After reading a couple of this fellow’s
essays I looked up the author, John Stoehr. I was struck by this line from his
bio on the editorial board of Substack.
A little about me: First, I’m not a political
scientist, but I have taught political science. Second, I’m not a partisan, but
for the time being, the Democratic Party cares about what I care about.
Like Stoehr, I’m not a political
scientist but I have taught political science among a number of other subjects
in my long teaching career. But I was particularly taken by his second comment:
“Second, I’m not a partisan, but for the time being, the Democratic Party
cares about what I care about.”
Forced Choices
I strongly resonate with that. When queried
on the endless flow of political surveys that find their way to my inbox as to
what my political affiliation is, I always respond Democrat simply because that
is the party with which I am legally affiliated in Florida. In a closed primary
state, being without a party affiliation means being shut out of some of the
more important electoral choices in the process.
That may be about to change though the
last ill-fated attempt to do so also included a top two run-off provision. It
would have meant that the top two Democrats who got the most votes or
conversely the top two Republicans could face off in a general election that
ultimately offered little real choice to voters.
A less obvious but more sinister aspect
of that practice is a well-documented finding that minority candidates tend to
be shut out of the process. That amendment went down, thank G-d, but the open
primary issue remains to be considered on its own merits. I am hoping it will
eventually become our practice.
Some of the surveys I get follow up their
initial question about party affiliation with a question that really seeks to
parse issues of actual political identity: “Are you a strong or a weak
[Party]?” I always say weak Democrat. Truth be told, I have voted for
Republicans historically (including the Congressman for whom I worked in DC one
summer) and I have voted for candidates in the Green and Socialists Parties as
well as a number of those who claimed No Party Affiliation. I am not a loyal
Democrat or a party line voter. For me, the bottom line is always who will best
serve the common good. And in my experience, by definition that will mean that
no one party can ever be seen as the default choice.
The Shadow of the Democrats
As a lifelong Democrat, I remember only
too well the Democratic nominee for Sheriff in Lake County in 1972. Willis
McCall, a barely closeted Klansman on trial for murder even as he ran for
reelection. That murder involved his kicking a black suspect repeatedly in the
stomach while in his holding cell in Tavares who eventually died from
peritonitis. The Young Democrats of Lake-Sumter (then) Community College under
my direction as president endorsed his Republican opponent in the election.
Fortunately, the Republican won because McCall was known to exact his revenge
on his political enemies with impunity. Truth be told, I was terrified of
McCall and his minions.
I also remember Lyndon Johnson who
simultaneously pushed through his slain predecessor’s long overdue civil rights
agenda and a series of programs to deal with poverty even as he lied to the
American people to rationalize a massive assault in Southeast Asia that would
prove costly to all the parties involved in a losing cause. His arrogant, power
blinded six years in the White House caused no small amount of misery to the
young men and women of my generation. Many of those veterans have never
forgiven the Democrats for that debacle though in all fairness there was more
than enough blame to go around between the Republican presidents and the
Democrats.
And then there is Andrew Jackson, one of
the founders of the modern Democratic Party, whose policies of “Indian removal”
were simply genocidal. His invasion of Spanish Florida, engaged at least in
part to search for runaway African-American slaves, would result in a lot of
suffering for two groups of human beings residing in Florida prior to the
arrival of the invading Americans.
This invasion would result in Jackson’s
becoming Florida’s first territorial governor. In truth, we got off to a bad
start politically here in Florida and the current deadly failure of leadership in the midst of a pandemic by this overgrown
little league ballplayer (clearly now out of his league) is simply the
apotheosis of that tradition. It is a case in point of American kakistocracy,
the devolution of power to the worst in capacity and lowest in character. But,
for the record, that long, sad decline began in Florida with a Democrat (though
he would no doubt find himself much more at home in the race-driven Republican
Party whose demagogue currently occupies the governor’s mansion).
The bottom line here is that no political
party has a corner on the righteousness market or any other market. Parties are
composed of human beings with all their fallibilities and imperfections. As such,
they merit at best tentative support and never blind allegiance.
Green Values, Pragmatic Politics
That said, I have sometimes described
myself as a Yellow Dawg Green Democrat. That draws on the old Southern maxim
that Democrats would rather vote for a yellow dog if it was running as a
Democrat than a Republican. Of course we should bear in mind that in the Solid
South from which this saying arose, that yellow dawg was often a racist
Dixiecrat who in my lifetime became Republican. But there is something to be
said for rootedness in one’s cultural and familial tradition.
My Mother would have called that cutting
your nose off to spite your face.
Perhaps
most importantly, the description recognizes the shift into extremism of the
Republican Party that I have observed over my lifetime. That shift is reflected
by a party base which is now almost exclusively white and heavily evangelical
in nature. Increasingly the appeals to that base are cast in thinly veiled
racist dog whistles and anti-intellectual appeals. That probably insures that
without a radical change in direction, I have probably cast my last vote for
any Republican candidates. Until that party is willing to repudiate the racist
and classist core of its politics and the pathological individualism and
tribalism of its ethos, we really have little more to say to one another.
Frankly, I don’t see that coming in the
foreseeable future.
Us, Not Me
That brings me back to Stoehr’s
self-description: “for the time being, the Democratic Party cares about what
I care about.”
This is how I see politics. It’s not
about belonging to a tribe. It’s not about being ideologically pure. As I often
say about religions, believing is the lowest – and most divisive – driver of
religiosity and belonging, while potentially capable of embracing a more
diverse body, too often turns on arbitrary aspects of tribal identification.
The highest level of religiosity is motivated by a concern for being, the
affirmation that everyone belongs, everyone has a place at the table, everyone’s
interests should be considered and everyone’s dignity should be respected.
For me that is the bottom line. In
political terms this is best expressed in “the common good.” Or as Bernie
Sanders’ campaign put it, “It’s about Us, not Me.”
When the Democrats align themselves with
the common good, they have my support. When they prostitute themselves with the
moneyed interests of Wall Street, the technocrats of Silicon Valley, the
armaments industry supplying endless war around the world and the global
corporations extracting the very life blood of the developing world, they have
earned my unrelenting opposition. And they have earned my unwavering support
for the progressive wing of the party they have failed.
So long as the party cares about the
things I care about, it will have my membership and my support. But that is not
a blank check signed in blood. It is, on a good day, a social contract executed
in good faith. As in all contracts, when one of the parties fails to perform,
the other has the right to withdraw from that contractual relationship. Like
Stoehr, who notes that his loyalty to the Democrats is a current status, “for
the time being,” it is never a given.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Harry Scott Coverston
Orlando, Florida
If the unexamined life is
not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or
political, is not worth holding. Most things worth considering do not come in
sound bites.
Those who believe
religion and politics aren't connected don't understand either. – Mahatma
Gandhi
For what does G-d require
of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your
G-d? - Micah
6:8, Hebrew Scriptures
Do not be daunted by the
enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly
now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to
abandon it. - Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Wisdom of the Jewish
Sages (1993)
© Harry
Coverston, 2020
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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