An excellent article by David Brooks of the New York Times makes a profound statement about the two parties today. In 1932 the Democrats had working class DNA. Today, the Democrats have a different DNA, the DNA of a minority party.
The way they are conducting themselves at the Alito hearing is sickening.
The Democrats have amply shown why they remain the party of the gown, but not the town. In 1971, Fred Dutton wrote: 'The New Deal coalition, including Catholics, white ethnics, was dying, he argued, and should be replaced by a "loose peace coalition" of young people, educated suburbanites, feminists and blacks.
That plan was not stupid, but it did not work. The party has been on a downward spiral ever since. John Kerry lost the white working class by 23 percentage points. He lost his fellow Catholics.
After every defeat, Democrats vow to reconnect with the middle class whites. But if there is one lesson of the Alito hearings, it is that the Democratic party continues to repel those voters just as vigorously as ever.
Edited in part from the
www.pressdemocrat.com 'How the Democratic Party lost Alitos'
Friday Jan. 13, 2006 by David Brooks reprinted from the New York Times.