As many of us predicted, the Democratic politicians, political analysts, and chroniclers who said “Hillary Clinton must concede to Barak Obama by June; a floor fight at the convention would destroy the Party” have been proven to be alarmists. The worst that might have happened is that an opening for party control by factions other than those of the Clinton / Obama persuasion might have been inadvertently created. If that result is what was feared by those Party doomsayers, then perhaps we could understand their misguided apprehension.
My family’s Democratic Party affiliations go back, so far as I know, to the time of the U. S. civil war. By my father’s time, that also included an almost automatic dual affiliation with a trade union. My father, like his father, was a photographer. Both were sole proprietors of their small businesses, with few (if any) employees outside of family. Yet my father was a lifelong union member, even though he was also the “management” of his studio. Even in his last few years he looked to the Democratic Party and the unions to keep our country whole and strong.
My mother’s family were also Democrats from way back. The first presidential election that I was vaguely aware of was that of 1944; my mother assured me that Roosevelt would win. Again, in 1948, my mother assured me that Truman would win; that was fine with me, because I didn’t like Dewey’s pencil-thin mustache. My mother’s family were also anti-slavery Methodists from before the civil war. However, she never explained why her family was not Republican, which went hand-in-hand with the anti-slavery Methodism.
We lived in a solid-Democrat state, one with almost no Republican office holders at any level. In our neighborhood I don’t recall anyone being pointed out as “one of those strange Republicans”. The reasons for any party other than the Democratic Party completely escaped us.
Times have changed since my parents’ passage through the great depression, World War II, and the first years of the cold war. But I think they would probably smile upon the changes in the Democratic Party. The Party is now even closer to the unions, with an interdependency that even my folks could not have predicted. In this election year alone, the unions will spend more than $350 million to help elect Democratic candidates.
Socialism was very much in fashion during my parents’ early adulthood, and had it not been for the intervention of the war, the U. S. would be closer to Socialism than it is today. Also, the emergence of the cold war had tainted Socialism by the time of my parents’ deaths. But the popularity of Socialism in Europe, and the end of the cold war, have now erased the stigma that was attached to it. Those who see Liberalism to Socialism to Communism to Despotism as one continuum are non-existent in the media today. My good neighbors in Texas who described themselves as “conservative Democrats” have also passed on.
This election cycle is the opportune time for the leadership of the Democratic Party to summon up the courage of their convictions and change the name of the Party to the “Democratic Socialist Union Party”. This one timid step following the presidential inauguration would reassure all members that the Party remains dedicated to its core principles. The only objection to the name change that I can envision is a few union leaders who might prefer the word “Union” to precede the word “Socialist”. In fact, this single action by the Party could also help drive out any remaining conservative Democrats and other dinosaurs.
In international politics, particularly within the United Nations, there are many countries who would look more favorably on the U. S. political system. Up to this point they have merely giggled at our Liberal and Socialist parties; they certainly won’t laugh at the Democratic Socialist Union Party.
The Democratic Socialist Union Party. Isn’t this really “America’s Party”?
Tags: American political parties, European governments, U. S labor unions
