The New Clarion

Democrats are trying to figure out what has gone wrong, why they’re losing voters, and what they can do about it. They’re doing what passes for soul-searching on the left — that is, making excuses and demonizing the right.

Kevin Drum, writing before the Massachusetts election, said the “noise machine” of the right  is winning the battle of the narrative. Whenever leftists complain about the right-wing noise machine, it means the truth is getting out and it is persuading people. The term is like their earlier term, McCarthyism: both are meant to deflect criticism of the left by demonizing the enemy.

David Plouffe offers a strategy for how Democrats can mitigate an electoral disaster this November. Plouffe spins, as you would expect from a campaign manager.

Everything I have read from the left is BS. I’ll tell you what has happened and what the Democrats should do about it.

When the trio of Obama, Reid and Pelosi found themselves in power together, the New Left was finally, after more than 40 years of struggle,  in control of the executive and legislative branches. Their time had come, and the Democrat base wanted four decades of frustration rectified NOW. They tried to pass their agenda of “fundamentally transforming the United States of America” into a European-style socialist state.

It was a domestic shock and awe. The Democrats worked in a fury. They worked in arrogant, partisan disdain of the Republicans. They passed a $787 billion stimulus bill full of pork for various Democrats that did nothing to create jobs, but only made the economy worse. They took over two automobile manufacturers and told financial sector CEO’s how much in bonuses they could make. The House and Senate passed huge health care bills that would raise insurance costs, weaken medicare benefits and get the state involved in who would live and die. They lied about all of the above.

All this and more shook up the American people. Although both parties have been stumbling towards fascism since the New Deal, people never saw it clearly until 2009, when their eyes were opened by the Democrats’ domestic shock and awe. The Democrats were intent on governing to the left of the American people. The people didn’t like what they saw. A movement among Republicans and Independents call Tea Parties sprung up. During the summer the same rebellious spirit met Democrats at town hall meetings.

How did the Democrats respond to the protests among the voters? With name calling. They called the protesters tea baggers (a term that refers to an off-beat sexual practice I had not heard of before 2009), racists, KKK, evil mongers and likened them to Nazis. Mind you, this did not just come from blowhards on MSNBC, but from the leadership. Statements were made by Pelosi and Reid in a campaign coordinated by the White House. Also mind you, the Democrats were smearing some two-thirds of America. In a country with free elections, calling a majority of voters names like racists and evil mongers is no way to win votes. It seemed as if the Democrats were out of touch with reality or suicidal.

The clash between the Democrats and the American people came to a climax this week in Massachusetts. A Republican was elected to the Senate seat that Edward Kennedy had sat in for 47 years. At the moment the Democrats are in disarray, victims themselves of some shock and awe courtesy of the Massachusetts voters.

The Democrat politicians are frightened. They know that if they continues as they have for the last year and make their health care reform bill into law, many Democrats will go down in November. Their base, however, is advising them to pass the bill. The politicians find themselves caught between their base and the rest of America — damned if they do, damned if they don’t.

Their problems are made worse by Obama’s incompetence. His resume is the least distinguished of any modern president. Even the accomplishments seem strangely hollow: as editor of the Harvard Law Review, he never wrote an article and took no interest in the actual editing; in the Illinois State Senate he voted present over 100 time. He’s gone through life landing prestigious jobs in which he did little — and the same pattern shows up in his first term in the White House. In his first year he gave more speeches and golfed more than any other president. At his core he seems empty and unserious. He doesn’t have any idea what to do.

I see only one way out of the bind they are in: they need a crisis. Both Rahm Emanuel and Hillary Clinton have remarked the usefulness of a crisis. But not the penny ante stuff we’re used to, rather a major, gut wrenching, world changing, once-in-a-century CRISIS. I’m talking hyper-inflation, soaring unemployment, mob violence in the streets and marshal law. At the same time they need World War III to begin. They need the Chinese to invade Taiwan, Muslims to start wars everywhere and the Russians to do something stupid. (And Putin is just the man to do it.) The outbreak of some highly contagious disease would also help.

Under the cover of a crisis, they could skip the hassles of constitutional government and all those annoyances that just get in the way such as filibusters and angry voters. They could get to the collectivist dictatorship they want. They could fundamentally transform America into a land in which all individuals sacrifice to the state in return for cradle-to-grave security. And there would be paradise on earth.

My advice to the Democrats is to manufacture the big crisis. I think they’re up to it. Come on, Barack — create a BIG mess. Otherwise, the Democrats are in for more frustration and backlash from the voters. By 2012 they could find themselves completely out of power again.