The Dems Throw Their Toys Out Of The Cradle

As the Democrats' labyrinthine nomination process becomes more convoluted, more obnoxious and more drastic the two remaining candidates increasing blunder about wildly wielding any instrument, sharp or blunt, that comes to hand like two blind gladiators hacking more in desperation than hope at each other in the blood-soaked sand of Rome's old Colosseum. A sight that would have gladdened the heart of the Emperor Gaius, a psychopath known to history as Caligula, who, appropriately enough, appointed his horse a member of the august Roman Senate. And all this time there we were fondly thinking John Kerry was the first.

After an initial burst of euphoria at the "uniqueness" and "vigor" of the contest, Planet Pundit has for long prognosticated gloomily on the dire consequences for the Dems of their internal strife as it degraded inexorably into the kind of tit for tat bloodletting more akin to the robust methods favored traditionally by Sicilians to compose their differences. Uniquely in this campaign year the pundits have proved to be correct. The subterranean rumbling you hear in the night is not an earthquake in the making, it is instead the sound of the Democratic Party splitting apart.

The immortal phrase "chickens coming home to roost" springs to mind because the Dems have labored mightily and long to bring this dies nefas about. It is conventional wisdom to view the two major American political combinations as 'Big Tent' coalitions. This is true in respect of the Republican Party as we see the various shades of opinion in the party gradually coalesce around John McCain despite obvious disagreements on issues, priorities and emphases. This is what a coalition, properly so called, does. Though allowing for sometimes considerable differences within its elements there is a strong elastic bond of principle and sensibility which keeps any divergent forces within the bounds of what is viable. The GOP is therefore essentially coherent and centripetal in its tendencies.

The Democratic dynamic is entirely different. Since 1968 the Party has devolved from the old FDR coalition into an agglomeration of client blocs which compete each with the other for a greater and greater share of the largesse, political, legislative and monetary, which the Party has in its gift. This might seem a version of old Tammany Hall patronage but, unlike that system which encouraged loyalty to a hierarchy of Party chieftains based on self-interest, this model promotes dissension, division and distrust because each of these blocs is a self-selecting separate entity which of its nature demands total loyalty to and complete identification with the specific group rather than the Party, which ceases to exist except as a formal assets-delivery system.

Thus the array of special interest and single-issue voting blocs - African-Americans, Latinos, feminists, gays, welfare dependents, illegal immigrant advocates, unions, special pleaders, far left activists, avowed libertines and so forth - see themselves as uniquely special and therefore uniquely entitled to special consideration. This creates an auction without an auctioneer where individual Democratic politicians are forced to make any number of contradictory and increasingly outrageous bids to secure the support of the competing blocs. In this way the Democratic political currency becomes grossly devalued by a galloping inflation of promises, positions and runaway posturing. This devaluation renders Democratic assets virtually worthless to every one other than the successful bidders. So it is that 22% of both Obama and Clinton supporters want the other candidate to quit already, while 19% and 28% respectively say they will switch to the GOP if their particular patron loses out.

This is also reflected in the iron-clad compartmentalization of the vote, the real reason why Clinton cannot take advantage of what would otherwise be Obama's lethal relationship with his pastor. The blocs that instinctively abominate the reverend - white women, white working class men, Latinos - are voting for her already. Those who support Obama - blacks, college educated whites, the MSM - look upon anti-Americanism as a legitimate position if not indeed an undiluted virtue. Like the great George Jones Hillary may be hailed as a one of the best ever by her own but she has no cross-over appeal.

Thus two great aggregations of special interest blocs, having split the Democratic primary votes down the middle, face each other across a Gettysburg strewn with the dead (Gravel, Kucinich, Dodd, Biden, Edwards, Michigan and Florida primary voters, party unity), the dying (Bill's legacy, Obama's Messiahship, Hillary's 'experience', Rev Wright's reputation), the maimed (Geraldine 'Gerald' Ferraro, Samantha 'Monster' Power, Patti 'The Incompetent' Solis Doyle, Andrew 'Shuck 'n Jive' Cuomo, Austan 'Wink and Nudge' Goolsbee) and the walking wounded (the Heavy Brigade of Superdelegates in its entirety, Democratic leaning independents, pundits whose income depends on their unerring insights, anyone who faints at the sight of blood).

War is hell, but Civil War is manna from Heaven to your enemies and the Republicans have gone from looking down the double barrels of a Democratic blow-out to viewing through their field glasses the brightening prospects of another four year occupation of the White House.

This was always a mess waiting for a Persian rug in order to happen. The stars merely needed to fatefully align. And so they did. Along came two paramount icons who in and of themselves represented hugely inflated competing Entitlements, the denial of either of which would be an act of intrinsic evil. The Democratic Party now quails "before the devil it raised and cannot lay". It gave birth to Entitlement, nursed it, cradled it lovingly, sent it to kindergarten, high school, college, the workplace, the projects, insisted on enrolling it in every and all organizations, public and private, in the land. In the end like a spoilt child grown strong it batters its parent and sets about burning its home down.

Now, Richard Dawkins, tell me there isn't a God.