The Death — And Rebirth — of the Democratic Party
By: Ariana Aboulafia
I cannot help but wonder and speculate — almost every day — the things that would have been different had Hillary Clinton been elected president. And, when John McCain passed away last week, his death became just one more thing that made me consider how things would be different if Hillary Clinton were president, and how things have changed since Trump has taken office.
I remember when Mr. McCain ran against Barack Obama in the 2008 election, right around the time that I first became interested in politics. I remember very clearly that I disagreed with Mr. McCain’s political positions, but in retrospect, watching his interactions with future-President Obama shaped my views of what politics is, what it can be, and what it should be.
At one point during that campaign, Mr. McCain spoke to a crowd of his supporters, one of whom told him that she did not trust Mr. Obama, because he was an “Arab.” Instead of encouraging the disparaging comments from his supporters, Mr. McCain shook his head slowly, and slightly sadly, in response.
“No ma’am,” he said. “He’s a decent family man, a citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues… He is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as President,” McCain said. “I want everyone to be respectful, and let’s make sure we are. Because that’s the way politics should be conducted in America.”
It should not be so surprising that a Republican once said this, and meant it. It should not be so surprising that we once lived in a political sphere where respect and civility were the norm. But it is.
It is difficult not to juxtapose the race between Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama with the one between Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton. Far from demanding respect from his followers, Mr. Trump consistently berated Mrs. Clinton, calling her “Crooked Hillary” — he extended the same lack of regard for members of his own party, referring to Ted Cruz as everything from “Lyin’ Ted,” to the son of the man who helped assassinate John F. Kennedy and infantilizing Marco Rubio by consistently calling him “Little Marco.” Regarding Mr. Obama, he referred to him as “the worst president in U.S. history,” “weak,” “a disaster,” and consistently questioned his birth place. Indeed, there are 487 people, places and things that Donald Trump has insulted on Twitter alone since declaring his candidacy — the New York Times has a complete list, here.
Donald Trump’s presidency has not only destroyed the illusion of civility in our politics, which John McCain and so many others like him fought and lived and died to protect. Rather, it has also obliterated the parties themselves, and what they stand for — and both parties are suffering as a result.
For the short quarter-century or so that I have been alive, what I have seen of the Democratic party, what the Democratic party has meant to me — a registered Democrat, I might add — is a conglomeration of negative, rather than positive, attributes. That is, the Democrats are the party that does not want Roe v. Wade appealed. They don’t want to end welfare, but won’t go so far as to truly protect those who rely upon it. They believe in climate change, but not enough to really do anything about it. They think it’s okay for LGBT people to get married, but perhaps won’t go as far as ensuring them the federal right to employment nondiscrimination, or the right to adopt a child. Some things should be left to the states, after all.
The Trump campaign — and now, the Trump presidency — has presented the Democratic party with the unique opportunity to reinvent themselves. Instead, the party remained with their feet firmly rooted in negative ideology as we became the party who would not mock a disabled reporter. We would not talk about pussy grabbing, because we do not think that’s just “locker room talk.” Certainly, we would not speak about dating our own daughters, or call a female comedienne a “pig,” because we just don’t do that, you see?
When they go low, we go high, and all that.
But we all know how this story ends: the “we’re not deplorable” party loses out. And, perhaps this is an incidence of nice guys finish last, and we are victims. And, perhaps we shouldn’t sacrifice our ideals and morals in order to win political office, in the way that Trump perhaps did.
What, exactly are those morals and ideals, though?
The main problem with the Democratic party is not that we are sitting upon our high horses, with our noses turned up at the 50% of this country who believed that Donald Trump would change things for them, would care enough about them to make their lives better (although, that too is a problem). The biggest issue with this party, right now, is that we do not know the difference between our methods and our meaning — we do not know what we stand for, anymore.
After all, I think most reasonable people would agree that there is nothing wrong with sacrificing bygone methods, with casting out square pegs when our politics are now filled with round holes so long as we continue to hold close to our chest our mission, and our identity.
And, to find that, perhaps it is not a reinvention that we need at all. Perhaps what we need, instead, is a history lesson.
In 1984, New York Governor Mario Cuomo spoke at the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco, California. His speech was called “A Tale of Two Cities,” and in it he responded to then-President Reagan, who could not understand why, while some of the country was doing well, other citizens were afraid for their lives, their livelihoods, and their families. “Why,” President Reagan had said, “This country is a shining city on a hill.”
Mr. Cuomo went on to explain why, while our blessed country is indeed a shining city on a hill, it is a city that does not share its glitter equally with all of its inhabitants. Democrats, he said, understand that, and try to remedy it — Republicans do not. And that, to put it simply, is the difference between the two parties. He said:
It’s an old story. It’s as old as our history. The difference between Democrats and Republicans has always been measured in courage and confidence. The Republicans — The Republicans believe that the wagon train will not make it to the frontier unless some of the old, some of the young, some of the weak are left behind by the side of the trail. “The strong — The strong,” they tell us, “will inherit the land.” We Democrats believe in something else. We Democrats believe that we can make it all the way with the whole family intact, and we have more than once. Ever since Franklin Roosevelt lifted himself from his wheelchair to lift this nation from its knees — wagon train after wagon train — to new frontiers of education, housing, peace; the whole family aboard, constantly reaching out to extend and enlarge that family; lifting them up into the wagon on the way; blacks and Hispanics, and people of every ethnic group, and native Americans — all those struggling to build their families and claim some small share of America…We must make the American people hear our “Tale of Two Cities.” We must convince them that we don’t have to settle for two cities, that we can have one city, indivisible, shining for all of its people.
What Mr. Cuomo said in 1984 rings even truer now — because, see, that is who we are. The Democratic party does not merely stand for the inverse of the perverse rhetoric that Donald Trump and his ilk continuously spout. The Democratic party stands for the downtrodden, for those without privilege — people of color and women and children and the economically disadvantaged. The Democratic party stands for the black child who is afraid of being gunned down by police, just as it stands for the girl from a small town who wonders if she will ever be able to succeed because she is gay.
The Democratic party stands for me. It always has, it has merely forgotten that — forgotten this most important thing, in favor of an at-best useless, at-worst detrimental adherence to what essentially boils down to unspoken and long-repealed rules of political procedure.
It used to be that a man about to be a Supreme Court Justice would not refuse to shake the hand of a grieving father. It used to be that a Republican candidate for president would not allow his supporters to spout untruths about his opponent merely because he had dark skin, because it wasn’t right.
When Mr. McCain was alive, perhaps that was the way that things were run. Perhaps we have lost our political patriarch, and perhaps what I am proposing dishonors him — and for that, I am sorry. But I refuse to mourn a past courtesy that may never have existed, and may certainly never exist again, while the most vulnerable among us suffer.
Indeed, I believe that it is my duty — and the duty of every Democrat — not to. With the death of Mr. McCain, we are facing yet again an opportunity to recall who we are, to rise up and turn this country back into the land that refuses to settle for two cities, that builds one city for all of its people.
Let us not squander it, this time.
