The Democratic Party is not dying — far from it, as it is the party for daily living. It is the bastion for social security as a basic floor in avoiding poverty in old age, in widowhood, and the disabled. For decades it has encouraged personal accounts by generous tax shelters in IRAs and 401ks. The party led the battle to reassess payroll tax in the 80s which meant solvency into the 2040s. It is calmly aware of the need for modification such as supplementary revenue from the general tax.

It continually struggles to protect Medicare and Medicaid in spite of the Republican Marauders bent on unwarranted limitations. It was the first to recognize the maddening escalation of health costs and urged universal health care not only to enhance the health of so many of the uninsured and eliminate the need for Medicaid, but it actually championed small and big business alike beset with insurance costs that position them unfairly in competing with domestic and foreign activity that carry little, if any insurance for their employees.

The party learned its lesson — alas, not fully — from Johnson’s fallacy and returned to Kennedy’s perception: “the United States, as the world knows, will never start a war;... nor impose our will on the other 94 percent of mankind.” That the party was sucked into the fraudulent frenzy of the Iraq debacle is inexcusable but it at least voted with serious reservations against rattling the sword and ignoring friendly advice.

The party is still very much the protectors of the people who fend for themselves but are nonetheless without assets to better themselves in an era wherein only those with the “smarts” are rewarded. It also is aware that the once proud industrial base is collapsing — who would ever dream that GM and Ford would be relegated to the junk bond pile? — and the best way to cope with globalization is to not do business with nations that export on the backs of slave labor and do nothing about enhancing the lives of their own people.

Most members of the party are able to discern the vast difference in pregnancy between the woman without means and the middle class woman who is able to abort without fanfare of government assistance and religious coercion. The party should be able to trump the Republicans in family values because they know that the people of America are foremost pragmatists who value more the challenge of everyday moral living than the dictatorial values set forth on Sundays.

The Democratic Party is not dead.

The Copyright © 2005 Richard R. Kennedy All rights reserved. Revised: June 13, 2005.

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