The Democrats Are Falling Apart!
By Mitch Berg
The idea of Democratic Party unity – in Minnesota and nationwide – has passed beyond “charade” and “myth” into outright fraud.
No, I”m not talking about the primary battle; while the Dems’ three-way battle for the Gubernatorial nod is a sign of a deep split in the party, it is simply how things are done under our current caucus/convention/primary system.
No – even after the primaries are done and Mark Dayton once again proves that the DFL endorsement is in fact the kiss of death, and the party supposedly “unites” behind the former Senator, all that “unity” talk will be a complete fraud. The DFL – indeed, Democrats nationwide – will be misleading the people by saying they are united.
Why?
Because I”m not one of them. Not anymore.
I was a Democrat, and at least on economic policy a fairly liberal one, until I was in my early twenties. I am a former Liberal Democrat.
And even though the only Democrats I’ve voted for in the past 25 years were Randy Kelly and Norm Coleman, and I”ve been a conservative activist for fifteen years and a conservative talk show host on and (mostly) off for 24 years, now, the fact that the Democratic party at any level say that they’re united without me, Mitch Berg, former Democrat, is proof that they are lying to the people about being “unified”.
Even though I believe absolutely none of the things that the DFL is currently about. Zero.
It doesn’t matter. As a former Democrat, I am what matters.
Absurd?
Not a whole lot worse than the Minnesota left’s current, desperate meme – that the GOP is split because Tom Horner – tax hiking, big-government insider with a client list of groups that will be Happy To Pay For A Better Minnesota (for them) – is really a Republican.
F’rinstance, Dave Mindeman at mnpACT, who comments about the MNGOP’s complaint against Horner and the laughable PiPress poll that’s got the DFL so exercised:
Anyway, I rambled through this series of events to make a very long winded point. Nowhere in that back and forth did you see a single Democrat mentioned as any part of this. Yet, it is the Democrats who gain the most traction in the poll.
In the same way that I”m “getting traction” with Scarlett Johannson by continually repeating how very much her destiny that I am. But I digress.
In this battle of (nit)wits [Oh, Dave Mindeman – you did not just do that – Ed.], all the players are Republicans or “former” Republicans…Horner is, himself, a former Republican Party analyst.
Yes, Dave Min(adequateanalyst)deman(glerofcontext) – in exactly the same way that I’m a “former” Democrat.
And don’t you dare argue with me, Dave. It’s for the good of party unity.
June 9th, 2010 at 12:34 pm
I was a Dem many-many years ago. I gave up on the self-loathing and was born again in liberty.
June 9th, 2010 at 1:02 pm
You guys must be racists who were taken in by Nixon’s “Southern Strategy”. Democrats believe that since they stand in solidarity with working people of all creeds & colors, that there is only one reason you would abandon them for the GOP.
Because you are evil! Or stupid! Or stupid and evil!!
June 9th, 2010 at 1:33 pm
I’ve never been a Liberal Democrat.
I oppose Liberal Fascism.
June 9th, 2010 at 1:42 pm
You guys must be racists who were taken in by Nixon’s “Southern Strategy”.
Not to thread jack but can anyone point to anything that the Nixon campaign actually did in the South or after he was elected as President that actually constitutes making racist overtures to white southern voters? Unless of course the fact that they were white and southern is ipso facto proof that they were also racist (unless they voted Democrat of course).
June 9th, 2010 at 1:55 pm
Ex-lib Democrat here, and I never fell for Nixon’s Southern Strategy.
June 9th, 2010 at 2:00 pm
I was a Democrat during my college years. Graduation and the real world disabused me of those notions quite quickly. I might have fallen for Nixon’s Southern Strategy, but I’m not sure because I was 4 years old at the time.
June 9th, 2010 at 2:23 pm
Evil! Stupid! And Liars!
No one knows how you guys think better than liberal journalists from the Northeast.
June 9th, 2010 at 2:32 pm
Seriously, the whole “Nixon’s Southern strategy” phrase is propaganda. Another way to describe the political phenomena would be to say that the democrats abandoned the white working class because they would not accept the socialist policies the Democrats adopted after 1968. This is mainstream political thought; in policsi circles a recurring topic is the question of why the US never developed a socialist labor movement as did most other industrialized nations.
But honest introspection is beyond the Democrats of today. They would rather reference the post ’68 shift with a reference to the evil Nixon and an allusion to the confederacy.
June 9th, 2010 at 3:11 pm
Unions just wasted $10 million in Ar-Dem Primary on Bill Halter trying to knock off Blanche Lincoln. Yeah the democrats are united…. in destroying themselves
June 9th, 2010 at 3:11 pm
Mr. D, I can’t even tell you how much I hate being disabused. I feel so dirty afterward…
June 9th, 2010 at 4:28 pm
In SC the Democratic candidate for US SENATE has a felony charge against him.
http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_8545/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=7sAFDYPI
I can see this happening for a state rep or a small town city council seat but for US Senate?
They really are a big tent party or should I say Big House party?
June 9th, 2010 at 5:30 pm
I can see this happening for a state rep or a small town city council seat but for US Senate?
They really are a big tent party or should I say Big House party?
For the vast majority of the contemporary Tic conflagration, even an alleged felonious democrat, is better than ANY republican. Sure, they can say McCain, Snowe, Graham, et al. are “My Favorite Republicans”, until it gets down to 1-v-1. Then they’re as bad as any other Republican, and a damn sight worse than any and every possible Tic.
June 9th, 2010 at 11:29 pm
As far as I can tell, thorleywinston, the “Nixon’s southern strategy” tag comes from this 1970 quote by Nixon aide Kevin Phillips:
From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don’t need any more than that… but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That’s where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats.
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/books/phillips-southern.pdf
The whole thing was talked up by Phillips after he became a flaming Lefty in the 80’s, thus proving he really was Nixon’s man — he found a way to inflate his ego, ingratiate himself to his new masters, while simultaneously fucking over conservatives.
The “Southern strategy” smear makes less sense than calling post 1968 Democrat embrace of socialism the “Charles Manson’s rape the middle class” strategy.
June 11th, 2010 at 8:51 am
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