How Democrats Marginalize Their Constituencies
Commentary by Greg Lewis / TheRant.US
August 15, 2005
Democrats continue to claim to be the party of "the
people," but where the rubber meets the road, Democrats routinely
fail to deliver. Among the "people" Democrats would claim to
represent are, to give you one example, regular Americans, folks who grew
up listening to the music of the Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd and
who understand that they are not the ignorant, racist rednecks the liberal
media and Neil Young portray them to be. Rather, they're folks who choose
to make their political decisions on a case-by-case basis.
"Your skin happens to be black? OK, brother, what's
your story? What life experiences do you and I share that make us brothers
under the skin? 'Cause I don't give a fat rat's ass where or how you grew
up. If you grew up poorer than me, well, then, God bless you, bro', 'cause
I grew up dirt poor, bet to it. And I'm happy to make your acquaintance
since you seem to be after pretty much the same things I'm after in this
life and since you seem to share pretty much the same values I hold.
"You damn well bet I've got a wife . . . and two
kids to boot. You, too? How old are your kids, brother? I got a girl seven
and a boy four. No-o-o-o . . . that's not possible. Well, then, what school
does your seven-year-old go to? You got to be kidding me! Let me buy you
a beer, brother. We've got a hell of a lot to talk about, you and me."
By politicizing and generalizing issues that are better
dealt with by real people in the course of their everyday lives, by categorizing
real people without bothering to get to know them or take the trouble
to understand on a personal level the real issues they are concerned with,
Democrats have managed to distance themselves from many of the very constituencies
they claim to represent.
The Lynyrd Skynyrd reference was not chosen randomly.
You might be aware that the group created, as I have often argued, the
best rock song ever recorded in "Sweet Home Alabama" for their
1974 album "Second Helping." Among the political/cultural stands
they took with that song is that they found fault with the portrayal of
their fellow southerners by Neil Young in his song "Southern Man,"
which depicted them categorically as racist, illiberal, and (by extension)
closed-minded. My take is that with their signature song Lynyrd Skynyrd
stood up, not only for "southern" Americans, but for all Americans
who share a common set of positive fundamental values and who resist the
denial of their humanity that being treated by liberals as members of
a political category implies.
Bottom line: This quintessential Southern rock group had
the unmitigated gall to take issue with Neil Young's characterization
of them and their fellow southerners as cross-burning, bullwhip-wielding
bigots. Lynyrd Skynyrd's unpardonable sin as liberal-leftists would
have it consisted of saying, in "Sweet Home Alabama,"
the following: "Well, I hope Neil Young will remember, Southern Man
don't need him around, anyhow."
Which extrapolates to the following: Yo, liberal, come
back when you have something to say to me that I can relate to. Come back
when you've finally arrived at the realization that I'm not necessarily
a redneck who drives a pickup truck with a gun rack in the rear window,
and even if I am, what the hell difference does it make to you? Who died
and made you king of how things ought to be? If you can't put aside your
high-falutin' liberal stereotypes and talk one-on-one with me about the
real concerns both of us have, well, then, how do you expect to convince
me I should vote for your candidate in the next election?
Which pretty much sums up the corner liberal Democrats
have painted themselves into with regard to many of their target constituencies.
Democrats are simply failing to connect directly with real American people.
Their message is increasingly one which alienates a significant portion
of Americans, even among their "base." Because their message
continues to be doctrinaire, continues to characterize large numbers of
Americans as belonging to politically undesirable groups simply because
they happen to favor certain politically incorrect positions as defined
by the leftist powers-that-be, Democrats continue to alienate real people.
"Oh, you're from the South? Let me see, our Democratic
Party Chairman, Howard Dean, told us we should try to appeal to you folks,
you guys who display 'I'd rather be deer hunting' bumper stickers. Let's
see, if I'm not mistaken let me check my notes don't you
also tend to mount gun racks in the rear windows of your trucks? You're
one of them, right? Well, where do you stand on the abortion issue?"
The American people have a collective heart, and the American
heart knows, intuitively, when it is hearing a message that makes sense,
that rings true, that speaks to the issues important to Americans in their
daily lives, that comes from the heart of the sender of the message. There's
a reason leftists on both coasts call the states between New York and
California "flyover country": They just don't want to get any
closer than about 30,000 feet to real Americans.
The liberal message rings false to the American heart,
just as did Neil Young's message in the song "Southern Man."
It took Lynyrd Skynyrd to stand up and tell the world that Young's song
painted a bogus picture. But stand up they did, and to the tune of a bestselling
anthem which represented (and still does) a political position that goes
against the grain of the "received wisdom" of the leftist ideology
that permeated the popular culture of the time, as it still does to a
great extent.
Stand up we must continue to do today, to counter the
continuing onslaught against the fundamental positive values we know in
our hearts form the foundation of the wonderful democratic society we
live in. Nobody's arguing that the United States is perfect. What the
best and most far-seeing are arguing correctly, in my opinion
is that America has evolved into the highest manifestation of democratic
ideals in our planet's history, and that we must continue to strive to
more fully realize those ideals.
To the extent that we remain steadfast in standing up
for the fundamental values on which our wonderful democracy has been built
which is as much as to say, to the degree to which we deny the
legitimacy of the liberal Democrat message to that degree shall
we succeed in advancing the principles of freedom and democracy in our
society and around the globe. And to that degree shall we welcome into
the constituency of American voters those who share our values, regardless
of their skin color or their countries of origin or their religion or
their culture; those who, recognizing the emptiness of the Democratic
message, express their disaffection with liberal politics by supporting
political candidates whose platforms based on the advancement of
freedom, democracy, and fundamental, personally relevant human values
are consonant with the values they hold in their hearts.
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