Joe Canason: Democrats lost the battle, not the war

Only people suffering from historical amnesia could believe this election proves that liberalism is dead.

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By Joe Conason



Nov. 6, 2004 | In the dark post-election mood that lingers, the defeated should find history both restorative and instructive. Restorative because the past reminds us that both victors and vanquished tend to mistake the dimensions of the immediate event, whose true significance cannot be known until years or even decades later. Instructive because the past tells us so much about how the conditions of our present distress came to exist -- and, most important, how we can change them.

So for the moment set aside the triumphal proclamations from the Republican leadership and their echoes in the media, along with the petty recriminations against John Kerry, who has devoted his life to public service and deserves admiration for the honorable campaign he waged against unscrupulous opponents. As a presidential candidate he had his virtues and flaws, which obviously differed from those of George W. Bush -- and will surely differ from those of the next Democratic nominee.

A longer perspective is more pertinent and more relevant to the future than listening to televised imbeciles maundering about the "death of liberalism." (Had the Democrat won by three points and a couple dozen electoral votes, nobody would be touting the "death of conservatism.") Progressives and reactionaries in America have both survived much sharper electoral rejections than this one. Both sides tend to overreact to such rejection in an election's emotional aftermath.

Exaggeration is the rule, not the exception, in the post-election autopsy. Sweeping pronouncements about this year's close, hotly contested campaign should be considered skeptically, especially when Republican propagandists start to talk about their "mandate" and their "permanent majority." Such claims are convincing only to citizens (and journalists) suffering from amnesia.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2004/11/06/history/index.html

some positive stuff. Because it's true! WE only have lost a battle..we're not crushed!

Thank you, Joe Conason!

" longer perspective is more pertinent and more relevant to the future than listening to televised imbeciles maundering about the "death of liberalism." (Had the Democrat won by three points and a couple dozen electoral votes, nobody would be touting the "death of conservatism.") Progressives and reactionaries in America have both survived much sharper electoral rejections than this one. Both sides tend to overreact to such rejection in an election's emotional aftermath."

Thass right..no one would be touting the death of conservatism..they'd be busy trying to impeach Kerry!

big difference from our situation. We have been losing ground every
election from 2000 on. I believe this is due to electoral fraud, but
whatever the cause, our Congressional Democrats don't really have the
power to DO anything anymore, because there are too few of them.

Soon they will even lose the power to filibuster, at which time they
might as well pack up and go home, for all the influence they will
have. (Come to think of it, would packing up and going home deny
the Repubs a quorum? Could they pull a Texas-Dems?).

> Thass right..no one would be touting the death of conservatism..they'd
> be busy trying to impeach Kerry!

Of course, because they have solid majorities in the House and Senate.
We can't impeach anyone. We can't hold hearings, because we don't
chair committees. In fact, many of the committes now exclude all
Democrats from their deliberations, bringing them in only when it
is time to vote, votes we always lose along party lines. We can introduce bills, but they never make it out of committee.

At a time when some legitimate reason to feel optimistic is as sorely needed as water by someone dying of thirst in the desert, I hate to be the one to indicate that the waterhole is poisoned, but in fact it has occurred to me of late that it is not so much we as Democrats who lost this election. The real loser in the election of 2004 is America, and the sad thing is that the boobs who voted for the arrogant and ignorant frat boy, demagogue Bush don't even realize they've slit their own throats as well as ours. Charles Cutter calls it suicide by ballot < http://magic-city-news.com/article_2401.shtml >. And while it is true we have survived challenges to democracy before (Nixon; e.g., finally self-destructed with a little help from Woodward, Bernstein and a whole lot of venerable young hippies), I'm not sure we have ever previously faced a situation in which so much of our nation existed in a perpetual state of blissful ignorance. How do you counter that? Dickens wrote, "This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased." Make no mistake. We've got our work cut out for us. We'd better hope, as Mr. Conason says, that the past is instructive because we're going to need all the help we can get to straighten out this mess.

and it just keeps receding into the distance.

These idiots (and there is no more accurate word) will require a replay of 1929 and 1938 before they wake up from their self-aggrandizing, fascist bigotry to see that the world is punishing them for their wrong choices. With my luck, we will have the role of Germany this time around (or maybe Poland--did you forget Poland?) and this nation will be invaded for the first time in 200 years.