A segment of liberals in post-election denial
After a stinging, cross-cutting defeat two days’ past in the Presidential election, Senate races, House races, and on many significant ballot measures, most Democrats are understandably in a state of shock. On Election Night on Tuesday, the liberals from CNN’s Crossfire, James Carville and Paul Begala, looked like someone had mowed down their families with a rail gun. They talked of remaking the Democratic party, of bloodletting in the party’s ranks. They were coming to terms with the fact that America just didn’t buy what the Democrats were selling, and they were admirably candid in their self-examination.
I never thought I’d write this (!), but not everyone is acting as admirably as James Carville and Paul Begala.
It seems as if a few on the Left are in a state of sustained denial. The shock has not crystallized into sadness or self-examination as it has for other liberals. Nay, these folks possess an extra enzyme that precludes them from recognizing that the voters just didn’t buy it. This segment, which I’ll called the Democrats in Denial (DID), is working furiously at anything and everything but acknowledging the outcome of November 2nd.
In the Utterly Deluded category of DID, we’ve got a fantastic entry from Greg Palast. Mr. Palast is a contributing editor to Harper’s (ha) and has written pieces for The Guardian, which he states proudly rather than deleting from his resumé. (That’s your first clue he’s a nutjob.) Anyway, Palast claims that Kerry won the election. No, seriously. Check this out:
In the end, the challenges were not overwhelming, but they were there. Many apparently resulted in voters getting these funky “provisional” ballots—a kind of voting placebo—which may or may not be counted. Blackwell estimates there were 175,000; Democrats say 250,000. Pick your number. But as challenges were aimed at minorities, no one doubts these are, again, overwhelmingly Democratic. Count them up, add in the spoiled punch cards (easy to tally with the human eye in a recount), and the totals begin to match the exit polls; and, golly, you’ve got yourself a new president. Remember, Bush won by 136,483 votes in Ohio.
Oh, right. So forget about my math. Let’s see… 250,000 provisional ballots here, a few hundred thousand more spoiled ballots there, a lil bit of arbitrary “unspoiling,” a cup of subjectivity, an exposé du jour of Republican scaremongering (got two Frenchie words in there!), and voila! (that makes three!) — a Kerry victory. Tasty.
Or, in the Screw the Midwest category, we note strong entries from Matt my political foil and Boing Boing. Matt takes a gander at the November 2nd results and calmly opines, “Man, fuck the ‘heartland.’” Over at Boing Boing, they’ve taken that sentiment and devised a plan: seceding from the U.S. of A to make the U.S.A.B. (United States of America Blue). Sounds like a good plan to me; I hear Canada’s gorgeous in February!
And not to be denied, Chief DID Krugman weighs in strongly in the Let’s Pretend It’s November 1st category.
One faction of the party is already calling for the Democrats to blur the differences between themselves and the Republicans. Or at least that’s what I think Al From of the Democratic Leadership Council means when he says, “We’ve got to close the cultural gap.” But that’s a losing proposition.
Yes, Democrats need to make it clear that they support personal virtue, that they value fidelity, responsibility, honesty and faith. This shouldn’t be a hard case to make: Democrats are as likely as Republicans to be faithful spouses and good parents, and Republicans are as likely as Democrats to be adulterers, gamblers or drug abusers. Massachusetts has the lowest divorce rate in the country; blue states, on average, have lower rates of out-of-wedlock births than red states.
Shouldn’t be a “hard case to make,” eh Krugster? Is that why 79% of voters who valued morality above other voting factors chose Bush? Because it was so easy for Kerry to make that case? Krugster continues:
But Democrats are not going to get the support of people whose votes are motivated, above all, by their opposition to abortion and gay rights (and, in the background, opposition to minority rights). All they will do if they try to cater to intolerance is alienate their own base.
Oh, that’ll work. Call 51% of the voters in this country “intolerant” and anti-civil rights. That’ll get you votes.
Hey, I’ve got a winning strategy for the Dems in 2004. Out with Terry McAuliffe at the DNC, in with the genius Paul Krugman!