Specter and the New Democratic Party

What I find so interesting about Arlen Specter joining the Democratic party doesn’t lay so much in the changing dynamics of Congress, or the Republican response.  What’s interesting is the changing face of the Democratic party itself.  As Republicans lose any semblance of an ethos in trade for fringe votes from radical religious sects, they alienate anyone who might otherwise consider themselves a Republican.  In the meantime, Democrats are gaining members from this exodus.

See: recent Democratic wins in traditional conservative strongholds like Indiana, recent polls showing less people associating themselves with the Republican party, and, yes, Arlen Specter defecting.  While I’m cautious in claiming this is any sort of lasting shift, or even a major one, all indicators point to something changing.

We can also look to conservative Democrats like Jim Webb, who, in any other time, may have run under the Republican banner.  But as radical conservative religious organizations – like the Club for Growth – push moderate Republicans out of the party by cutting them off at the knees by funding more radical candidates and generating bad press, many have decided to switch over.  I’d suggest that something similar is happening on a more local level as well, with traditional conservatives being marginalized by these same kinds of people.

You reap what you sow.

Because of this, the Democratic party is more and more becoming the party of sanity, and less the party of liberal ideas.  They seem to be heading towards greater homogenization, while the Republican party is rapidly rolling towards a radical fringe existence.  I have mixed feelings about this if it’s true.  Initially, I find it frightening to think that the Democratic party may galvanize into something other than what was embodied in LBJ’s Great Society.  The rational side of me, however, sees an opportunity in this change.

For one, we may finally be able to put the nail in the coffin of fundamentalists holding power over this nation.  Radical religious groups have no place in any America with a future – we can be a nation with morality without the vitriolic rhetoric bordering on violent and absurd threats.  I’d feel relieved if we moved on from this chapter in our country’s life.

But the biggest opportunity, and the one I place the most hope in, is the possibility to build a more liberal consensus using the swelling numbers of Democrats.  As a nation, we’ve dwelt on the same issues for too long – abortion, gay rights and civil rights in general, unionization, taxing the wealthy, to name a few.  Now might be one of the best opportunities we’ll have to collectively choose to make the right decision, and then move on from these things and onto less contrived issues.[1. I realize these are important issues right now and in no way want to be seen as marginalizing their current validity, but, really, wouldn't it be great if we could tackle other major problems facing our generation rather than dealing with issues continuously being rehashed for political purposes?]

And so we come back to Specter.

Arlen Specter’s move acts as a barometer for some subtle shift in the political landscape, but is not a major change itself.  For at least the past 8 years, and probably since Reagan, the political landscape has slowly been setting itself up for this change; Arlen Specter is only the latest news.  Whether my hopes will come to be reality, or if we will ever see radical religion’s power over politicians curbed, is a quesiton I can only continue to mull over.  But I am convinced that something is happening, and if I can permit myself some optimisim, I think it’s for the better.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 30th, 2009 at 1:33 am and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.