Open Letter to the Democratic Party
Democrats held Congress for 40 years, but by 1994 the American public had had enough. 1994 was the year of the Republican Revolution. Riding a wave of Democratic dissatisfaction, Republicans picked up 54 seats in the House and eight seats in the Senate. The Contract with America avoided hot-button issues and made appealing centrist promises: fiscal responsibility, crime, term limits, procedural reforms, independent auditing.
But then things went screwy. Republicans reversed their own ethics reforms and started realizing that term limits applied to them too. They started the K Street Project to shut Democrats out of even minority roles, subverting the fulcrum on which the balance of power rests. They started shutting down science projects with inconvenient results, they claimed the power to create [their] own reality. They stopped acting like the conservatives they pretended to be. Power corrupts, and the Republicans became corrupted. The public was fed up. The "permanent" Republican majority ended after just 12 years.
This week the pendulum swung back. Democrats avoided the corruption, not by being more virtuous, but by having less influence that was worth selling. Now the Democrats are the ones left standing after the bums have been thrown out. Now the Democrats have the kind of power that can corrupt. But Democrats don't really have power, they have responsibility. They have the responsibility to embrace the views of Republicans who trusted them enough to endanger their careers and reputations by crossing party lines. Democrats have the responsibility to uphold the promises they made, to fix what Republicans couldn't or wouldn't, and restore what we've lost in the last 8 years. If they can do this they can hold onto the majority for another 40 years - or longer. But if they start overreaching, or abusing their power, or using their majority and power to force what persuasion cannot, then they are in trouble.
Democrats: look at who switched sides to vote for you this year. Michigan. Nevada. New Mexico. Indiana. Virginia. North Carolina. Even Montana and Missouri were very close. These states are part of your mandate now. If you keep with sensible decisions in the interest of the entire country and you make sure your policies turn out well you can keep the majority for another 40 years or more. But if you start getting full of yourselves or wanting to flex too much of your power, doing the kinds of things that will get centrist voters mad at you, thinking like you represent the weird bubble of liberalism that I live in rather than the whole nation, or even if you accept the wrong $29,000 fish statue they'll come back and it'll be the good old days of the Bush/Lott/Frist/Gingrich Republican revolution all over again.
You've earned the advantage of majority and incumbency again. I hope that spending the last 14 years in the woodshed and watching the last 14 years of Republican mistakes have been a learning experience for you. Do not screw this up.
But then things went screwy. Republicans reversed their own ethics reforms and started realizing that term limits applied to them too. They started the K Street Project to shut Democrats out of even minority roles, subverting the fulcrum on which the balance of power rests. They started shutting down science projects with inconvenient results, they claimed the power to create [their] own reality. They stopped acting like the conservatives they pretended to be. Power corrupts, and the Republicans became corrupted. The public was fed up. The "permanent" Republican majority ended after just 12 years.
This week the pendulum swung back. Democrats avoided the corruption, not by being more virtuous, but by having less influence that was worth selling. Now the Democrats are the ones left standing after the bums have been thrown out. Now the Democrats have the kind of power that can corrupt. But Democrats don't really have power, they have responsibility. They have the responsibility to embrace the views of Republicans who trusted them enough to endanger their careers and reputations by crossing party lines. Democrats have the responsibility to uphold the promises they made, to fix what Republicans couldn't or wouldn't, and restore what we've lost in the last 8 years. If they can do this they can hold onto the majority for another 40 years - or longer. But if they start overreaching, or abusing their power, or using their majority and power to force what persuasion cannot, then they are in trouble.
Democrats: look at who switched sides to vote for you this year. Michigan. Nevada. New Mexico. Indiana. Virginia. North Carolina. Even Montana and Missouri were very close. These states are part of your mandate now. If you keep with sensible decisions in the interest of the entire country and you make sure your policies turn out well you can keep the majority for another 40 years or more. But if you start getting full of yourselves or wanting to flex too much of your power, doing the kinds of things that will get centrist voters mad at you, thinking like you represent the weird bubble of liberalism that I live in rather than the whole nation, or even if you accept the wrong $29,000 fish statue they'll come back and it'll be the good old days of the Bush/Lott/Frist/Gingrich Republican revolution all over again.
You've earned the advantage of majority and incumbency again. I hope that spending the last 14 years in the woodshed and watching the last 14 years of Republican mistakes have been a learning experience for you. Do not screw this up.