Maybe the Democratic Party needs to get some Religion

[Cronus Protagonist]

If we conceded on guns and religion, we could do anything else we want to do. That's the only two real stoppers.

The corporatists and money people know this fact and use it. They now are doing and can do whatever they like, as long as the churches get their share and the people can still shoot a gun. Some people, a large number of people, care about nothing else - they'll vote against all their interests as long as the god'n'country theme is present.

We need to co-opt that. So let the Democratic Party platform this year have references to God, particularly mention Jesus and state clearly that guns are fine with the Democratic Party.

It's a winner, right? And the end would justify the means, right?



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[DemBones DemBones]

1. Yes, but it's not enough to just say

"We like Jesus" and "Keep your guns" to get the votes that are going to the GOP solely over "values."

It's not about concession, unless it's conceding that views we don't share still have a right to exist. The Democratic Party has been too hard-nosed in some of its statements of position, basically telling people if they didn't agree, they didn't belong in the tent.

[Cronus Protagonist]

2. Yeah, perhaps it would take more than a slogan....

Poor conservatives are trapped into voting Republican right now because there is no "acceptable" alternative, just as poor liberals are trapped into voting Democratic as there is no real alternative either. However they have common interests in labor laws, civil rights, corporate regulation, government costs and benefits.

Is there a place where some mutual respect would unify all the good people of this country behind a totally populist movement?

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[Lexingtonian]

3. That's too easy

If we conceded on guns and religion, we could do anything else we want to do. That's the only two real stoppers.

As it is, it's hard for a lot of people in 'the Heartland' (or whatever you want to call it) to let go of That Old Time Religion and the shabby Old Establishment that runs the local equivalent of salt mines. They still won't vote against what the religious and economic establishments want them to, which (with few exceptions now) urge them to vote Republican.

As concerns religion, we are still the party of Separation of Church and State, even if we seem to make it a pretty friendly relationship with e.g. black churches. And if you've ever watched a 'religion' thread here at DU, a significant proportion of Democrats display the bitterness of an abusive or mutually contemptuous relationship with organized religious groups. I wish the spirit of toleration would prevail, but as long as both sides claim knowledge they don't actually possess there's not much hope.

We don't need the Democratic Party to embrace the mess of religious dogmatism and theocratic temptations. We do need the Party to say that it is a degradation for religion to become committed to political elites and foolish dogmas when it should be committed to the welfare of the common people. We do need a few indisputably hard and respectable major religious personages to go out and critique the Republican agenda of wealth redistribution to those who don't need it, corruption, and the stalling of measures enabling social equality. We need scholars to explain the essential non-Christianity and non-Biblical nature of most Religious Right precepts, and their origins mostly in the pagan religions of Europe. We need it asked where Republicans live up to the Law of Love. We dispute that they are True Christians, and as Modern people we must try to live with them, but wish- as any real Christian should- their obvious paganisms and corrupt syncretisms get recognized by the People and depart into the grave with them.

We are not in the business of What Is The One True Religion. But when exemplary people who are religious choose to engage in the politics of the public arena for some public good, it is an ugly thing when the Democratic Party had no place befitting their abilities and desires for them, no platform for their voices, and no support to offer them.

* * *

Btw, I think it is sensible to make multiple tier gun control laws at the state level, maybe two or three tiers that rural, suburban, and urban areas can choose between by a referendum on at a town level every decade or so, with federal delimitations on how far things can be taken (no Prohibition either way). That sort of a stance belongs in the Platform, imho. That leaves it to each city and town to decide upon the level of barbarism present or tolerable locally.