The Democratic Party's Problem With Religion, From a Secular View (LONG)

[DoveTurnedHawk]

There was a great DailyKos article a few days ago. There are two key paragraphs I'm quoting, but I recommend the whole article, as it's really interesting, and well worth reading:

"the only people i've met who aren't very religious and are Democrats are Democratic staff members in DC and in the elite think tanks and in the blogosphere. Democratic candidates all uniformly have faith. it's their inept staffs that are the problem. thus why groups like NARAL and EMily's List continue to bleat about "woman's right to choose" instead of talking about how we can reduce abortion and why only Democratic policies can do that. thus why they're getting their clocks cleaned right now by the anti-choice movt. Most Democratic staffers do not think homosexuality is a sin. that's really great and wonderfully tolerant, but it separates them from "middle America" and i think that's what probably made them so unaware and out of touch for how much of an emotional issue the marriage amendments would become in the swing states. Remember, a lot of Democrats also voted for all these marriage amendments, even in blue states like Oregon."

"i saw and knew in my own community just how much Gavin Newsom and the Mass.court was hurting us and how deeply outraged many people of color were and i prayed it wouldn't hurt us in the election. but i think Democrats (hey Bill RIchardson, looking at you especially) did not know they needed to be countering it HARD in our churches. the only time i saw them do that was at the end when they sent Sharpton and Jesse Jackson to a black church to remind us of the issues that are really important: war, poverty, jobs, health care, etc. but that outreach was very futile and way too little. Latino and Asian churches were being pounded week after week with the message that our culture was betraying God and losing it's Christian center as gay marriage became sanctioned in parts of the country. the Bush people cleverly pounced on the issue and did the outreach. yeah, while Democrat activists were screaming about them violating church/state with their political outreach, Bush's message, with the help of a lot of sympathetic pastors/ministers, found an audience. Democrats had no institutional or organizational means to combat the Bush propaganda. instead, they simply complained about how Bush was politicizing the church. i heard more and more black folks utter the unthinkable: I think God wants me to vote Bush. people here dismissed the one poll showing Bush had made inroads in the black community."

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/5/75632/7177

First of all, I agree almost entirely with the poster of this article. I think the Democratic party DOES have a problem with religion. I think the secular, liberal elite -- and I include myself among that number, even if I'm not so "elite" -- absolutely disrespects religion. I'm guilty of it myself, as certain past posts here demonstrate quite clearly. To the extent that middle America is very religious, I suppose I AM out of touch. This is why I feel we have a problem right now in America, because people like me do not understand deeply religious folks, and deeply religious folks do not understand people like me. And you tend to demonize what you don't understand.

My impression is that the mass media and the advance of technology have accelerated and exacerbated certain cultural issues in this country. For example, in most American cities, the vast majority of people know gay folks, are neighbors with gay folks, are friends with gay folks. When you have a personal connection to someone who's gay or <insert whatever differing perspective you wish>, you are less likely to want to infringe their rights. And that viewpoint, which is thankfully taken for granted in Hollywood, is obviously well-represented in our popular culture.

That popular culture is then broadcast into homes all across the world, including homes in middle America. Maybe it persuades some of them that homosexuality isn't all that "bad" (and I use quotes because I, of course, don't think it's bad at all). But equally likely, maybe it creates resentment among folks who don't like Hollywood cramming its values down their throats.

I'm not sure what the solution is, or even if there is one. I do know that as a Democrat, I am NOT willing to compromise on the -- in my opinion, basic and fundamental -- party position of equal rights for ALL people. Yet I also don't want to demonize religious voters. The latter wish can be rather difficult for me, especially when I see the most extreme religious elements promoting and acting upon ideas that I personally find to be anathema. It's so hard not to demonize.

To get personal for a moment, I used to be a Christian. Not a weekly attendance Christian, but one who had some belief and faith, and would probably end up going to church a couple of times a year. I stopped after my father died, because according to Christian doctrine, my father -- the best man I've ever known -- would be in hell. I just could not wrap my mind around that concept. It was simply impossible to me. Ergo, Christian doctrine must be incorrect.

That said, part of me wants to go back to church, perhaps even a fundamentalist church. Not because I've been struck by any sort of divine inspiration, but because I very much want to try to understand what's going on in the minds of my fellow Americans. I want to understand, and even if I might still disagree vehemently with them, perhaps I'll stop demonizing and disrespecting their viewpoints so much.

I just don't know. But if I do end up going, I'll certainly let you know.

DTH

[aquart]

1. Yeah, do that.

Be sure to tell me why "Christians" voted for torture.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

4. It's Easy to Believe Those Were the Acts of a Depraved Few

Most Americans would prefer to believe that, in fact.

DTH

[murielm99]

2. Yes, let's ditch some of our core values, because

of the Christian right.

Women should not be "bleating" about their right to choose. And by all means, let's kick the gays out of our party because the blacks don't like them.

Let's over-analyze the issue of faith because of the talibornagain. Let's ignore the voices of reason and tolerance in the mainstream churches, whose leadership is just as put off by the talibornagain as we are.

The fundamentalist Christians have been had, just like the rest of us. Maybe they will figure it out, maybe not. Our message is out there. In the meantime, I am not going to sell my soul or my principles just to get their attention.

I am not talking about mainstream churches, like the one I attend. If you want to reach out to Christians, do it through those churches. Although, as far as I am concerned, if anyone tried to cram politics down my throat through my church, I would be angry.

What we need to do is get back to the idea that politics and religion don't mix.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

3. I'm Sorry, But WHO Is Saying We Should Ditch Our Core Values?

You might want to re-read my post, Sparky.

DTH

[jdj]

30. wow. I never knew how little regard the footsoldiers (minorities)

of this party are held in by the democratic straight white males...

Amazing.

I am so tired of this bitching.

there is nothing wrong with our party.

we lost this election because of fraud,and we will continue to lose no matter how we whore ourselves to the most privileged and spoiled factions of our party who have never HAD to march for a civil right in their lives.

If KOS wrote this, then fuck him. Let him become a republican if he is gonna drink the kool-aid. I've never read blogs, because I don't need anyone to do my thinking for me. I like to read alot of info and come to my own conclusions.

But if this is they way he and others feel about people who have died and suffered and walked a thousand miles to bring rigths to the less than desirable set, including gays, women, racial "minorities" etc, then fuck him, and fuck y'all.

This is exactly what the GOP wants, posts like this to split the party even further so they won't even have to steal elections...

Women "bleating" about abortion? Fuck, fuck, fuck whoever came up with that line, and anyone who isn't repulsed by it.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

41. The Author of the Linked Article Is Pro-Choice

And it's very clear to me that you aren't interested in a constructive discussion, so I'll politely decline to respond to your other posts in this thread.

DTH

[jdj]

66. Not true, I just get enraged when I read this kind of claptrap

That is not pro-choice to me, "I'll decide who legitmately, in my view, by my standards, can have an abortion, that makes me pro-choice, and I have chosen to allow you to have an abortion because it is my believe that you should be allowed to have one...???

Naw, baby, pro-choice says that the WOMAN with the WOMB in question is the one that gets to make the CHOICE. That is where the choice comes in.

I am plenty interested in constructive discussions, and I find this kind of discussion DESTRUCTIVE, to the point of splitting our party about 50 different ways. If we had a chance to win elections, which we don't with election fraud, we never would with the strategy of "let's alienate our base and go after their base" :puke: on that.

I say NO RETREAT, NO SURRENDER. There is nothing wrong with our party, there is nothing wrong with our values, there is nothing wrong with us except our pig-headed and naive denial about the nature of electronic voting. Let's quit contemplating our navels and get off our behinds and get these machines BANNED.

[American Tragedy]

5. Thoughtful post, but I honestly struggle to sympathize

"But equally likely, maybe it creates resentment among folks who don't like Hollywood cramming its values down their throats."


So, they resent the 'values' depicted in a totally optional form of entertainment, but they think it's fully appropriate to employ the law to force others to observe their personal moral code?

I don't begrudge anybody their lifestyle, including fundamentalists and atheists alike. The line is crossed when they try to use the government to impose upon other people. Is their faith so weak, that they believe that they need threat of fines and imprisonment to motivate people?

Fuck them.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

6. Who's "They"

Are all Christians in favor of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage?

Moreover, as it stands right now, our laws are in fact slanted against gay rights and gay marriage. It's not technically legal anywhere, not even in Massachusetts yet. I believe that's morally and legally wrong, and I'm 1000% in favor of changing those laws.

And yet are all people who are, for reasons of ideology or laziness or apathy or religion or an excess of caution or whatever, not vehemently opposed to the status quo inherently evil and deserving of scorn and hatred?

DTH

[aquart]

10. People who hate are not Christians so screw their "values."

[DoveTurnedHawk]

21. Do All Christians Hate Gays?

Come on.

DTH

[aquart]

60. Can you read? People who hate are NOT Christians.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

61. Can You?

What about all the Christians who don't hate gays? Should we write them off, too?

DTH

[American Tragedy]

11. I am referring to all people who use government to push their ideology

In this particular case I am addressing a segment of evangelical Christians, but it could be applied similarly to Communists who think that the establishment should oppress or legally discourage religion. The government does not exist to promote or enforce personal behavior, beyond simply protecting others from nonconsensual impositions, and helping them to maintain an adequate standard of living for themselves and their families.

I am not necessarily vehemently opposed to the status quo, if that is what Americans want for themselves individually. I have no desire to change the way that people choose to live; indeed as a heterosexual white woman I probably live very much within the status quo. I would never want the government to infringe on them. But that tolerance must go both ways.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

22. I Agree With You

The problem is, I can see a great many evangelical Christians voting for things like the state anti-gay marriage proposals because it just doesn't fit within their worldview. Just like it makes ZERO sense to me to discriminate against gay folks, it may be that one of the fundamental tenets of their basic worldview is that marriage means one man plus one woman.

It's akin to the "English only" amendments that were so popular in the 80's. Most Americans are going to look at them and go, "Well, of COURSE English is the official language in America," without considering for even a moment the racist and oppressive elements that certain of those amendments contained.

They're not looking at it from the same framework. And while there's no question that some of them may hate gay folks (in a most un-Christian manner, I might add), I think it's more likely that a lot of them just don't really care one way or the other. They see something on the ballot that for them is a no-brainer, and they vote for it, and they go home. And unless they're in the Fred Phelps wing, that's it, they're not actively waving signs or protesting or affirmatively hunting down gays in the workplace and ostracizing them.

That's the sort of thing I'm talking about. We need to MAKE them care, somehow. Perhaps one way is by personalizing things. It's a lot harder to demonize people when they're your friends, neighbors, children. The Republicans have been very good at this for a long time. Remember Willie Horton? That racist ad personalized fear of crime -- and fear of black folks -- in the minds of millions of Americans.

I'm saying we need to start being as effective as they are at pushing their points of view. It's harder for us, because in my opinion we're decades and billions behind in terms of media, framework and sophistication, frankly. It's also easier for them to leverage hate than for us to leverage love, sadly, especially in a time of war and fear.

DTH

[American Tragedy]

27. Very well said

I think it is more a matter of language and how we frame our arguments. Although not my first choice, John Kerry was not a bad candidate at all. In the end, he was my personal favorite Dem challenger in decades, and Bush was certainly the weakest and most vulnerable candidate that the Republicans have presented in modern history.

The problem was the media and more importantly how his campaign was run. More than a dozen times I thought that I could have done a much better job if I were managing. There were so many angles from which to attack Bush that were ignored, so many policy proposals that were poorly handled, and overall the campaign was unfavorably repetitious and uncreative.

In particular I think that Kerry needed to bring complicated issues down to the microeconomic level. People laughed at Ross Perot's graphs and analogies, but I thought he was damned effective at keeping it simple, and we owe him for the deficit being erased under Clinton. I have always wondered why Democrats did not pay closer attention to Perot's technique as a salesman.

[Janus]

36. TheProblem Is, We Started It

EoaH, said that you resented the attempt to use the law to enforce a moral view. Sadly, that's what the supreme court in Mass. and Gavin Newsome in San Francisco attempted to do. They attempted to use the law to enforce a moral view without giving the people they represented the opportunity to voice their opinion. To many in the opposition, they saw this a throwing down of the gauntlet. The marriage ammendments that are so divisive were the repsonse to be expected. Fighting fire with fire so to speak.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

42. I Agree

I still don't understand why we didn't see ads hitting the issue of the deficit in a graphic way. Seeing that line of deficits, followed by Clinton surpluses, and the pit we're in now, was very powerful to me.

Thanks for the discussion!

DTH

[jdj]

67. we-don't-own-the-media

we-make-ads-they-won't-run-them


:nuke:

[Bill McBlueState]

52. same-sex marriage is legal in Massachusetts n/t

[DoveTurnedHawk]

53. Except The Legislature Changed It So That It Couldn't Be Called "Marriage"

Right? Or am I misremembering?

DTH

[Bill McBlueState]

55. no

The only thing the legislature did was to approve the text of an amendment that would go before the voters in 2006. That exact amendment needs to be approved again by the legislature in 2005. So gay couples are still getting married.

Interestingly, a few opponents of gay marriage were voted out of office last week, while all the supporters retained their seats. So the amendment may not even survive the second vote next year.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

57. Hot Damn, Good for Massachusetts! (eom)

DTH

[jdj]

28. First of all the right has yet to reject a celebrity endorsement

so that is a red herring.

[the other rick]

82. Isn't that the key point?

Listen to a conservative - the refrain is they don't want 'other people' forcing morals down their throat. And what do progressives say? The same thing.

I'll be unpopular for this, but the biggest mistake of the last few years was the MA courts overturning a legislative ban on gay marriage and the mayor of San Fran ignoring the law to marry gays.

There are a whole lotta' people who don't give a damn if gays get married or not but *are* hopping mad that 'some judges and a mayor' just ignored due process of law. If I had a way-back machine and undid those two actions I bet that 9 of 11 gay marriage bans would have failed.

[question everything]

7. Garrison Keillor said it best

That the issues of abortion and gay marriage were a distraction from the real issues, like the future of social security, like the deficit.

About a week before the election I posted here, expressing my desire that Kerry would face these issues head on. That he would say that no one likes abortion, but that we need to do our best to prevent it, and that his administration would actively support programs that would educate young people about preventing pregnancies; that his administration would actively facilitate adoption but that no one has a right to impose one's beliefs on others, and that no one can legislate behavior and communication between parents and their children.

I wish that the campaign emphasized the inclusive nature of most religions, the tolerance and the caring for the lest fortunate, and compare them with the brutality of Bush and Cheney in helping their corporate sponsors and in sending young people to die in foreign land for oil.

Instead, in the last weeks, Kerry and Edwards stuck to the safe, well tested phrases that by then did not mean much. And, I think, ignoring this tide of "moral values" by a significant percentage of the population made them to appear out of touch.

Since 9/11 many of our leaders, on both sides, took extra effort to tell us the Islam is a religion of peace and of tolerance; that Bin Laden and Zarquawi are the extreme. Well, I think that we could made a similar observation that most Christians are tolerant and, yes, compassionate, but there are radical elements there that twist stories, that want all people to behave according to their twisted view of the world.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

8. Excellent Points

Thank you for your time and thoughts.

DTH

[question everything]

12. Thank you! For raising these issues and for reading

everyone's posts.

I wish that we had more of those discussions before the elections, not that I think it would have made a difference.

And, my condolences on the loss of your father. The death alone must have been painful, but to saddled with the decrees by the church must have made it even harder.

And now... I really have to go to bed..

[DoveTurnedHawk]

23. Thank You for Your Kind Words

It was almost a decade ago, but the pain is still fresh.

DTH

[Abelman]

9. Why not

Just utilize the religous argument for ourselves. If they are going to try to use religion as a weapon, help it backfire. Show these people they are wrong. Even atheists can get a good education of what the bible actually says and counter most arguments by the RR easily. The only verse in the bible condemning homosexual behavior is easily shot down by explaining the context of it's chapter (its surrounded by verses about owning slaves and not cutting your hair).

I especially like pointing out to fundie associates that they only seem to use the bible when it helps them discriminate.

I am Christian. I don't think it is a sin for two men to love each other. I don't think it is a sin for a woman to get an abortion, though I will state I think this for only certain circumstances.

Quote the first amendment right in their faces. These are religious issues and the Federal Government has no right to take a stand on them. Ever. There are many ways we can spin it to our advantage, if people would get a rudimentary knowledge of the bible and the Constitution. A little Thomas Jefferson would help as well.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

24. I Never Knew That!

About the context of the anti-gay quotes in the Bible! Thank you, that's very helpful information.

I think you might be on to something. Confronting the hypocrisy head-on might be one way of dealing with it. My impression is that the Democratic party has been so quiet about this issue in the past because many of us either aren't comfortable with overt displays or discussion of religion, or aren't educated enough on things like the Bible, or aren't willing to antagonize the secular part of our base.

DTH

[MikeNY]

13. Not an issue of religion, its an issue of governance

I don't think many people have a problem with religion. The real problem is those people and organizations that, whether they be public or private, want to force their beliefs on everyone.

Religion is subject to interpetation. Forcing Christianity on everyone would be just as bad as forcing athiesm on everyone. The first amendment of our Constitution was created to allow people to worship freely, or even, not to worship at all. This was not simply because the founding fathers were "so liberal", but because they were realists. They knew what the consequences were of state-sanctioned faith. The reason why the founding fathers were so gifted in pointing our country in a certain direction was because most of them, if not all, spent long periods of time in studying the mistakes of other nations in the past.

I was raised as a kid to be Roman Catholic. I went to Catholic schools, did the whole thing. Somehow, through all of that, I managed to keep a mind of my own. What I learned from that experience was that, you can't put a label on certain types of people. Everyone has flaws. There are some very positive aspects to Christianity and many other religions, but there are also drawbacks. There are also some great people of integrity that also happen to have alot of faith in their religion. I really believe that the best way to avoid problems is for people to view religion as a personal experience and not one that should be promoted or discouraged through government or politics.

But the need to capitalize on the religious beliefs, or lack thereof, of the people, is irresistable to most people seeking public office. I think that this fosters an "authoritarian" view in society, where if people don't like the behavior of some group, instead of just rejected that idea personally, they decide to take that issue into government. This forces one group of people to conform to another's belief system. This is a bad and inefficient way for a democratic government to be run, and it is dangerous.

So is this really an issue of religion, or an issue of governance? I would say it is governance. You know, most people that I know think people should do whatever they want, worship whatever faith they choose. The thing is, people need to get this idea out of their head that if they don't like something, making the government ban it is the answer. That's definately not the answer.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

25. I Think JK Had a Great Debate Response on This

On how he had personal views on abortion as a Catholic, but that it wasn't his place to enforce his personal views on America.

I suppose a larger question is, how do we "sell" the tolerance that you describe, especially to a population that might be more inclined toward thinking in tune with their chosen group affiliation?

DTH

[jdj]

38. You can't if you don't own the media.

I need to put out a primer.

No, Randi does, she's so good to listen to on this one.

We don't own the media.
The problem is the media.
Churches are breaking tax law by endorsing candidates.
80% of the votes in this country are counted by machines made by 2 companies run by two brothers (Bob and Todd Urosevich, Diebold and E.S.&S.).

just add politicians and stir.

If we don't get our votes out of the hands of the repukes, we Clinton will be the last dem. president, while you folks mull around about how to be kind to fundies who want nothing less than the destruction of the earth in their lifetime.

[Magnulus]

14. My thoughts

I don't think I am an elitist. I became in touch with my leftist nature in the last four years of watching this country go down the tubes, especially the war on Iraq and the detiriorating global political situation and the environment. Some have said that "Anybody But Bush" was a poor message, but for me it was what got me out to vote and tell others to get out and vote for John Kerry. You cannot have a naive little puppet running this country. We need a "reality-based" leader, that's why I voted for John Kerry.

Having said that, I think many Democrat activists are out of touch, even with many mainstream registered Democrats. Ordinary Americans too often see a party they cannot identify with strongly. Many Americans are deeply troubled by abortion, they are not comfortable with putting society's imprimatur on gay marriage, and they own guns and don't see why they should be forced to part with them. This isn't me preaching, it's a fact. Democrats need to work on framing an abortion message that the public can accept, talk about ways they can provide economic aid to single mothers and mothers of disabled children. "Abortion should be safe, legal, and rare" said it best, why couldn't John Kerry have said that during the town-hall debate?

There is still a populist streak in the Democrat party, but too often its lost among all the other interest groups that work with the party.

Having said all that, I think there's still a good change that more people thought they were voting for John Kerry. I think there were alot of voter problems and this needs to be investigated thoroughly. I know many, many people, even Republicans, were having serious doubts about George W. Bush in the last 2-3 years. My uncle, who is a gun hobbyist BTW and also an NRA member, lost his job three times and was unemployed for a year. My aunt also lost her job two times before she found another one. They used to joke with me a Republican was a Democrat who got mugged. I'll say a Democrat is a Republican who got layed off...

[Lexingtonian]

16. The second part of the joke is

A Democrat is a Republican who has been arrested on false charges.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

26. All Excellent Points

So much so that I don't really have much to add myself. :-) And I particularly thank you for your rational, measured response regarding the voter problems.

DTH

[Lexingtonian]

15. It's not very complicated

The distinction is that the people you worry about live, or so they believe and maintain, in a Divine Order of the World. They take the Divine Order from books/texts to some degree, but more so from those they suppose to be Authorities on the matter.

The Modern Age is all about the Divine Order of the World being eroded away for people. The theist's God, the kind easiest to believe in, has not done well recently. Science put Him somewhere beyond Mankind's reach during the 19th century, and His nonintervention in the disaster to humanity during the 20th seemed to observers to mean that Mankind is beyond God's reach now.

The road of History in the present is pre-Theism -> Theism -> Atheism -> Post-(or Non)theism. Most of these stages being pretty corrupt due to those informing them and not very cleanly distinguished. And people at each particular stage find people at the others nearly incomprehensible to themselves and extraordinarily difficult to deal with...well, the people at the ends are the most sensible IMHO, those in the middle two the most embattled and intolerant, locked in combat as they tend to be.

Pre-Theism is the religiosity of children: large and dark forces and Human/Divine intervention, pretty concrete and psychological in its bearings. Theism is to a large extent an accounting for Nature and for History as "forces" and events; God really is a pretty abstract Being in them, overall: an Enforcer who (it turns out) needs a bunch of help. Atheism is to say that Theistic things do not prove to be more than the sum of the parts, and these fold up into a mystery- of the moment and reason for physical creation- that is inherently insoluble, and to the atheist that which is termed 'revelation' adds little or nothing. Post-theism is kinda indescribable; it tends to be humanism in outward forms, a diversity of things inside people greatly dependent on level of maturity, and its essential idea is that people doing the good and the creative is the highest religious practice of all. (Most amusingly, the 4-5 Names of God of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament pretty much fit a scheme partitioning the Theism Spectrum as suggested above- some people in Ancient Israel figured it out millenia ago!)

Atheism is a reactionary stance/phase for most people, to a large extent a reaction or equal-qua-opposite to the theism that they found oppressive. It has a lot of internalization of and a sense of being poisoned by the theistic mindset. It's the one that has, unfortunately, been the most pronounced face of Modern people in American politics, which is to say: the progressive half of the Boomers, who were much of the first generation to walk away from the churches and synagogues.

Our argument/problem is this: it takes quite a bit of social and intellectual support to leave theism once arrived there, because it's painful and complicated. And we all know the bitter kind of atheist, the kind that either considers it the complete truth or is still infested with the doubts and unresolved problems of the theism raised in. For one thing, the theist religion provides so many easy answers/replies, and supplies its own support group, indeed its own kind of intellectualism and status hierarchy. It's hard to leave the warmth of the group (though not its dimness, its lack of light), and purist atheism is a perilous and unhappy state no one is guaranteed to succeed in going beyond. And in a lot of communities- the desperately poor ones, notably- there is an awful lot of pressure to support and be support to others, psychologically as well as physically. The doubters are perceived to be rebels and conflict generators who can't be afforded, who may shear out of the circle of reliable support, and must be brought to conform to the group/its need.

I can only say that my own (highly white, generally middle class) faith group has spent the past 15-20 years torn between a theist faction, whose extreme is Evangelicals, and a post-theist faction, aka Universalists, and name of the issue is usually rendered as 'Christocentrism vs Universalism'. The net effect has been a quiet schism by the Evangelical side, by design, and its deliberate choice to end of identification with our tradition (except where its reputation is exploitable, sadly enough), and during the past three years the 'issue' has died down. As in denomination after denomination elsewhere. The most moderate and circumspect authentic Universalists will presumably save the the whole of our faith group, overall, because that's where the heart of the tradition of it lies. But watching the Evangelicals leave so blythly, so spiritually bereft (as I see it) and yet arrogating the truth of the whole to themselves by presuming 'evangelicalism' to be more Inspired and condoned...it's so great an abrogation of the Quaker legacy and method and central beliefs about Men that there was nothing to do but admit that their desire to be some other kind of group is already a reality, and let them go.

So after going on at such lengths, my conclusions: there is no recovering those people who are already in agreement with the Christian Right, whose political arm is a wing of the Republican Party, except when they choose to desert it of their own accord. The political face of the Democratic Party should not be that of atheism, even if many demand it, but of people who are Modern and at a peace with religion, e.g. post-theist/humanist.

We should focus on the sub-30s not falling to the Christian Right uncritically- tell them that there is a way out, not contrary to religion nor oppressed by it.

We should be blunt about the anti-Modern people who oppose social progress: they may or may not be bigoted, they may or many not be unprincipled, and if politicians they tend to be simply opportunists/exploiters who are hypocrites. (Ask Dick about Mary!) We should be blunt and tell them: the future of the United States doesn't look like its past- it won't be as white, or as 'Christian', and not as colonial in the economic, social, or psychological/religious aspects. It will take the 14th Amendment seriously. Voting for the past is vain. Why vote against freedom? And its Christianity will be the kind in which the Sermon on the Mount and the Law of Love are going to be the center of the the faith, not the ignored part. What could possibly be wrong with that?

As a Quaker I can tell you that the initial response to such an entreaty, carefully posed, will be negative. But it embarrasses them all and on the second or third application, does cause a great deal of concession, a real attempt at bargaining. It also causes people to say things they don't usually say in public, like 'I don't care, I've got mine', of course. Quite a horror and yet the truth about themselves spoken.

But we can't escape the mantle of being the Party of the Modern World. We have to propose it to be a liveable world, have to prove competence at running it and understanding it, and allowing people to adjust at some reasonable rate to its demands. The other side sells magic, our side supplies a desirable future. For those who have no future we have nothing to offer, and the same for those who desire magic. The future is always bleak but the past becomes ultimately the province of the Grim Reaper.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

29. Thank You for That Fascinating Post

OMG, so much to digest there. I have practically zero experience with both the philosophical and the theological, so it's a real education. A few things jumped out at me, though.

And we all know the bitter kind of atheist, the kind that either considers it the complete truth or is still infested with the doubts and unresolved problems of the theism raised in.

Hell yes we all know them, we see it here every single time the religion wars erupt. There is, quite frankly, a level of rudeness that I find shocking, in many of those responses. I think that's actually one of the major points in the original article that I quoted, about how there is a deep current of disrespect toward religion running within certain Democratic circles.

So after going on at such lengths, my conclusions: there is no recovering those people who are already in agreement with the Christian Right, whose political arm is a wing of the Republican Party, except when they choose to desert it of their own accord.

Do you really think so? How large a group do you think that is?

The Republicans never gave up trying to woo -- via hypocritical lip service only, but the lip service was there nevertheless -- the votes of blacks and Latinos. And they made inroads, particularly in the latter group. While we cannot sacrifice our values to do it, is there really no way to try to leverage off of some of these folks by using message and language?

DTH

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

69. Great points

In my view, atheism springs from thought, and religious experience springs from emotion. Emotion gets the upper hand on thought 99.9% of the time, and because it is so powerful, many people trust it more than thought, which can be "twisted" and doesn't come from the "gut."

Many forms of religion are highly experiental. Emotions move the participants to what they experience as a higher plane of consciousness. This is what being filled by the Spirit is all about in evangelical Christianity. In many instances this is a physical state as well as an emotional one, accompanied by tremors, visions, speaking in tongues, and "miracles." If I can compare it crudely to taking drugs or drinking, I can make the analogy that participants in the act trust the perceptions of others who have experienced the same thing. For instance what pot smoker, upon learning that a new acquaintance also smokes, does not view the other more favorably, since they are on the same wavelength?

So it is with religious experience. Evangelicals recognize in Bush someone who has shared their same transformation of the spirit. OTOH Catholic dogma and liturgy don't support this kind of born-again, transformative experience. It's an intellectual faith - talk to a Jesuit and see - and the transformation is highly ritualized in the Mass, during the consecration of the host and the taking of communion. As a Catholic, then, even a religious one, Kerry does not share a spiritual experience with evangelicals, who are much more likely to view him as a heathen Papist than as a Christian. (Remember that Catholics were targeted by the KKK, John Birchers and other "Christian" RW outfits, and that anti-Catholicism still flourishes today.)

I maintain that it is an emotional gap, rather than a religious one, that liberals need to close with Christians of all stripes. We are seen as thinking too much, and not feeling enough. Of course we are very passionate about our beliefs but we suck at conveying that passion except as outrage.

We are also seen as selfish and self-centered instead of attached to a Greater Good, and that's why I don't think the term "women's right to choose" has gained us much more ground than terms like "pro-abortion." For the Greater Good, children are protected, and the Right has done us a lot of damage by defining zygotes as children. In the mind of the average anti-abortionist, it is not the belief that women should be subsumed to child-bearing chattel that moves her, but that, once a woman conceives, she is responsible for protecting this "child." Adults sacrifice for children; that is the way of the world. Children are not to be sacrificed for the convenience of adults, and that's how "women's right to choose" strikes conservatives. Very few issues are as emotional as abortion, and liberals have not yet found the argument in favor of allowing it that connects on an emotional level. (Please note that I am talking about perceptions, and I am fully aware of all the Right's hypocrisies regarding the protection of human life.)

In closing I want to say that I am agnostic, of a sort; I have no use for the Christian god, or any of the "sand gods" that share Abraham as a father. I made my own painful intellectual journey from Catholicism to atheism in my late teens, and since then my plank on religion can be summed up as I Don't Know. And I'm fine with not knowing. But I'd like to point out that many of the Democrats I know are Christian, as are most of the gays who have been my close friends, colleagues and neighbors over the past 30-odd years. To turn away from Christians is to fuel a divide that will contribute to a religious war.

Thanks for your post, DTH; very thought-provoking!

[DoveTurnedHawk]

74. I Think You Have It Exactly Right

I maintain that it is an emotional gap, rather than a religious one, that liberals need to close with Christians of all stripes. We are seen as thinking too much, and not feeling enough. Of course we are very passionate about our beliefs but we suck at conveying that passion except as outrage.

We are also seen as selfish and self-centered instead of attached to a Greater Good, and that's why I don't think the term "women's right to choose" has gained us much more ground than terms like "pro-abortion." For the Greater Good, children are protected, and the Right has done us a lot of damage by defining zygotes as children. In the mind of the average anti-abortionist, it is not the belief that women should be subsumed to child-bearing chattel that moves her, but that, once a woman conceives, she is responsible for protecting this "child." Adults sacrifice for children; that is the way of the world. Children are not to be sacrificed for the convenience of adults, and that's how "women's right to choose" strikes conservatives. Very few issues are as emotional as abortion, and liberals have not yet found the argument in favor of allowing it that connects on an emotional level.

I am requoting these paragraphs because they strike me as so utterly true. In a way, what I'm saying is no different from what many Democratic strategists have been saying for ages: we need to work on formulating and disseminating a powerful, resonating message. The right wing's use of terms like, "abortion on demand," "pro-life" (directly implying anyone against them is "anti-life"), "partial birth abortion" really illustrate the power of words and message. Sadly, I do think those terms are stronger than anything we've been able to come up with.

Thank you for your thoughtful response, SheWhoMustBeObeyed. Please also pass along my fondest regards and well-wishes to your husband, who I respect immensely, and whose posts I miss reading.

DTH

[noiretextatique]

79. i agree with you: we have to forget about recovering the hard-core

they are lost. we are the party of the modern world, and it is time for us to be clear and confident about that. either we communicate that we can direct the course of inevtiable change in a progressive manner, or we continue to regress by giving in to the rw.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

83. Yes, We Can Absolutely Forget the Hard-Core Right-Wingers

The mistake I believe that many Democrats are making right now, however, is assuming that the vast majority of self-identified evangelicals are hard-core right-wingers.

DTH

[noiretextatique]

86. i don't know...

liberal evangelicals? i suppose that's possible :D one thing this author fails to mention: black churches have always been politcal, and liberal, for the most..and still are, comparatively speaking, for course.

democrats need to talk less about religion, and more about morality, values, and so on, and really hammer the republicans for their lack of all of the above.

we should use bible verses, if we have, to and interpret them in a liberal manner...from the perspective that the GOD concept is a loving one, not a hateful, vengeful and spiteful one, and people who push that interpretation are misguided.

we need to stress that values, morals and so on are really great words, but they are menaingless if we don't reflect those lofty ideals in the way be act in the world...the way we treat ourselves and our neighbors.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

89. Everything You Say Is Correct, IMO

The author actually does point out (in a portion that I didn't excerpt) that he is a person of color, and that people of color have long been Christians and evangelicals, especially as it is a large part of their traditions and resistance to oppression.

Again, message is the key. Our values are moral. We just need to sell our values, without selling them out.

DTH

[JNelson6563]

17. I've found the opposite

As I have become more and more involved in my local political scene the last couple of years, I have been surprised at how many fellow unbelievers I have met. We're hardly talking elite either, retired teachers, pipe-fitters, salt of the earth type folks. I am in Michigan, not the dreaded northeast of "left coast".

It's certainly a topic worth discussing but I think we need to focus on common ground more than meeting the religious right on their turf.

Just my .0125--good post DTH

Julie

[murielm99]

18. I have found the same thing.

I am in Illinois. I became more involved in my local political scene over the last couple of years, too.

I work with retired railroaders, social workers, teachers and factory workers. We have some active couples who have been married thirty or forty years.

They are usually quiet about it at first, but many of them are not believers. After they got to know me, some of them began expressing their anti-church opinions more openly.

Many of them used to go to church, but were turned off by the new conservatism of their churches.

On election night, I spoke to a couple of ladies who are no longer Catholic. They left over abortion and the way women are treated in the church. One of them is a county board member.

Of course, the unbelievers are outnumbered in our group. But the hypo-Christians may be creating a backlash. And, as people become more impoverished by the bush administration, the churches will lose revenue.

I don't know how we are going to find common ground. I have nothing in common with the born agains. They test my own faith severely.

[phylny]

19. I understand/agree with your observations.

Additionally, I think it's inaccurate for Democrats to believe that all those who voted Republican are deeply religious.

On my husband's side, we have dad and his wife, mom and her husband. All vote Republican, and while dad and wife may go to church on Christmas, not one of the four of them are religious at all.

Having said that, with those people who are fundamentalists, I don't honestly think you'll ever make inroads. On MY side of the family, brother and family are fundamentalist Christians. All voted for Bush. I got into a VERY mild discussion with one of my nephews and I said, "I don't think he's a Christian." I meant Bush. He misunderstood, and answered, "I don't think Kerry ever said he was a Christian."

ARGHHHHHH!

Ahem.

I calmly said, "Well, of course he did. He's talked about being Catholic. Catholics are Christian."

His answer? "Well, I don't know much about politics anyway. We all voted for Bush."

I think it's a waste of time trying to appeal to them. I love my brother's family, but I don't even discuss politics with them. They calmly, clearly, consistently will vote for any anti-abortion candidate. To them, it's the most important factor. Kids can be starving in our streets, but we need to stop abortion.

edited for punctuation, clarity

[DoveTurnedHawk]

31. Maybe So, But Aren't Many of Those Folks Already in Our Camp?

I'd also be curious to look at the statistics on this. My impression had been that people who claim to be Christians are still the majority in America, even if you include an Agnostic/Atheist response option. And even if that's no longer true, I'm not really sure how we can overtly turn out that voting bloc of Agnostics/Atheists without completely alienating (to a disproportionate degree) believers. Perhaps by explicitly hitting on separation of church and state issues, as some have indicated above?

If we can boil down our message into one that targets both groups with similar effectiveness, then fantastic. Otherwise, I'm wondering if we shouldn't start moving our message -- our sales pitch, if you will -- toward the largest possible group of moveable voters, whichever group that is, without selling out our core values. I know that I'm being somewhat coldly analytical here, but my fear is that electoral reality has boiled down to such things in this country.

I saw a statistic in the past week, how Gore got 40% of self-described evangelicals, while Kerry only got 20%. If that's true, that's huge, and we should look into why and how that occurred.

DTH

[JNelson6563]

35. No argument here

I agree that people who in some way consider themselves Christians are the majority in America.

If we can boil down our message into one that targets both groups with similar effectiveness, then fantastic.

This is what we need to do. I wish I had an answer right now on how we can do it. I cannot help but think that more of BushCo and their bloody antics will help our cause but I know that is not enough. I am thinking on it though as are many others. It's something we need to really figure out.

Otherwise, I'm wondering if we shouldn't start moving our message -- our sales pitch, if you will -- toward the largest possible group of moveable voters, whichever group that is, without selling out our core values.

I find this to be an even harder puzzle to solve than the first suggestion.

I know that I'm being somewhat coldly analytical here, but my fear is that electoral reality has boiled down to such things in this country.

Well DTH, I think this is the approach we need to take. "Coldly analytical" translates into "clear vision" IMO.

Cheers-
Julie

[DoveTurnedHawk]

43. Amen, Sister

This is what we need to do. I wish I had an answer right now on how we can do it. I cannot help but think that more of BushCo and their bloody antics will help our cause but I know that is not enough. I am thinking on it though as are many others. It's something we need to really figure out.

Here's to brainstorming. We have some of the most creative and intelligent people in the world, on the left. We need to start taking that brainpower and applying it practically.

:toast:

DTH

[Rowdyboy]

20. Very thoughtful post about some extremely important problems

Too bad some people used the opportunity to slam you and these ideas, rather than try to understand why they keep us as permanent electoral losers.

Its much easier to simply bash religion and Christians than to try to honestly understand why they react as they do. At least you're trying.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

32. Thanks Rowdy

I really, really, really appreciate your words.

:loveya:

DTH

[jdj]

34. I think the lack of understanding is evident in the OP.

For some these rights are not necessary.

Two of the six people who sued for the civil union law in Vermont were acquaintances of mine, a lesbian couple, whom I met when woman A was carrying her first child. She had a boy, named Noah. Noah was born with a congenital defect. Partner B had to go to a lawyer and have all kinds of POA paperwork drawn up just so she could be admitted to the hospital to be with Partner A and Baby Noah while he was fighting to overcome this, otherwise she would not be allowed in to see little Noah, who did not survive his fight againt the heart problem. The moved to Vermont, and have since had another baby.

Just because people don't understand what it is like to go through life without basic civl rights, and don't understand the pain and fear women having abortions go through (and I challenge anyone who doesn't to go to a local women's health clinic and sit in the waiting room with the women waiting for abortions, and listen to them talk, about their pain, their fear, feel the tension and the heavy air of fear in the room, and then try to reconcile that with right wing bullshit about abortion as birth control)just because people fail to understand and are unable to get their minds around the fact that something outside of their life experience may indeed be valid, well it doesn't mean it isn't valid, it just means they are severly lacking in ability for empathy. That is Their problem, and when I read headers like this it makes me love this party even more, that up til now it has always chosen the high road, and I hope and pray it doesn't fall victim to this bullshit being espoused here.

I feel the way I do about fundies because I used to be one. I am terribly ashamed of who I was then, and I am damn proud of who I am now, and I am just as proud of the democratic party. And let me tell you one thing, if I ever do drink the kool-aid and convert back to being an eviljailankill xtian, I sure as hell won't bother with the GOP-lite that you folks want to whore us into. Nope, I'll go for the real deal, the GOP, if I'm looking for armageddon in MY lifetime.

[KittyWampus]

33. Part Of The Solution Dove Is Listening To The Religious LEFT &

coordinating the Democratic message, to whatever degree is legal, with them.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

44. The Sojourners Newsletter

It's a publication of liberal evangelists. I think that might be an interesting place to start. I'm looking into getting a subscription.

DTH

[Trahurn]

37. Religion Means Nothing

Care to guess who I hear clamoring for things like "war" and the death penalty and unspeakable things to be done to homosexuals the most?? These people that rant and rave the loudest on such things are the very ones sitting on the front pew on Sunday morning. Religion. What a sham.
I saw a debate between Allen Keyes and Allen Derchawitz(forgive spelling) about fundamental rightness and Keys, unsuccessfully tried to argue that you have to be Christian or part of some religious group or cult before you can be a nice or good person.
Derschwitz argued that he could come to the aid of someone down on the street not because he was religious but because coming to that persons aid was simply the right thing to do.
I happen to value my ethics highly. Such ethics prevent me from some of the conduct of so called religious people because to behave in such a manner is the wrong way to behave or to treat people. I do not need the brand or tattoo of "religion" to then and finally make me a good person. Give me a good person who is that way out of his or her own inner convictions any day over almost any religious person you care to name.
I remind you that our nightmarish attack of Sept.11, 2001 was a religious act. Need I say more.

[jdj]

40. thank god a voice of reason.

to the GOP it's a marketing tactic.

A dem counter-strategy relevant now would be to start wailing on freeedom of religion as a tradition here, not to mention separation of church and state, because the majority of Americans are probably pretty spooked at the fundie cant they are hearing all the time. Christianity is the new patriotism, and being that there are something like 500 recognized religions practiced in this country, that is going to scare alot of people.

I would LOVE to see this party for ONCE stop being do damn reactionary to what the GOP does and instead begin to OUT-THINK,and OUT-STRATEGIZE them. Even if you believe that xtianity was a factor in this election, which I do not, as W. got 8 million new votes from only 4 million fundies who didn't vote for him previously (must have been Jesus and the loaves and fishes thing) that is NOT RELEVANT to future elections. That is done, over, it's so Nov. 2nd. Move on to a new strategy, because the repukes damn sure are. Right now they are probably 5 years ahead of us, plotting how to steal elections when we eventually get these machines banned.

[democratreformed]

46. I think one thing you said is of VITAL importance.

All of this talk about religion and how to bring it out on our side is irrelevant. That was THIS YEAR'S strategy. They will not use the same strategy the next time. We need to develop our own WINNING PRE-
EMPTIVE strategy.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

47. We Have to Do Both

We have to broaden our appeal, while also making plans for our own strategy. Perhaps we can find a way to do them both at the same time.

DTH

[democratreformed]

48. I agree and I think we can.

We are smart, we are determined, we are willing, and we are READY. Together, we CAN do this.

[mumon]

39. "Bearing Witness"

I have thought of going into fundamentalist churches with my mala and surplice (Buddhist) and simply practice a meditation, to bear witness to them that there are Buddhists among them who do not share their views.

Practice like this needs to be done, to let "them" know that "we" are with "them," even if we do not agree with their lifestyle.


And I mean every bit of irony in that last phrase as you could find.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

45. There's Another Post in a Similar Thread

Saying that confronting folks with differing viewpoints is one of the only ways, in the poster's opinion, to reach them.

I suppose finding a way to do that effectively, without being rude or disrespectful or condescending, is one of the challenges we face.

DTH

[Magnulus]

64. well

I have studied a good deal of Buddhism, particularly Mahayana and Pure Land- I'm not an adherent though. It's my understanding, though, that traditional Buddhist do hold some of the same values as evangelical Christians. For instance, traditional Buddhism frowns on abortion and really doesn't affirm homosexuality. Still, Buddhist won't go out and say you are "damned to hell" if you do these things, nor does Buddhism acknowledge the existence of Evil (with a big "E").

[davsand]

49. I had much of this same conversation last night.

You essentially hit on the biggest issue within the Dem party AND the GOP right now--the division between the factions. You can characterize it as an issue of religion, but it goes much deeper than that, I think.

We talk on here all the time about the difference between the DLC Dems and the liberal Dems and even the Greens. Frequently, there is spirited discussion about the party needing to move left/right/to the middle if we are ever gonna win. We've all seen it--we've all done it. (If you want a classic example of an illustrative flame fest post a thread on Joe Lieberman!)

I think a lot of Dems mentally lump religion into a category that is either for someplace other than politics ("keep church out of government is the battle cry") or they see it as some kind of mind control device used by the GOP. (You can see a lot of that in the threads bashing the south and bashing the churches for using a "bully pulpit."

Either way--we have not remembered that we DO have quite a few Christian Dems who vote Dem because of the religious beliefs they hold. This religion thing is NOT peculiar to the GOP, and it is not something that we can, as a party, afford to ignore much longer. Every election we alienate a number Dems with our intolerance or ignorance.

I am not a Bible expert, by any means. (I am no expert on much of anything if I come down to it...) However, what I do know, is that we are tearing each other apart on here with this lack or understanding of the role religion plays for many voters. I also know that if we aren't holding our own base together we sure aren't going to gain anything with the other side.

Seems to me there is the God of life and love and forgiveness and there is the God of anger and fear and damnation. An awful lot of the Dems seem to follow the idea that Jesus was a liberal with his teachings--that love and forgiveness is all encompassing. That includes the idea that we ARE all God's children whatever our form, whoever we love, and whatever our earthly failings.

Some of the GOP Fundies seem to follow that other angry God (from what I can tell--and remember, I am not an expert...) Those folks seem to preach fear and judgment and anger and revenge--a testing of our faith or even a proof that we are worthy of God's love. That sort of ideal completely eludes many of us, and it is a mindset we can't even begin to grasp.

Again, I realize that I'm not an expert, but it seems to me, that the Dems have completely abdicated the Church to the Fundies. When you her about the "Moral majority" you think of the guys like Fed Phelps. When we talk about religion in politics, we talk about the issue of abortion and gay marriage--the issues the FUNDIES have staked out.

Why aren't we talking about the idea that Jesus said love everybody equally? Why aren't we talking about the progressive ideas that really DO mirror (or proceed) the Dem party? Why are we not talking about the idea that feeding the hungry and housing the poor and not killing off other folks is a Christian thing rather than a LIBERAL thing?

The GOP is seen by many right now as a Church driven group. Oddly enough, however, there are more than a few GOP members who are not comfortable with the Fred Phelps' of the world. They really are Republicans because they feel that the government should play only a limited role in people's lives. That party is headed for a split if they don't sort it out.

The Dems are seen as some intellectual elitists who have no clue. We are also seen as libertines with no moral compass, and we are every bit as divided as the GOP is.

There has GOT to be a way to reclaim that "high moral ground" that we all claim to want. Does the path to victory include a trip to church or at lest a study of the Christian teachings? Maybe it does--again--I don't claim to know. But I do think it bears consideration.

Maybe the best thing we could do would be to form a Dem Christan Society (or whatever you want to call it) and take THAT as the basis for our platform. You know--Love everybody, hurt nobody and judge ye not lest you be judged...

Sorry to remable...


Laura

[DoveTurnedHawk]

54. You Don't Ramble, Laura

You ruminate deeply and in print. :-) Seriously, I think you have a ton of great points, particularly this:

Again, I realize that I'm not an expert, but it seems to me, that the Dems have completely abdicated the Church to the Fundies.

I get that impression as well. And I don't like it. We are playing with an increasingly shrinking field of states in play, and we're having to defend ourselves on traditionally Democratic turf like Wisconsin and Minnesota and even Hawaii. We need to reverse that trend, and I believe finding a way to speak to people of faith without compromising our ideals is one way of doing it.

DTH

[Pithlet]

50. Whoever wrote this doesn't get out much

Just the first part: ""the only people I've met who aren't very religious and are Democrats are Democratic staff members in DC and in the elite think tanks and in the blogosphere. Democratic candidates all uniformly have faith"

They haven't met me. That first sentence sounds exactly like what a right winger would say. It sounds an awful lot like Non-Christians are without moral principles and leadership. Which is a crock of shit. Does the author never wonder that it may be that no one could successfully run for a higher office in this country without proclaiming their Christianity? No, it MUST be that the non-religious are weak.

Then, this: " Democratic candidates all uniformly have faith. it's their inept staffs that are the problem. thus why groups like NARAL and EMily's List continue to bleat about "woman's right to choose" instead of talking about how we can reduce abortion and why only Democratic policies can do that.

First of all, abortions went UP after Bush took the presidency. The Republican party is not exactly the party of choice. So, it would follow that many would turn to the other party in our dual party system. You know, the one that is overwhelmingly pro-choice? Sorry, but that one is a big, fat DUH. Sounds like whomever wrote this is a little guilty of ranting without researching. Also sounds a lot like some of the posters around here who keep bleating about compromise before they suggest dumping core progressive values because we lose votes.

Never mind the sexist connotations of referring to being vocal about our rights as "bleating".

[DoveTurnedHawk]

56. I Don't View Him as Harshly as You Do

If you read his other blog entries, it seems clear to me that he's a very liberal evangelist, which in my mind is fighting the good fight on increasingly lonely terrain.

He's also pro-choice, and my impression on the "bleating" line is as a (poorly stated) ironic reference. His point is that we can frame the abortion discussion as something that is not a desirable practice (safe, legal and rare), while simultaneously standing strong on the issue of reproductive freedom.

Also sounds a lot like some of the posters around here who keep bleating about compromise before they suggest dumping core progressive values because we lose votes.

I sure hope you're not talking about me here, Pithlet.

DTH

[Pithlet]

59. I was responding to the content in your post

I know you didn't write it. And I don't think Kos did, either. It certainly doesn't sound like Kos. At any rate, I do not agree with what was written. And the comments about the posts about compromise were not directed at you, either. :)

[DoveTurnedHawk]

62. Thank You

I glad to know that. :-)

I totally get that a lot of folks are going to disagree; I just want to spark some discussion about it, because I think we have a lot of soul searching to do in the next few years. The result of that soul searching will determine our strategy and plans.

DTH

[Name removed]

51. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[jarab]

58. Great post DTH !

I'd nominate it for the home page except for the fact that it begs instead of screams.
I too have a perspective on this. In a nutshell, we misunderstand religious people here at the DU.

IMO, religious people (the most of 'em) believe in a hereafter. The only way they can achieve whatever hereafter they are conditioned to believe, it must be "earned" in this life. This life is less important than that unseen one - in almost all cases.
They have their guidelines for graduating to that "better" life, and those guidelines are the religious documents they treasure (Bible, Koran, etc).

It is important to emphasize that this life in less important than the latter one, although they likely don't often want to seriously consider that a screw up in this one will negate the latter. Hope, ya' know.
They will invariably toe the line on their doctrinal teachings - especially in the political arena - to literally (in many cases) abide by their "book".

Nothing is more important to a Christian or other devotee than the next life; and, especially NOT the next election or ANY poilitician.
Politics will never replace their hard-and-set rules of conduct required to graduate to the next level.
It's not as complicated as we sometimes paint it to be.They weigh teachings of tolerance - in the cases of bigotry - against the other laws and commands, and early on in their conversions formulate a personal code which is often unmalleable (thanks in large part to denominational doctrine).

Many of them put a lot of effort - so they say - into following their own adopted themes in order to get to that better life - and they feel obligated to vote against the person who is perceived to be the farthest from their own beliefs. I don't see the televangelists asking us to vote for their candidate as much as I see them saying or implicating how bad our candidate is (making him/her unworthy of their/our support and condemnable in the eyes of God or Allah etc).

Some work for a heart attack/deserve it, and get it. Others work for an advancement in their vocation. These religious persons at least think they're working towards a goal, too. As with the heart attack or job promotion, they won't easily be denied.

When we realize that they are conditioned to believe that their adherence to their doctrines - perceived by them anyway they want to which is their prerogative - is the MOST important thing in their lives, then we begin to understand them.

I personally believe most of them won't fit on that "straight and narrow" path, but that personal belief is another story. My condemnation of them will not get us any more votes, since they have
long ago begun to formulate their itinerary in order to get to Heaven.

...O...

[DoveTurnedHawk]

63. Hey Orville

I'm not sure I'm comfortable painting all Christians with such a broad brush. Sure, I bet that a lot of them are primarily concerned with the afterlife, but that doesn't stop them from living everyday life, and even if they do err (as all humans do), they can certainly pray for forgiveness.

Anyway, I don't pretend to know the answer, I just think it's a valid question we should ponder.

Thanks for your thoughts on the matter!

DTH

[iverglas]

65. same shit, different verse

"thus why <sic> groups like NARAL and EMily's List continue to bleat about 'woman's right to choose' instead of talking about how we can reduce abortion and why only Democratic policies can do that."

I keep looking forward to hearing from anybody who thinks his right to do anything should be "reframed" as "reducing X".

I'll bet that if the fascists were trying to eliminate men's right to watch football games, few men would be real thrilled about their party making "reducing football-watching" a plank in its platform.

I'll bet they'd say exactly what I'd say to any party that made it an article of policy that the number of abortions should be reduced: FUCK OFF.


I have absolutely no quarrel with understanding, and speaking to, the concerns that people have about any number of things.

My quarrel is with saying things that are false, and wrong, and evil, and horribly harmful, in order to get them to listen.

Abortion is not wrong. I will not say that it is in order to get votes, and I would not support any party or candidate that said it was. I will not sell out myself or other women.

Ditto same-sex marriage and any other élitist issue you might want to name.

Many of the people you are attempting to reach quite evidently have no capacity for empathy, or despite being capable of caring about others and acting accordingly, are willing to let their own self-righteousness prevail over genuine concern for others, and/or their own interests prevail over anyone else's needs.

It may be time simply to acknowledge this. It is generally agreed that there is no cure for psychopathy, and some of these people truly are the political equivalent of psychopaths. They have no human values, they don't give a shit about other people, and they will pursue their own interests, as they define them, no matter the cost to anyone else.

We know that this is what the Bush cabal is, for example, and corrupt politicians and others elsewhere are. Corruption is not confined to the upper echelons of politics. Corruption is the choice to use a system, and the people in it, for one's own ends.

That is what some of your simple folk really are doing. The fact that they are blind to the fact that what they're doing is not actually in their own interests is irrelevant.

There are certainly others who are more deluded or confused, or downright stupid, than corrupt. Some of them have genuine human values -- they truly don't wish to cause others harm. What they need to see is that their political actions do cause others harm.

If their values are genuine, regardless of whether they call those values "religion", talk is possible. Their religion itself is none of your or our business. And that means both that it is improper for us to attack it, and it is absolutely proper to reject their inserting it into the discourse.

There's little one can do to prevent them from attempting to insert their religion into the discourse. But it is within our power to refrain from attacking their religion.

Their belief in a god, and their notions of the nature of that god and what that god wants, is their private business. It is also not our business if they are hypocritical as religious people, professing to believe in a god that wants one thing from them and doing another. That's between them and their god or their fellow religionists.

That's what I, personally, would like to see stop. No more talk about how fundamentalist christians are not "christian", or how Islam is an inherently misogynist religion, or any of it. It's none of anyone else's business. If their god, or their church, doesn't like what they're saying or doing, then presumably they'll hear about it some day. I certainly can't speak for their god or their church.

What *is* public business is what they want public policy, laws, to be. Everybody comes to that discussion with value systems and codes of conduct that they want to be reflected in policy and laws. Some people claim to get those systems and codes from a religion or a god. Big deal; who cares? The question of where they come from is simply not up for public discussion, and not relevant to the discussions in question.

Circumventing the entire "religion" element of the discussion is the only way to get to them. They're not interested either in your religion, or lack of it, or in your opinion of theirs. And telling them what it is just isn't going to help.

At bottom, the concept of "rights" derives from both our innate self-interest and our innate concern for and stake in the well-being of other members of our group. The second is of course innate in everyone but the born psychopath, if there is such a thing, and still present in anyone who hasn't lost it through abuse -- and some of these people have indeed experienced a life-long pattern of social and psychological abuse and exclusion. People whom no one cares about don't tend to care about other people.

It is wrong not to recognize that everyone has the same rights, and it is wrong to violate people's rights. Either one hurts people.

People's exercise of their rights can sometimes hurt other people too. But perceiving someone else's sexual activities, or lifestyle choices, or reproductive choices, as "hurting" one's self or anyone else one cares, or claims to care, about is a perversion of reality. It is the true depth of selfishness, the sin that such people label those who make choices they disapprove of with.

I'm not offering much assistance with the *how* of reaching such people. Frankly, I think mass psychopathy is about the best description of much of US society.

All I can say is, for those who really are not totally corrupt, totally self-centred and stupid beyond help, the plain contradiction between their values -- most healthy, decent people believing that it is just wrong to harm others -- and their actions, which harm others, has to be held up in front of their faces.

If it is then going to be less painful for people to change than to continue sitting on the bulging lid of the trunk full of contradictions between their values and actions so that it won't explode and knock them over, they also have to be given a way of saving face. Having information they did not previously have, so that they can change their actions without having to admit they were acting wrongfully before, is one way they can do that.

How to get them the information? Damned if I know. But putting effort into doing that, rather than into condemning them or betraying the people their actions harm, seems wise.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

68. Somehow, I Don't Think Comparing Christians to Psychopaths

Or deluded, confused, stupid or corrupt folks, does anything to help matters. In fact, I think it makes the original article author's point very well.

As for reducing abortion, I'm afraid I can't agree with you. I think abortion should be reduced, with better sex education and greater availability of birth control and day-after-pills leading the charge, because after all, prevention is always better than surgery. In an ideal world, the only pregnancies would be wanted ones, but obviously we're nowhere close to that. That doesn't mean we shouldn't strive toward that goal, however. Quite the contrary, in my opinion.

What most troubles me are certain evangelicals who are so extreme that they don't even want to see birth control. THAT scares me. And I'm not suggesting we have any common ground with people who believe things like that, just like we have no common ground with people like Fred Phelps.

We do have common ground with Christians, however, and we even have some common ground with evangelicals, or else how could Gore get 40% of the evangelical vote, compared to Kerry's 20%?

Again, I view it as message and tone, not caving on our values. Many Republicans get that. I fear that many Democrats may not.

DTH

[iverglas]

70. somehow, I don't think you thought

I don't think you thought I "compared Christians to psychopaths" -- or, if you did, that you thought much at all. But ta very much for that thought, I'm sure.

So no, I didn't make the original author's point at all -- although it certainly seems to serve your purposes to say I did.

My point about psychopathy HAD NOT A FUCKING THING TO DO WITH RELIGION, and ***THAT*** was in fact the entire fucking point of my entire fucking post.

That NONE of this has to do with religion, and that you're a sucker if you let them pretend it does. Religion is about a belief in a supernatural being. That has nothing to do with public policy.

They can attribute their value systems and codes of conduct -- and votes -- to their supernatural being if they want. If you treat that claim as relevant to the discourse, you've already lost.

"As for reducing abortion, I'm afraid I can't agree with you."

And I don't give a flying fuck. Did you really miss the point that badly?

NOBODY'S OPINION about abortion is legitimately in issue. Not unless they can demonstrate that their opinion carries any weight when it comes to other people's rights. Period.

You think of some nice way to "frame" that if you like. But as long as you're saying "abortion should be reduced", you're framing THEIR argument. You are asserting that your nose has some business in MY business, and that's when you become them.

"I think abortion should be reduced, with better sex education and greater availability of birth control and day-after-pills leading the charge, because after all, prevention is always better than surgery."

In point of fact, many women with unwanted pregnancies would agree that prevention is better than UNWANTED PREGNANCY. The complexities of the situations that result in unwanted pregnancies are beyond the scope of this post. The question is why you "frame" this point as "abortion should be reduced".

"In an ideal world, the only pregnancies would be wanted ones, but obviously we're nowhere close to that. That doesn't mean we shouldn't strive toward that goal, however. Quite the contrary, in my opinion."

And if you can tell me how you and your ilk saying "abortion should be reduced" = striving toward the goal of reducing the numbers of UNWANTED PREGNANCIES, I'll sign on.

"Again, I view it as message and tone, not caving on our values."

And I see the real problem as being that your values are not my values, so there's no "our values" here to start with.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

73. It's One Thing to Say Abortion Is "Wrong" and Another Entirely

To say it should be reduced. Overeating should be reduced, but it isn't "wrong." Plastic surgery should be reduced, but it isn't "wrong." To use one of your examples, the time Americans spend in front of the TV should be reduced, but it isn't "wrong." Abortion, like any surgical procedure, should be reduced in favor of prevention, but that doesn't make it "wrong."

And I see the real problem as being that your values are not my values, so there's no "our values" here to start with.

This is too funny. How do you know what my values are? I'm a secular Democrat whose core beliefs include equality for all, economic equity and justice, aggressive scientific advancement, an improved environment, separation of church and state, and civil rights.

Again, I'm not suggesting we cave on our values. I'm certainly not willing to cave on any of MY values. I'm suggesting we strategically alter our message and tone to include as many people as possible, even those we have historically ignored.

Finally, to the extent your values do in fact fundamentally differ from mine, based on your post and others that I've read, my guess is that my values are more in line with the bulk of Democratic party members and voters in this country than yours are.

DTH

[iverglas]

75. it wasn't hard

"This is too funny. How do you know what my values are?"

The values of someone who quotes with approval:

thus why groups like NARAL and EMily's List continue to bleat about "woman's right to choose" instead of talking about how we can reduce abortion

aren't my values, whatever else they might be.

So, since what I said was

And I see the real problem as being that your values are not my values, so there's no "our values" here to start with.

-- i.e. I made no claim to know what your values *are* -- I seem to stand uncorrected.

"A woman's right to choose" and "reducing abortion" are NOT equivalent, and one may NOT be substituted for the other.

Most particularly, "reducing abortion" MAY NOT be substituted for "a woman's right to choose".

Overeating should be reduced, but it isn't "wrong." Plastic surgery should be reduced, but it isn't "wrong." To use one of your examples, the time Americans spend in front of the TV should be reduced, but it isn't "wrong."

And as I said -- if you are ever faced with a mass movement whose goal is to PREVENT YOU by law or by constitutional amendment if necessary (by constitutional override, where I live) from eating as much pizza as you like, or watching as much television as you like, or having as many nose jobs as you like -- or if it pursued those goals by shooting and bombing the people who sell you those goods and services -- then you let me know how you feel about me proposing that your party adopt a policy of advocating "reducing pizza eating" or "reducing television watching" or "reducing nose jobs".

I have a feeling that I might find you bleating about your right to eat what you want, watch what you want and have the nose you want.

Abortion, like any surgical procedure, should be reduced in favor of prevention, but that doesn't make it "wrong."

The reasons why women have abortions are complex and multiple, and your attempt to reduce them to an absence of "prevention" is simplistic and, at bottom, nasty.

It remains that it is meaningless and offensive to say that anything that individuals choose to do in the exercise of their right to do it SHOULD be reduced (or increased, for that matter). You are talking about INDIVIDUALS' CHOICES.

If your message were framed along the lines of it being important to strengthen women's social and economic status, strengthen girls' personal and social skills, enhance the value of women in society, expand the opportunities available to girls and women to provide them with real and attainable goals, reduce the social isolation of women with children, expand the services available to parents for child-rearing, improve income supports for parents who cannot obtain employment that supports their family ... shall I go on?

That is, if your message were framed to address the reasons why women have unwanted pregnancies, and not the choices that women make when they do have unwanted pregnancies, I'd be listening.

Unwanted pregnancy is like any other personal problem that becomes, in the aggregate, a social problem. There are both idiosyncratic and systemic reasons why it occurs. But how it is dealt with, once it does occur, is a matter of individual choice.

You aren't calling for fat people to be interned in weight-loss camps. But huge numbers of your fellow citizens are calling for women to be forced to endure pregnancies and bear children they do not want.

In that context, it is nothing short of disingenuous to persist in saying that "framing" the message of women's right to choose as reducing the instance of a particular choice they make is going to do anything but encourage those who seek to violate that right.

Finally, to the extent your values do in fact fundamentally differ from mine, based on your post and others that I've read, my guess is that my values are more in line with the bulk of Democratic party members and voters in this country than yours are.

Gee. And here I thought your country was based on that pursuit of life and liberty and happiness biz. That's a hard thing to do when you can't exercise your rights.

I wonder what would make your guess about my values better than my deduction about yours? Mine give pride of place to individuals' autonomy, the right to determine the course of one's own life, and society's duty to enhance individuals' opportunities to do just that.

In this instance, that means that society has a duty to enable girls and women to make choices that are in their own best interests -- and women have the right to make the choices that they determine to be in their own best interests, without interference.

It's pretty simple still.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

76. Reducing Abortions and Protecting Choice Are NOT Mutually Exclusive

And I disagree with your black-and-white view of the issue. NO ONE here -- not even the pro-choice author of the linked article, whose quote I've already addressed elsewhere -- is saying we should abandon the right to choose. I'm a feminist who has consistently spoken up for women's rights and reproductive freedom here.

Again, the point that YOU seem to be missing is that I'm talking about message and tone. Considering how your own tone in this discusion has been, in my view, rather extreme, I suppose the fact that we seem to be talking past each other is unsurprising.

We will not compromise on the right to choose. We just need to find the best possible way to frame the message, to market and sell it, if you will. And the reasons why we need to do that is outlined well in this article on the front page:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/04/11/12_frankly.html

DTH

[pmbryant]

71. Fascinating thread, here. So much to read.

First, and this is a bit off-topic, so forgive me: We need to be careful not to fall into the trap of using the GOP's favorite slurs against ourselves, e.g., "elite". It's bad enough that they've gotten the mainstream media to throw these around, but we certainly shouldn't play along.

Now back to the main topic. :-)

I am also not religious. So I don't have any keen insight into this subject, but will offer my thoughts nonetheless.

I do not think the Democratic Party has a problem with religious voters. It has become accepted conventional wisdom that religious people vote Republican and non-religious people vote Democratic. I think this conventional wisdom is vastly oversimplified, if not outright misleading. Of course, it is exactly what the GOP wants everyone to think. Again, we have to be careful not to fall for the GOP propaganda ourselves.

Huge numbers of religious people vote Democratic. As I see it, there is at least one major difference between these people and their counterparts who vote Republican: the GOP group makes a big public show of their faith, while the Dem group is much more low-key.

I suspect the bulk of the "Religious Left" believes that church and state do not mix, and that is one reason for their reticence. Alas, given the success of the GOP propaganda, I think this is going to have to change. Otherwise, the propaganda will become more and more a self-fulfilling prophecy. So the "Religious Left" is going to have to become a lot more vocal and visible.

Combatting the crap that comes out of Hollywood onto all of our televisions is a huge winning issue, I believe. Even a huge secular, progressive, liberal Democrat like myself is disgusted with the state of current television. Gore and Lieberman made a stab at this during the campaign four years ago, and I thought it was a brilliant move. This issue can be framed as both a "liberal" (anti-big-corporation, protect the public airwaves) and "conservative" (values) issue, and indeed was being so framed by Gore and Lieberman. I don't think they pushed it quite hard enough, but it was definitely there. Alas, I never heard anything from Kerry this year about this issue. In fact, I had completely forgotten about that until just now (perhaps because I've virtually given up all non-PBS TV in the interim).

As far as going back to church to try to understand people whom you don't currently understand, I think that is a wonderful idea. I've often had similar thoughts since moving to Texas almost six years ago. Not for political reasons, but just to understand more of the culture of my new neighbors. And perhaps even get to know a few of them. I haven't done so, but I wouldn't be surprised if I actually try it out at some point in the relatively near future.

Now I'm off to read all the interesting responses to this thread.

--Peter

[DoveTurnedHawk]

77. I Think We Need to Crunch the Numbers

And analyze the data. Again, Gore had 40% of the evangelical vote, and Kerry only got 20%. That is something, if true, which we need to take to heart and reverse. I just cited an article on our front page, which I'll cite again here. The article rings true to me, and I think we need to strategize about how to rectify the situation:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/04/11/12_frankly.html

First, and this is a bit off-topic, so forgive me: We need to be careful not to fall into the trap of using the GOP's favorite slurs against ourselves, e.g., "elite". It's bad enough that they've gotten the mainstream media to throw these around, but we certainly shouldn't play along.

Your point is well-taken, but I have to be honest, I've hung around political operatives, both in DC and LA, and the way the author of the originally linked article describes them fits pretty closely to what my opinion is, as well.

They're not "elite" like the business and corporate elite, certainly, but many of them have an elitist viewpoint that is too entrenched within the Beltway, and I think that's an attitude we would be well-advised to change.

DTH

[pmbryant]

81. That article makes some interesting points

Here is the part that strikes me as the most accurate (emphasis added):

(W)e think (Thomas) Frank (author of "What's the Matter with Kansas?") has undervalued profound changes in the race, gender, and ethnic relations in the US, all of which have been utilized to fuel the right-wing reaction, especially the role that racism plays in the current backlash. Racism now takes shape in less overt forms than in the past, but it remains deeply embedded through highly-segregated living patterns and the withdrawal of many whites from contact with public-sector institutions like schools, mass transit, and recreational facilities.

In fact, much of the resentment against taxes and the public sector is tied to the gains enjoyed by African-Americans and Latinos in this sphere. Despite the fact that people of color and women remain stuck overwhelmingly in low-paid, powerless roles in society, they have become targets of the misdirected rage of many average white men and women.

This leads to some differences we have with Frank's solutions. The economic elites have ruled through dividing the different elements of the middle and/or working classes. All our work must appeal to uniting these disparate elements and creating an environment of tolerance.

Further, progressives often have a tin ear to the popular craving for a moral vision. This has been underscored by Kerry's defeat. Progressives can't ignore morality in its vision for a better America. We must address the alienation and powerlessness that leads to anti-abortion and anti-gay sentiment defining morality. A progressive morality must replace the intolerance of the old values with a worldview that emphasizes love, nurture, and tolerance. A specific example is the dissatisfaction of both left and right with the suffocating role of commercialism. We both agree that excessive and tasteless advertising degrades our culture.

The problem, then, is how do we counteract the underground racism and above ground scapegoating that have proved such successful tactics for the GOP? Devising a way to promote our own "moral vision" is imperative. (We already have that moral vision, but it has not been on strong display in recent campaigns.) I don't think that will be sufficient, however.

The GOP has proven once again that the tactics of vicious smear campaigning work. I suspect we will need to fight fire with fire in that regard. But we have to do so smartly, in a way that coincides with our own moral vision, yet does not conflict with the moral vision of "middle America". Fortunately, I don't think that will be difficult, as there is a great deal of overlap just waiting to be exploited.

Thomas Frank's proposed solution, as described in this article at least, strikes me as woefully inadequate:

Frank advocates a two-pronged approach to engage the electorate.

First, Democrats/progressives must recapture their identity as the trusted voice of those facing the icy waters of deregulated capitalism by developing and promoting a strong economic agenda; thereby offering a distinct alternative to the right-wing's largely-hollow cultural agenda.

Second, Democrats/progressives must listen more closely to the cultural concerns of right-leaning populists by excluding controversial issues and appeals from their public program.

On (1): Obvious these voters do not find the right-wing's cultural agenda to be hollow. That is why countering with our own progressive cultural (moral) agenda is imperative. We already have a strong economic agenda, and that is not working as well as we would like. Admittedly, in places, that agenda could be strengthened, but that alone won't make the difference, I think.

On (2): Again, simply avoiding controversial issues and appeals is not good enough. We need our own cultural, moral agenda.

Finally, I haven't read Frank's book, and perhaps this is now getting way off topic from your original post, but the title and the apparent focus on Kansas strikes me as misguided when analyzing any supposed problems with the current Democratic agenda. Kansas has only voted for a Democrat once since 1936. (LBJ in the 1964 landslide.) Kansas voted for FDR in 1932 and 1936, but voted against him by large margins in 1940 and 1944.

Kansas clearly was not very friendly to New Deal progressive economic politics, practically right from the start. Nationally, Democrats and progressive economic policies were on the ascendancy from 1932 until 1980. Kansas got off that bus in 1940, long before the rest of the nation. It doesn't strike me as a good example of the "middle America" that we are after.

EDIT: Ok, one last point, sort of on topic. The "moral vision" suggested by that article doesn't strike me as having anything to do with religion. Non-religious types have their own moral system that overlaps a huge amount with those of religious voters of all denominations.

--Peter

[DoveTurnedHawk]

84. I Agree, It's Inadequate

Until we can formulate and disseminate our message with the same effectiveness and discipline that the right-wing does, we will eternally be at a disadvantage.

I do think we can talk moral values without compromising our ideals. I mean hell, just look at my last sentence. That's how fucked up this is. OF COURSE we can talk moral values without compromising our ideals, because our ideals ARE moral! Equality for all is a moral position. Opportunity to succeed in our society is a moral position. Civil rights are a moral position.

We just have to find a way to boil down and distribute the MESSAGE. I absolutely believe we can do that. If I didn't, I wouldn't have posted this thread. We just have to find a way.

DTH

[pmbryant]

85. Perhaps Montana offers us an example

Just found this very interesting article about how Democrats have taken back Montana this year (at least in their local elections).

I was quite interested because I had followed Schweitzer's race for Senate in 2000, which he barely lost, and am quite pleased to learn he is now Governor-elect.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0412.sirota.html

Top Billings

How a Montana Democrat bagged the hunting and fishing vote, and won the governor's mansion.

By David Sirota

There aren't too many states in the union redder than Montana. George Bush won the state by more than 20 points in November. The state legislature and governorship in the capital, Helena, have been in GOP hands for 16 years. Sparsely-populated Montana is represented by only one congressman, the far-right Rep. Denny Rehberg, and by two senators, an ultra-conservative Republican (Conrad Burns) and a conservative Democrat (Max Baucus) who often votes with the Republicans. The state's electoral votes are conceded so automatically to the GOP that neither party's candidate campaigns there. Culturally, with the exception of a few rich Hollywood types who weekend in places like Big Sky, the state could hardly be further from the metro-cosmopolitan culture of the coasts. To give but one example, Montana has the highest percentage of hunters of any state in the union.

But in November, a Democrat, Brian Schweitzer, won the state's race for governor. Schweitzer not only won, but he also won decisively, beating his opponent Bob Brown, the Republican secretary of state and a two-decade fixture in Montana politics, by a solid four points. His victory was so resounding and provided down-ballot party members such strong coattails that Montana Democrats took the state legislature and four of five statewide offices.

How did Schweitzer pull off such a dramatic victory in an election year when Democrats seemed to have lost their capacity to win red states? The answer should give Democrats everywhere some hope and Republicans reason to worry.

...

[ibegurpard]

87. It can't be "bottled."

What works in Montana isn't going to work everywhere. National Democrats need to realize that their focus-group and poll-driven message is never going to get them anywhere. They need to invest in local organizations and networks.

[pmbryant]

88. Yes, it's just an example

But better to have winning examples than losing ones.

Here in Texas, we have lots of losing examples recently. :-(

--Peter

[DoveTurnedHawk]

90. This Is an Incredible Article

It should be required reading for anyone interested in how we go forward as a party, IMO. Thanks for the tip!

DTH

[Shalom]

72. The Problem is the Religious Reich - Not Dems

Stop blaming Dems for not being religious fascists - all the good US churches who pray for Bushitler, and support the carnage of civilians in Iraq, need to be denounced rather than courted. Imagine how they would react if churches in the US were being bombed like mosques in Iraq ?

[ibegurpard]

78. Here is the most important sentence in that article:

Democrats had no institutional or organizational means to combat the Bush propaganda.

That's what's killing us. Churches provide a place where people can go to feel like they belong to something and where their opinions and values are reinforced. We have no organizations that can counteract that.

[noiretextatique]

80. i agree...the most important sentence eom