A friend notes an interesting item from an article in our local paper. In a speech marking a celebration of a local councilwoman being named Democrat of the Year, state representative Daylin Leach (D) pointed to three events from the 1960s and 1970s which caused the current decline of the Democratic party - the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement and Roe vs. Wade. Since 1974, he said, Democrats have not had a banner year in national politics.
The article doesn't say exactly how these issues precipitated the Democrats' fall from popular grace, but we can guess. The Vietnam war, for instance, branded the Democrats for two generations as soft on national defense. The current crop of Democrats have only reinforced that perception among the public.
The Civil Rights Movement, which could have been the crowning achievement of the Democrats in the last half of the twentieth century, turned out to be a mixed bag. John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey and others get much of the credit for the progress of civil rights in the 60's and 70's, but it was also Democrats in the south who opposed the national leadership and fought to maintain segregation and racial inequality. Moreover, although minorities made enormous strides under LBJ's Great Society they also suffered from the dysgenic effects of the welfare state, plunging to greater depths of dependency and crystalizing into an American underclass. Other aspects of the civil rights movement also alienated voters - affirmative action, for example, and the waste of millions, if not billions, of dollars which did nothing to lift people out of poverty, but only lined the pockets of politicians and con artists.
Lastly, it has taken thirty five years for the American public to realize the moral impoverishment of our abortion culture, but it is dawning upon increasing numbers of people that, as Ramesh Ponnuru says in his new book, the Democrats, in their zeal for the right to kill unborn children, have become the party of death. There is a majority of people in this country who still find that repulsive.
We'd probably want to cite a few more events or trends of the sixties and seventies that have led to voter disenchantment with the Democratic party, but Leach's statement is interesting, and all the more since it was contained in a speech given by a Democrat to Democrats. Unfortunately, for those who would like to see a return of the Democratic political hegemony, few in the current leadership will be receptive to messages like his, and even fewer will be in a position to do anything to change the perceptions Leach laments.