Whigged Out - Yesterday, Vodkapundit

Whigged Out - Yesterday, Vodkapundit Stephen Green asked if the Democrats were going to go the way of the Whigs, and obliterate themselves.

Eric Raymond at Armed and Dangerous responds.

The Democrats certainly seem to be trying pretty hard to self-destruct. But this is not a new story; it's been going on ever since the New Left captured the party apparat in the early 1970s. My first experience of political activism was standing athwart that particular tide of history, yelling "stop!", as a campaign worker for centrist Democrat Scoop Jackson in 1975. I think I already half-understood that he was doomed. What I didn't foresee was the completeness with which the Democrats would abandon their southern and rural wings to become a party run exclusively by Brie-nibbling urban elites. Call it the NPRization of the party.

Recently they've abandoned the private-sector labor unions as well. Just before 2000, a key Democratic strategist noted that party's demographic power base consisted solely of blacks and the public-employee unions. Bill Clinton, charming sociopath and perfect acme of the American political creature that he was, had managed to paper over that problem for a while. But it keeps getting worse. The liberal-Democrat lock on the national media is crumbling under pressure from talk radio, Fox News, and the bloggers. They're losing their ability to control the terms of political debate.

A smorgasbord of food for thought.

Posted by Mitch at November 4, 2003 01:08 PM