Friday, June 10, 2005

WILLisms asks: “Whatever happened to that emerging Democratic majority?”

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm gonna throw this idea out there and I'd be curious to know what you guys think...

I agree that the current Democratic Party is dying and we're clearly looking at Rove's GOP majority for the next few decades, BUT...

No majority lasts forever, and we have to try and figure out what will replace the GOP majority when the next generation takes over. I would guess that the GOP majority will expode as the big gov't conservatives force out the small gov't types, and also as the new generation of South Park types, who are more liberal on gay rights and abortion, get frustrated with the Religious Right types...

I believe that the most likely rival to Big Gov't Conservatism would be a sort of Small Gov't Liberalism --- the classical liberalism that emphasizes individual freedom and fiscal responsibility combined with a progressive desire to make sure health care and education are basically universal and attempts to spread freedom around the world.

This is different from modern liberalism as today's Democrats still want to use gov't to run every aspect of people's lives and doesn't really want the US to influence the world as liberals feel the US is bad. This new version of liberalism would sort of marry the best parts of McCain Republicanism (deficit and foreign policy hawkishness with a libertarian streak) with the most popular parts of Hillary Democratism (broad social safety net).

I predict that the current Democratic Party will spend the next 10-15 years dying and rotting and will then be replaced by the new liberalism that I describe. It will probably be led by a former Republican, like a McCain, who had enough of the GOP, sort of the way Reagan was a former Democrat who revived the Republicans with a new conservatism.