about everything.

The Republicans have one message on every issue but never have honest policy debates which is often better for the sound bit media but the exact opposite of Dan's claims.

[Pekka]

What is Dems being weak in defense? Not wanting to commit billions of dollars into the biggest defense budget in the world already? Not willing to put the tax dollars into developing projects such as beebeesuperfreakinglasergun, that has on real life applications what so ever? Or to extend the capability of what ever sort of measure? Exactly what is the point I must ask?

Your defense is in good hands.

Unless you want to talk about how effectively to do battle in other countries, I guess that's a different matter. When it comes to tax money, I'd save the money for more important things. Like books for students and levees for NO.

Then again I'm a dreamer. And an ******* instigator

[DanS]

Rufus: I would only maybe adjust the timeframe. Post-war, there have been strong Dem presidents on defense: Truman (perhaps unfortunate as it relates to Korea), Kennedy, and Johnson (although it turned out unfortunately, of course). It doesn't seem correct to think that the Dems can't have a strong set of ideas regarding national defense with their post-war coalition. I do think Clinton was particularly poor in the area -- he roped in a Republican to be his SecDef for lack of anybody better in the party -- so maybe something changed.

Also, I note that some of the past Dem coalition that you mention still exists, even if in miniature form. For instance, Pomeroy is North Dakota. I guess I just don't know where the Dems would get their majority vote if they shed this portion of the party.

[Pekka]

Pekka's International Protocol For Peace (PIPFP):

This memorandum includes a plan increasing international security in new ways, that are in fact the old ways, but never really tried out.

Cut the military budget in half. The US military budget request for Fiscal Year 2006 is $441.6 billion.

Let's repeat that. 441.6 billion dollars. Is anyone saying, that there's no way to run the army with 220 billion dollars for a year? Let's pay the salaries of servicemen, prioritize new personal equipment to Iraq and troops serving outside US in possible hot beds like South Korea, cut on ALL developing projects and halt the most unnecessary ones that have no future applications in civilian field.

It's not only possible, it takes an idiot to not be able to do it with 220 billion dollars. Iraq is a place where spendings will go but that's life.

Now, with 220 billion dollars extra, spend it all on national projects of science to improve basic life, let's get that money to smart people who can help other people, inside and outside of US.

Tell me this money would be spent bad this way. It will increase national security by far the most than anything else. It will increase the equality around the world, and give US new friends we didn't know even existed. It will further pressure the enemy into the position fo being in the wrong side, in the side against everything that is good.

THat money can be spent on education inside US schools. IF you want safer future, the investment goes into education and youth, not into guns and tanks. The problems aren't going away, they are only regenerating into bigger piles of problems.

It could be said, that you are just not being realistic. Hey, 441.6 billion dollars on defense, who is being unrealistic!??! Where does that money go? Or most of it? Do we really need the polevaulting jump heart resonator cannon? It's like getting ready for warfare that won't happen in the next 30000 years. Take a look at the rest of the world. They are so much behind you. They won't catch you the next year, or the next, or the next decade or two.

It won't be decreasing the security at all. It would be investing to the future. Sure the military industry will take a small hit for a while, but who gives a crap about them? That money will still circulate, and tax payers might actually see the bang for their buck.

Instead of living in cycles where you might ask yourselves, well, who is the next, I suggest you start breaking from that thought and starting a whole new concept of who will be the next one getting some serious science, who will be the next one praising us. Maybe we can do something about lethal diarrhea, one of the most brutal killers in developed nations, maybe we can do something about landmines in south east asia, save some legs and lives. Throw them a book or two. BEST PR ever. All that money saved from propaganda. It can be done.

The most defense grabbing people don't care about you getting the maximum effect and security, they care about new projects where they can get lobbied until their ass bleeds, they care about making their friends happy, they care about their own futures and not getting unemployed.

Again, maybe I'm just saying things that don't exist. But let me also say this; the one who spends $441.6 billion in today's world for national security is being either ass raped by the ones who actually control these spenditures, or that every nation in the world has just come up with nukes, ready to use them on the US.

The best defense policy is to have a working foreing policy, and that's just not the same thing.

[Zkribbler]

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said yesterday that Democrats should not seek a unified position on an exit strategy in Iraq, calling the war a matter of individual conscience and saying differing positions within the caucus are a source of strength for the party.

There's a lot more to national defense that just the President's Grand Diversion into Iraq. While it's true that W's war of aggression against a country that was not and could not threaten us has messed the national defense situation up so badly that even the Dems are having troubles coming up with a solution, the prime concern in the area of national defense is al Qaeda. And al Qaeda was a non-entity in Iraq before the President's ill conceived invasion.

[DinoDoc]

Prime concern?

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by DanS
Rufus: I would only maybe adjust the timeframe. Post-war, there have been strong Dem presidents on defense: Truman (perhaps unfortunate as it relates to Korea), Kennedy, and Johnson (although it turned out unfortunately, of course). It doesn't seem correct to think that the Dems can't have a strong set of ideas regarding national defense with their post-war coalition. I do think Clinton was particularly poor in the area -- he roped in a Republican to be his SecDef for lack of anybody better in the party -- so maybe something changed.

Also, I note that some of the past Dem coalition that you mention still exists, even if in miniature form. For instance, Pomeroy is North Dakota. I guess I just don't know where the Dems would get their majority vote if they shed this portion of the party.

But note that I didn't say the Dems were weak on defense (the GOP mantra) -- I said they didn't know how to talk about foreign policy. It's a crucial distinction. If we look at your examples, Truman, strong on defense, just barely got elected in 1948; the Dems then lost the White House in '52, largely on questions of foreign policy. Kennedy, strong on defense, just barely got elected in 1960 (and maybe then only by cheating), and the Dems got turned out of office in 68, in an election that was unusually focused on foreign policy. Clinton's great luck was to be president when he was -- post-Cold War, pre-9/11. Foreign policy as a national concern wasn't even on the back burner in the 1990s; it was off the stove. In those circumstances, the Dems can win. The problem is that, increasingly, those circumstances are an historical aberration.

[Chemical Ollie]

I think the problem is that the American electoral system makes a change of the current 2-party tradition almost impossible. Almost every other western democracy have 5-10 parties in their parliament, each party with a clear profile: neo-communist, socialist, green, liberal, moderate, conservative, reactionary, neo-fascist, etc.

But in America, you only have 2 parties to chose from, and voting something else would be a total waste, as only the #1 party in each state gets people in the parliament. So a lot of ideologies have to "share the same tent".

And Pekka

[Dinner]

The two parties make it as hard as possible for other parties get get elected too. They don't want people to have other choices.

[Flip McWho]

Aye you guys really need a political reformation. A version of MMP would do wonders for your representation.

Pekka, so very true

It won't be decreasing the security at all. It would be investing to the future.

Great sound bite.

One interesting thing in your analysis Rufus is that the dems only really get elected when they've got a strong leader, one who has a clear message to put forward. Otherwise the dems appear to have no cohesion.
It's all well and good to say they have nice debates and all but the people want to know at the end of the day they'll have someone who will lead not talk.

[chequita guevara]

Re: Democrats in disarray over national defense...

Did you really need to put "over national defense?" I mean, without those words it would still be true.

[MrFun]

Rufus's honest, intelligent discussion about the problems the Democratic Party is grappling with is far more insightful than Dans's trolls.