After the abandonment of certain democratic principles by those politicians who no longer needed to represent the views of the American middle-class.
For 40 continuous years prior to the 1994 election, we had a rise in the American middle-class which coincided the control of the House by the Democratic Party. The loss of the 1994 election changed that.
(1) With respect to the 1994 election, in Bill Clinton's recently-released book "My Life," he wrote:
"Just before the House vote (on the crime bill), Speaker Tom Foley and majority leader Dick Gephardt had made a last-ditch appeal to me to remove the assault weapons ban from the bill. They argued that many Democrats who represented closely divided districts had already...defied the NRA once on the Brady bill vote. They said that if we made them walk the plank again on the assault weapons ban, the overall bill might not pass, and that if it did, many Democrats who voted for it would not survive the election in November. Jack Brooks, the House Judiciary Committee chairman from Texas, told me the same thing...Jack was convinced that if we didn't drop the ban, the NRA would beat a lot of Democrats by terrifying gun owners....Foley, Gephardt, and Brooks were right and I was wrong. The price...would be heavy casualties among its defenders." (Pages 611-612)
"On November 8, we got the living daylights beat out of us, losing eight Senate races and fifty-four House seats, the largest defeat for our party since 1946....The NRA had a great night. They beat both Speaker Tom Foley and Jack Brooks, two of the ablest members of Congress, who had warned me this would happen. Foley was the first Speaker to be defeated in more than a century. Jack Brooks had supported the NRA for years and had led the fight against the assault weapons ban in the House, but as chairman of the Judiciary Committee he had voted for the overall crime bill even after the ban was put into it. The NRA was an unforgiving master: one strike and you're out. The gun lobby claimed to have defeated nineteen of the twenty-four members on its hit list. They did at least that much damage...." (Pages 629-630)
(2) Clinton was right. But the pushing through the anti-gun legislation was not the only anti-Democratic action. After Bush I negotiated the terms of NAFTA but left office before obtaining Senate approval and signing it, Clinton continued with Bush's work, obtained the Senate approval, and signed it.
He did so in a manner that was contrary to traditional Democratic values while knowing that his signing of NAFTA was going to result in the transfer of American manufacturing jobs to foreign countries to the detriment of the American middle-class.
While the middle-class was being destroyed and given easy credit in lieu of a real increase in wages, the focus was shifted away from full employment and actual middle-class wealth increase to the increase in the stock market as measured by the DOW. While Enron was using Enron-type accounting to produce inflated, bogus profits, other corporations were inflating their stock value by also using creative accounting as well as shipping jobs to foreign countries. Some bubbles have now been exposed for what they were (stock bubbles, credit bubbles, housing bubbles), but there are leaders in DC who refuse to recognize the value of the middle-class while they represent the super-rich.
SOLUTIONS?
For one thing, it is time for those who are opposed to the private ownership of firearms for self-defense or other lawful purposes to act in a way consistent with Democratic values, learn from experience, and listen to the voices of Democrats and independents. This includes listening with respect to gun-owning Democrats and gun-owning independents who will never willingly give up the right to defend themselves. This is true no matter how many anti-gun people disregard home invasions and other criminal activities, as well as the underlying causes of mass murders, and talk about "100-round clips," "assault rifles," and "automatic handguns." This is just foolishness that will undermine the election of Democrats.
For another thing, it is time for all of us to remember that Obama campaigned in 2008 on a promise to revise NAFTA while recognizing that the shipping of jobs to foreign countries was destroying the American economy for the middle-class. It is too late for this campaign, but after the election is over and Obama signs the NAFTA of the Pacific which is being negotiated at the present, we need to push for the election of politic ans who will want a return of the middle-class more than they want to rub shoulders with and represent the super-rich.
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