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13 Moons and the Democratic Party Lowell Ponte One of every seven years, on average, is a year of 13 full moons. According to myth, such years bring lunacy, sleepless nights, personal catastrophes, strange emotions, and depression. The German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder was inspired by this to make his 1978 movie "In a Year of 13 Moons." As incoming speaker of the House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco this week revels at her multimillion dollar coronation celebrations, the first of 2007's unlucky 13 full moons will coldly be shining down on the Potomac. Democrats officially take over majority power Thursday in both houses of Congress. Lawmakers elected last November will officially swear their oaths to defend the U.S. Constitution, and one newly elected Minnesota Democratic representative, the first Muslim in Congress, will take his oath of office with his left hand on the Quran and the crescent moon of Islam in his heart. These Democratic lawmakers would all love to plunge their left hands deep into our pockets and wallets. Their shared ideological creed since the days of President Franklin D. Roosevelt has been "tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect." Greed is the glue that holds today's Democratic Party together. Most of its voters receive government checks, contracts, or monopolies (e.g., the nominally quasi-private U.S. Postal Service) of one kind or another. Comprising approximately one-third of our electorate, these Democrats live parasitically on money taxed away from the rest of us. Story Continues Below
If these selfish people were prohibited from voting on grounds of conflict of interest, the Democratic Party of the "church of ever-bigger government" overnight would shrink to third-party status. But apart from agreeing that they want more and bigger government checks for themselves, Democrats are of many minds about what values, principles, and priorities they share. While out of power, they played the easy roles of critics and obstructionists. As the new ruling majority, Democrats must now take responsibility and make compromises, if only with one another, in order to govern. How should we define a Democrat in 2007? Let us count the ways — and means. Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, weeks ago traveled to Europe to attend a gathering of EU government officials and heads of state who are avowedly socialists. They warmly welcomed Mr. Dean as a comrade, and not without reason. Even the Communist Party USA has since 1984 stopped running presidential candidates of its own and directed its members instead to vote for the Democratic Party candidate. The Democratic Party has never repudiated nor disowned this official Communist Party support. The restored Democratic majority in Congress means that its Progressive Caucus, founded by self-described socialist Vermont Congressman (now newly-elected Sen.) Bernie Sanders and closely aligned with Democratic Socialists of America, will have a dominant influence on the Democratic Party's agenda. Incoming Speaker Pelosi is a longtime Progressive Caucus member. Several of the most powerful committee chairmanships will go to Progressive Caucus members. Most of these "Progressive" members of Congress have seniority and safely can take far left positions because their heavily gerrymandered, uncompetitive, undemocratic districts guarantee election of Democrats. The Democratic Party is ruled by its aging far left, but its rank and file members are typically much more moderate. The collapse of the Soviet Union and capitalist drift of the People's Republic of China have pushed the left to the brink of history's garbage disposal. What serious thinking person anywhere still embraces the proven failures of communist utopianism and socialist economics? "By 2025 there will be only two people left on the planet who still believe in communism," international economist Peter Bauer once observed, "and they will be two nuns in Brazil." The Democratic Party's senile leaders cling to the socialism of their radical childhoods, but these Demosaurs and Dinocrats will soon be extinct. In the 2006 election campaign a large share of new Democratic candidates ran right, not left, promising to oppose tax increases, to oppose more restrictions on firearms, and otherwise campaigning on traditionally conservative positions. Even at that, many Democrats won only narrowly and could lose in the next election without another tide running against the Republican Party. The 2006 election, as polling made clear, was a justified repudiation of Republicans over issues ranging from GOP Democrat-like high spending to corruption and incompetence. But voters, the polls reveal, did not embrace Democrats, who won by default, not by advocating left-of-center policies. Although led by leftists, the fragile new Democratic congressional majority has — if anything — a mandate from voters to enact policies that could be called Republican lite. To retain their newly regained power and seek the presidency in 2008, Democrats will probably follow President Bill Clinton's successful playbook. They will feign moderation and aim for cheap legislative victories that are high on symbolism but low on substance. Re-defining the Democratic Party will be left to 2008's presidential candidates. New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, a socialist in domestic policy, has thus far by Democratic standards been a foreign policy hawk. Party activists have cooled a bit to her, however, in part out of fear that as a polarizer she could become the best fund-raiser Republicans will ever have. One-term North Carolina senator and 2004 Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards is running as the puppet of two powerful old Democratic Party donors and power brokers — the trial lawyer lobby, and organized labor (now split into two wings, far left and farther left, both of which support Edwards). If elected, Edwards will serve these fat cats, not ordinary Democrats. First term Illinois Sen. Barack Obama seems to be the only candidate that rank-and-file Democrats enthusiastically want. Why? Because they desperately seek an alternative to the tired old, stale politicians who have sold their souls to special interests, whether greedy or ideological. Republicans, too, are trying to remake their defeated party in 2007's moonlight. Why they lost, how they are changing, and what the Grand Old Party must do to win in 2008, will be this column's next topic.
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