Views > April 14, 2006

The Seinfeld Strategy

By David Sirota

For the first time in more than a decade, Democrats seem to have a shot at taking back Congress. But also for the first time in recent history, Congress is on the cusp of switching hands without a voter mandate. How is that possible? Because Democrats are only in the hunt thanks to gross Republican missteps—and they are going out of their way to make sure their potential election to the majority is about nothing. Call it the Seinfeld strategy.

Los Angeles Times columnist Ron Brownstein reports, “Democratic leaders are drifting toward a midterm message that indicts Bush more on grounds of competence (on issues such as Iraq, Hurricane Katrina and prescription drugs) than ideology.”

As a short-term electoral tactic, the Seinfeldian “competence” strategy allows the GOP to right itself with new management. Sadly, it is not a strategy based on ideological differences that puts a boot to conservatives’ neck when their hypocrisy trips them up and they fall down. Thus, while Democrats celebrate the resignations of people like Reps. Tom DeLay (Texas) and Duke Cunningham (Calif.), the GOP simultaneously celebrates because they can now counter the Democrats’ “competence” argument by pointing out that their party has sloughed off the incompetents. In short, the Republican Party and the right’s ideological agenda march forward, largely unscathed.

In making such a limited critique, Democrats tacitly validate conservatives’ ideological goals and further reinforce the public feeling that Democrats have no convictions of their own. For example, despite the GOP scandals and the political opportunities they present, Democrats refuse to push serious reforms like public financing of elections and instead push half-measures and focus on Republican missteps.

In the process, they are implicitly saying they believe the system that most Americans know is corrupt is actually perfectly acceptable. The same thing on Iraq: The Democratic Party refuses to take a position wholly different from the Republicans, simply saying the management of the war—rather than the war itself—is the problem.

National Democratic leaders will say they are forced to use the “competence” argument because it is the one big theme that unifies their ideologically diverse congressional membership. But that hides the not-so-secret fact that very powerful, very vocal, and very ideological forces within the Democratic Party support many of the conservative goals that a “competence” strategy inherently validates.

On domestic policy, these forces went public in April at a press conference at the Brookings Institution. Led by Citigroup chairman Robert Rubin—Clinton’s former Treasury secretary—the “Hamilton Project” announced plans to “to take on entrenched Democratic interests” such as teachers’ unions, according to the Financial Times. Participants at the event used words like “protectionist” to describe courageous congressional Democrats fighting to reform the corporate-written trade pacts Rubin and others helped pass in the ’90s. They also advocated school “vouchers” and “entitlement reform”—code words for defunding public education and eviscerating bedrock Democratic programs like Social Security and Medicare. At least they were honest in naming themselves after Alexander Hamilton, the leader of the elitist Federalist Party and rival of Thomas Jefferson, the populist founder of the Democratic Party.

Public opinion data consistently show Americans are desperate for political leaders who will represent ordinary citizens’ interests—not just powerful lobbyists and their wealthy corporate clients.

Until Democrats decide to stop taking part in “business as usual” and start fighting back against the right wing’s ideology, they will face the same political liabilities they do today.

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• Reader Comments

  Given the choice between a Republican and a semi-Republican, people will vote for the real thing.  Expecting any significant resistance from the donks to our corporate masters is pointless in the extreem.  If twenty years of democrat “Me Too"- ism hasn’t taught you that - it hasn’t taught you anything.

  Significant change will happen *outside* the duopoly.  Not within it.

  Posted by AlanSmithee on Apr 15, 2006 at 11:31 AM

  I desperately hope that the United States break into full-blown riots when the newly elected “Democratic” government trundles along just like it’s Republican predecessor.  People voting for changewill be suckered into voting for the different face of the same enemy.

  March on the White House gates, and see if that gets their attention.

  Posted by Harrower on Apr 16, 2006 at 4:57 PM

  “The Democratic Party refuses to take a position wholly different from the Republicans, simply saying the management of the war—rather than the war itself—is the problem.”

  The current administration has failed to address the problems of border security, institute measures to identify and deal with chemical, biological or radiological attacks on our civilian population. This creates an unreal perception that the events of 9/11 were a fluke, a one time action by a bunch of now dead kooks.

  Moussaui’s comments at his trial and the Iranian threats of thousands of suicide bombers should remind us this is a real war and a genuine threat.

  Mismanaged? Yes!  But it sounds as though the author is of the opinion, “Call it off and it will go away.” Rather than run for office in denial, they should propose a better way to deal with it.

  Imposed democratization is in itself a contradition.

  Posted by whattheheck on Apr 17, 2006 at 1:36 PM

  Sirota is quickly becoming one of the most intelligent voices in a pathetically feeble liberal media. His observations on the Democratic party are sadly accurate. One need only look at Hillary Clinton, our front-runner god help us all, to realize that the party is not merely dead, but really most sincerely dead.

  Posted by opeluboy on Apr 17, 2006 at 5:13 PM

  It is well past time for a significant Third Party.

  The Democrats sold out their Liberal heritage long ago, but that’s another (OBVIOUS!) issue still denied by most who still support the Dems., rather than taking the necessary pains and yes - sacrifices and risks - to build such a third party. To me, gutless passives have only themselves to blame for the catostrophic results of their passivity. (America: The Fascist Empire.) How much longer will they wait for “others” to do it for them? Will they wait until the world sees its next Hitler rising from the ashes of America’s phantom “freedom”?

  I suggest a party modelled after Western Europe’s current tendency of moderate left public policy (what the Dems. USED TO BE - might it be called something like “New Democrats”?).

  This lost American ideology has already been called the “Third Way” by some journalists and analysts, though it has seen VERY LITTLE PLAY in the US media. And there is a very good reason for this: it WILL break the (now, ancient!) DemoPublican monopoly.

  What is it?

  It is the secular humanist, egalitarian model set forth in (ironically) the US Constitution and Bill of Rights. It is also what the US has never actually achieved, but which many other countries have, to a large extent.

  This “news” seems to come as a legitimate shock to “mainstream Americans”, who are still ultra-conservative as compared with today’s Western Europe, and increasingly so, even Latin America.

  Though it may be hard to imagine from where we are now - still bogged down by the corporate Empire, and thoroughly addicted to the following drugs: organized religion and brainless consumption of the Empire’s products and moral value system - it IS inevitable. The only question is how long it will take Americans to snap out of their drug-induced trance.

  Steven Wanzell,
  artist/activist/ex-American
  www.wanzellarts.com.ar

  Posted by wanzellarts on Apr 19, 2006 at 5:53 PM

• extended discussion >>>Continued...

  Discussions with more than 5 comments are continued on our special discussion page to encourage continuity and ease of use. There are currently 10 posts.

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