Why Democrats Don't Try to Win

You may have noticed that the Democrats seem to have given up any hope of being the party of hope and vision, pretty much since they selected John Kerry as the presidential candidate. Many of us have become so disgusted with the Demos that we've considered either backing the Greens or starting a new party since we need at least a 2nd party in this country.

There have been various rationales as to why they have rolled over for Bush in so many ways, ranging from patriotism to disorganization. But there is a more strategic explanation.

I told many of my friends that it might be better if Bush won in 2004. Why? Because Bush had put into movement trends of such momentum that no one would be able to reverse them for many years. And our supertanker of a country was headed right for the rocks. If Gore had been elected, the right would have had a field day tearing him to pieces blaming him for the results of Bush's policies. The country would be even more demoralized and polarized than it is today.

Sometimes the only way to deal with a stupid bully is self-petard hoisting. And it's often the only way for a mass of people to learn. The Germans, for example, are a lot more enlightened than are Americans today, because they have experienced what happens when a country allows itself to be misled by dreams of empire into aggressive and clearly immoral behaviors, often dressed up in some sort of pseudo-religious ideology. Americans have yet to go fully through this nightmare.

No one will admit it, but the Democrats may be playing out this strategy even beyond Bush. Let Jeb inherit the Bush legacy of a huge deficit, recession, environmental degradation, and oil depletion, as well as the costs of fighting the War on Terror and the costs of not fighting the War on Global Warming. Who else would we wish upon such a state of the union?

In 1972, John Brunner wrote "The Sheep Look Up". Bush supporters may now be starting to raise their heads at Abu Graib and New Orleans, but they may need to be left standing in something equivalent to the ruins of Berlin before we can unite to rebuild a country with moral values that inspire and security built not upon the equivalent of a nuclear-armed gated community but upon securing the welfare of the people of our small planet.