DEC 1 - 15, 2004

VOL. 2 ISSUE 23

DECEMBER 8, 2004 – In 1964, there were 67 Democratic Senators and only 33 Republicans.  In the House of Representatives, there were 248 Democrats, 172 Republicans.  Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat, won the Presidential election with 61 percent of the vote.

Most people these days don't remember these facts.  Yes, it makes current claims of Republican dominance - and a mandate - seem silly.  But even more, the numbers above are key to understanding how the Democratic - and Republican - Parties both have fallen into utter destruction.

To understand the Democrats' dilemma, you must step back into the 1964 scenario for a moment.  Total, utter dominance.

For the Democrats, this meant a sure thing mentality, as in the people in charge of the party could in effect anoint whoever they wanted into office.  To get ahead in the Democratic Party - and that was the only party it was useful to get ahead in - one had to kiss up and do as told.

In the meantime, those with different views - those who were against big government programs, those who were against civil rights and women's rights, those who still owed an allegiance to the Republican Party, were lost in futility.  They were desperate.

It was this setup that would lead the Democrats to become a cowardly lot of panderers who are careful not to stand up to boldly lest they rock what had been a very steady boat.  And it was this setup that would lead the Republicans to sell their souls to devilishly dishonest and amoral people who would lead the party astray from everything it once stood for, and everything America stands for.

To illustrate the Democratic side, take one of the most solid of the remaining Democratic strongholds:  California.  In California, Democratic governor Grey Davis was just thrown out of office right after being re-elected.  The Republican who took his place said the recall was necessary because Davis was running deficits.  This was inexcusable and simply the result of "wasteful" spending.  Upon taking over, the Republican, a man named Arnold Schwarzenegger, promised - again and again - that all he would need to do is "open up the books and let the sun shine in," by which, he explained, he meant do a detailed audit of the state's spending.  He promised to do this as soon as he took office.  Once he did this, he swore again and again, he would simply, by cutting all the wasteful Democratic spending he knew was in there, balance the state's budget without raising taxes and without cutting any education or vital health program spending.  (See this AP article from right after he was elected in which he is says, ""What we have to do is, open up the books ... do the audit and find what the waste is," to get up to speed on this.)

Well Schwarzenegger got into office in this Democratic state and proceeded to immediately be shown to be a complete fraud.  He started to do the promised audit but stopped.  Why?  Because all he found were a couple hundred thousand dollars in sort of maybe wasteful spending on teddy bears for a PR campaign and wheelchairs that, maybe, could have been purchased at a better price, not the more than $15 billion dollars he swore he knew was there to be easily, painlessly cut to instantly balance the budget.  And so, after getting a fairly elected Democratic governor thrown out of office for planning to borrow $15 billion dollars, vowing he could fix the problem, Schwarzenegger has done nothing but borrow the same money - not just the first year, but the next year again.  (See this CNN article for a nice summary of how instantly Schwarzenegger was found out to be a complete fraud and all the promises he was caught instantly breaking.)

So there we are, in the middle of one of the most solidly Democratic states, one of the wealthiest states for Democrats, and you have Republican usurper get caught red-handed as a complete fraud.  So what do they do?  Do they nail him?  Do they point out what a fraud he is?  Do they even challenge his policies?

No.  What the Democrats actually have done in California is whimper and cower before the polls.  Within Democratic circles in California, all the talk is about how "popular" Arnold is.  Yes, there are Democrats who are appalled at the constant borrowing and who have been ready and willing to nail and attack Schwarzenegger as the incompetent fraud he has clearly been shown as.  But in a state where the Democrats have such a lock on so many seats, there are lots of people who have been biding their time, working their way up the queue, and now find themselves in the positions of power or as the next in line to be anointed into state assembly or senate seats.  These are the people who the party pushes through in the primary.  And these are the people who feel they just don't want to rock the boat, because if the just go along and get along they will be basically guaranteed that seat they have been waiting for for so long.

I personally have heard this from Democratic candidates throughout the state at all levels.  Why are you not standing up to Arnold, I ask them.  Why are you not pointing out all his proven lies?  Why are you letting him borrow the state into oblivion, not standing up for fiscal responsibility, not nailing him for being the fraud he has been?

The answer I get every time?  "He is too popular."  "If you stand up to Arnold, you will be thrown out, just like Davis was."

Notice there is nothing about principles in this.  There is nothing resembling confidence.  There is nothing resembling boldness.  There is only self-interest and the wanting to take advantage of a power structure that has been set in place and is going to work to their personal advantage.

This scenario, since the Democrats' zenith in the mid 1960's, has played out again and again and again.  Principle and taking stands gave way to greedy cowardice.  People are baffled as to how one party, the Democratic Party, has entirely become a voiceless, cowardly party of eunuchs.  This is the mechanism of it.  They had such a secure hold on power that everything came about, "It's my turn to take mine," and both a desire not to upset the current order of things and a fear that anything too bold might do just that.

It took decades for this to catch up with the Democrats.  They rode on their laurels for a good long run.  But at last it has.

And yet still, there are too many people thinking they are the next in line in the queue, who realize maybe the party has some problems but who have given years to working their way to their spot in line.  These people still hold the power and will make it very difficult for the Democratic Party to truly rebound within the next few years.  More than likely, another decade or so will be needed, the party will have to be beaten into absolute uselessness, for new blood truly to be given an opening to inject some principle and courage back into the Democratic mix.

On the other side of things, no matter what they tried for decade after decade, the Republicans simply could not break the Democrats' hold on power.  They had some success as far as the presidency was concerned.  But the Democrats still were the majority party.

Even more importantly, the Democrats were a majority party without principle and without the courage to take necessary stands.

And so devout Republicans and Americans who cared about principles and wanted leaders who would take necessary bold stands, desperate after decades of futility, sold their souls.  If they couldn't win fairly, if they couldn't win honestly, they were going to win anyway they could.

And so when, in the early 1990's, the Republican Party, under the initiative of George H. W. Bush, began assembling a lying propaganda network like the ones the CIA Bush formerly led has used around the world, the Republicans felt not disgust but at last some hope.  While they knew morally that lying was wrong, and they knew that one-side-promoting propaganda was an un-American tool that never should be trusted - was the standard implement of evil stalwarts like the Soviet Union and Saddam Hussein - their desperation give a Machiavellian embrace to their only hope.

In the meantime, the queued-up Democratic dynasty paid them no attention.  A fly in the ointment.  They had been the majority party for more than three decades.  Just don't do anything to rattle things and everything will be just fine.

And even as the 1994 "Republican Revolution" hit just a couple of years after the propaganda network took to the air and the Democrats lost their solid lock on Congressional power, the Democrats stayed in a state of denial.  Too many people had spent too many years kissing their way up the chain of command to acknowledge that a change in course might be necessary.  Those in the queue were going to get theirs.  They had paid their dues and nothing - certainly not the opinions of some of those inferior Republicans - was going to get in the way or their guaranteed political positions.

Meanwhile, those Republicans who had been lost in desperation for a generation saw at last a success and rushed en masse to embrace whatever it was that had finally ended their streak of futility.  This was not a time to ask questions.  Someone had finally come to bust them out of prison after 30 years - exactly 30 years after Johnson's landslide victory and the peak of Democratic dominance - and the GOPers were not going to look their gift horse in the mouth.

People began to tune into Rush Limbaugh and check out the new Gingrich-brand of Republican.  And while Limbaugh and Gingrich were the first gleam of light at the end of a very long tunnel for Republicans, many were still not ready to accept lying and intentionally misleading propaganda. 

And so the Republican gains were little by little reversed.  Gingrich and his new breed of Republicans became the poster child for hateful evil during the 1996 election and were used by Bill Clinton in his ads to demonize the GOP as a whole.  Clinton won re-election handily, and the Democrats gained back some of the seats they had lost.

For the Democrats, this gave the go-along-get-along crowd the impetus to say, "See, it was all just a one-time fluke."  It became the general assumption that little by little the Democrats would once again regain control of both houses of Congress.  1998 came and they regained some more of the seats they had lost, and so those who had briefly feared for their anointed-regardless-of-policy status reassured themselves and the others who stood atop the Democratic party that all was well, that bearing the label Democrat was enough, and that principle and stand-taking could only screw up a guaranteed sure thing.

The Republicans, and Americans who wanted leaders who stood for principles - or at least stood boldly for anything - were back into despair.  Now the better part of another decade had gone by and it looked like things were inevitably headed back toward Democratic dominance.  They needed something, anyone who could offer hope.  And there waiting for them were the people they had dubbed hateful, disgusting, and undesirable just a few years back, the new breed of Soviet/Nazi-emulating Limbaugh/Gingrich Republican.

By this time the lying propaganda network had grown take over complete control of AM radio and to include a 24 hour TV propaganda network as well, the new FOX News channel.  FOX was still not getting great ratings and the propaganda network, and hateful Limbaugh/Gingrich-brand of Republican, were still not bought-and-sold by Republicans as a whole.  There were those in the party that still believed they could cling to morality and principle and beat the Democrats fair and square.  These were the large number of GOPers who voted for John McCain to carry the party's torch during the 2000 primaries.

But, as there was within the Democratic Party, there was a power center within the GOP.  After losing his re-election bid, George H. W. Bush had lost power within the party.  After Dole got clobbered, Reagan faded from the picture due to illness, and Gingrich had to flee due to his affair with one of his staff members, Bush, Sr. stood alone as a member of the GOP who had seen victory and had knowledge and money at his disposal.  Even more, he offered the GOP business base a son without the mental capacity or moral inclination to be above doing their bidding unbridledly.  Sure Bush, Sr. had failed in his re-election bid, but he had learned from that experience, knew what the mistakes were, and so would be sure not to let victory slip away again.  With another son who was governor of a large, vitally important state, the legacy he had earned through the Reagan/Bush years, and his offer of the perfect unprincipled puppet, the GOP power brokers shut down the McCain express.  This was about victory at any cost.

After they were forced to accept Bush, Jr. as their candidate, a new level of desperation set in for average Republicans.  They had already been a long shot.  Now, they had a mentally incompetent simpleton who couldn't but utter a few phrases over and over as their only hope to avoid being ruled for another four years by a Democratic Party without principle or courage.

And so one by one, Republicans began to learn their catechism-like rhetoric and follow the routine they were taught without regard for truth or morality.  Like soldiers falling in line, taking their orders and following commands without questioning, good Republicans began to echo the lies they were being fed, repeat the distortions, never stopping to check facts as they didn't want the truth, they just, desperately at this point, wanted some hope of a victory.

This time, a more sizeable portion of the GOP tucked away their morals and embraced the openly lying propagandists.  But still there was a sizeable group keeping an arm's length.  These people didn't trust the new propagandists fully.  All they had seen the Limbaugh/Gingrich group deliver was one victory, which was followed by repeated losses and the disgrace of one of the founders of the new movement.  They watched cautiously to see what would happen this time.

And then the 2000 election occurred.  Rather than losing control of the House and losing the presidential election, yielding the outcome of the seemingly inevitable return to Democratic dominance, the GOP not only held the House, not only increased their margin there, but took control of the Senate.  And, as they saw during the recount in Florida, this news militantly Machiavellian group of Republicans managed to steal victory out of a sizeable defeat in the presidential contest.

Was it moral?  Was it legitimate?  None of that mattered.  All that mattered for devout Republicans was that at last, after decade after futile decade, they had actually, entirely dethroned the Democratic Party.

Now the propagandists had the nation's attention.  Those GOPers who had kept their distance, unsure whether selling their souls would pay off, saw that, yes, if you embrace these lying, Soviet-like, Machiavellian propagandists, there is a good chance of having success.

And so the tables have turned.  Principle has gone out the window for the GOP.  They accept lie after lie even in the face of direct evidence, they embrace deficit spending without pause or limit, they accept torture and environmental fraud and, of course, cling to that most un-American of staples, the Soviet/Saddam-like propaganda machine that got them power to begin with.

Take a look at the example of Schwarzenegger again.  Lie after lie, no dispute.  Deficit spending without limit.  Broken promise after broken promise.  And yet Republicans embrace him without reservation, the media propaganda machine - now the equivalent of the old Democratic Party - is rushing to anoint him, without regard for his horrible record or documented past of nude posing, drug use, orgies, and lechery - not a mention of these things anywhere, even with photographic evidence and other documentation abundant.  And the Democrats in California follow in the footsteps of their national party, refusing to stand up for principles - in fact, refusing to stand up for anything but their personal ambitions.  And the reality is that the Democratic Party in California is following in the footsteps of the national party, not acknowledging the simple fact that they are losing power by the day, that they had their governor recalled a couple years ago, and just this election saw George Bush go down by a less than impressive margin.

America's two major political parties have both fallen into complete demise.  The Democrats have entirely lost their principles and ability to stand up for anything at all, standing only for their personal political ambitions; and the Republicans have lost their moral code, sold their souls for the sake of political wants, abandoned principle and conscience for the sake of political expediency.

Neither of the parties will be able to right their ships anytime soon.  The Republican Party is only positioned to travel further down the devil's road they have chosen.  And while being defeated and desperate the Democratic Party may seem to be the more malleable choice, those decades of earned entitlement will take a while to work themselves out.  And so for now, neither party can serve the nation usefully.

Now you understand, as only we at The Moderate Independent could lay out for you, where we are as a nation and how we got there.  Where we go from here is not something to ponder, it is something to determine.  And the people who determine it can only be us Moderate Independents.