THE DEMISE OF MANY THINGS

  Surprises never cease.  I expected by now to be discussing the Republican Party's death and rebuilding.  Instead, November 8, 2016 saw the "sudden death" of the Democratic Party, which sent supporters and detractors alike reeling.  Freedom depends on a new party arising, and the more input on the party's reincarnation the better for the country.  Looking back, the Democratic Party was terminally ill for a long time, and the 2016 presidential loss was its last gasp.  Congress, the Supreme Court, judges down the line, and most governorships and state legislatures were already under Republican control.  Many Republicans could come to regret their unexpected victory, but their party,  now subjugated by Tea Party hardliners, has everything.
  Some of us are old enough to remember 1964, when the Democrats held the present, and it looked as if the future belonged to them too.  The Republican presidential candidate, Barry Goldwater, had won only his home state, Arizona, and five solidly Democratic states in the Deep South.  Southerners voted for Goldwater because unlike Texan Lyndon Johnson, Goldwater favored preserving states' rights regarding race relations.  Even so, fewer than half the Confederate states, and less than a third of the former slave states, voted Republican.  Johnson feared the Democrats could lose the South, but he persevered with the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts anyway.  Most of the country agreed it was the right thing to do.  The War on Poverty was also popular with most Americans, as a continuation of the New Deal.  At the time, most Republicans also favored the goals of the New Deal and War on Poverty, though they held other plans for how to accomplish them.  Goldwater's proposal to return the country to the free-for-all of the 1920's had been solidly rejected.  Under the circumstances, the Democrats could have overcome Southern recalcitrance.
  But the Democrats could not overcome Vietnam.  Why Johnson, after campaigning against Goldwater's pitch to send American soldiers to fight, suddenly reversed himself, is a matter of argument still.  But he did.  In the ensuing chaos, perhaps the majority found stability in simply accepting that America was in a fight--unwanted, unessential, but a fight nonetheless--that the country must slog through no matter how unpleasant it got, and it got extremely unpleasant.  Somehow, the Republicans vaporized their anti-war members, but the Democrats were hopelessly divided.  In 1972 George McGovern, who campaigned for expanding the New Deal and ending the Vietnam involvement, was stomped by widely mistrusted Richard Nixon.
  Later, with most of his administration in jail, Nixon resigned.  Gerald Ford, the appointed Vice President, fell into the presidency.  Ford was in a tough spot, trying to hold together the remnants of the Nixon presidency and oversee the final Vietnam withdrawal.  Still, he barely lost to Jimmy Carter, a conservative Democrat from Georgia.  After one term Carter was thoroughly defeated by Ronald Reagan, who picked up Goldwater's banner and marched to triumph.  The bad news for Democrats was that Carter was the strongest candidate they had.
  By the eighties, the consensus of America had moved so far rightward that policies once regarded as "reactionary" were perceived as "conservative."  The Republicans had forsaken preservation of the status quo, instead pushing for return to the halcyon past, when capitalism had no controls and no opposition.  The Democratic Party adopted conservatism, feebly trying to find a balance that would preserve some of the New Deal while professing loyalty to free enterprise...probably the best they could do, which shows how beaten the party was.
  Bill Clinton was successful because he was skilled at getting to the center of many issues before the Republicans did.  Still, his presidency was mainly a holding action, an orderly retreat, as the New Deal was attacked and clipped.  His major liberal proposal, medical care for all, was trounced.  The Republicans arrogantly replaced it with nothing, and for good measure, impeached Clinton over some personal issues that had nothing to do with the nation's business.  Though Senate Democrats, sticking together, kept Clinton in office, the ordeal sapped the sickly party of energy it could not spare.
  The 2000  presidential election was decided by one vote in the Supreme Court on a straight party-line vote...so much for the expectation that judges hold the law above party loyalty.  But the Democrats had no choice but to surrender and sue for peace.  Why not--the election had been close, Al Gore had actually won the popular vote, what better time to make peace?  But George W. Bush acted as if he had an immense mandate, and the Democrats were too ineffectual to offer much resistance.  Bush got us into two unending wars, with support from the Democrats...what choice did they have, with the drums pounding?  Bush did fail at privatizing Social Security, because voters of both parties were against it.  But the Democrats were too weak to follow that victory with progressive initiatives.
  Bush was so unpopular by the end of his second term that a Democratic takeover, with a new spirit of co-operation from Republicans, seemed possible.  But the chronically ill Democratic Party was unable to withstand pressure from a fanatically powerful Republican machine.  During Barack Obama's eight years in office, no Republicans worked with him, though Obama's policies would have been in line with liberal Republicans back when there were such people.  Obama finishes his term as the most popular president ever, yet he could not revive his deathly ill party.  This included Hillary Clinton, who had copious experience, a strong organization, solid policy proposals, and many endorsements  Instead, the nation chose someone who had none of these qualities.  She had character issues, but so did her opponent.  She got the most votes, but she still lost.  Along with her, the Democrats are now on the outside of every branch of government, on every level.
  All that remains of the Democratic Party is the corporate-friendly fundraising machine.  It won't be long until the big money people desert to the winning side, leaving that house of cards to crumble.  There is an opportunity here to build a party with honest, populist principles and a progressive agenda.  Whatever its name, the new party will be up against horrible odds, but we might as well give it a try.  A free country needs two parties, and right now America has only one.