Dan Fishback: A party bereft of ideas loses big

The Republicans attract their base with a stew of simplistic lies: America is always right. Traditional warfare against our enemies is the only way to ensure security. The rich need more money, and the poor just need discipline.

These are powerful positions -- they make nuanced, critical thinking almost completely unnecessary.

The left, on the other hand, attracts its base with statements much closer to the messy truth: America is and has always been fallible. An executive branch with strong ties to the military-industrial complex cannot not be trusted on questions of war and peace. The poor need substantive assistance, and the rich need their investments regulated.

These are powerful positions too -- they call out the sort of hypocrisy that people wish to resist.

And yet, while the latter is resisting, only the former is actually represented in government. Their so-called "opponents" in the Democratic Party capitalize on neither the Republicans' invigorating lies nor the radical left's infuriating truths. And they are left with nothing. They are left with a base of supporters who might very well vote Green if that didn't seem futile or counterproductive.

Political compromise is often necessary, but get too comfortable compromising and your original goal vanishes from sight. The 29 Democratic senators who voted to give up their war powers in October probably don't even remember ever having an original goal at all. They've become political mechanisms, not human beings committed to an ideology of progress.

So of course the Republicans won back the Senate! Of course they're flooding the entire Congress. At least they can manifest the appearance of nuanced, passionate citizens, as opposed to the Democrats' roster of demoralized functionaries.

Yes, it can be dangerous when politicians appeal to emotionality. That's the basis of popular fascism. It's also, come to think of it, the basis of the American right. When people listen to the news with their hearts -- to the exclusion of their heads -- they are prone to deception. But this sort of danger is unnecessary for a more popular left or a more radical Democratic Party.

Because a Democratic Party that prioritizes truth above compromise will not have to actively appeal to America's heart. All it has to do is be honest. The truth -- on its own power -- will find its way to America's emotional core by way of its head. When people cognitively understand issues like the Bush Administration's oil ties, that understanding will independently fuel an emotional response, and that response will send the them flying to the voting booths.

It's the Democrats' job to explain and educate -- to make sure their constituents understand that the world isn't as simple as the Republicans would have us think. It's their job to convince America that trying to understand a terrorist's motivations is not akin to excusing or forgiving his or her actions. It's their job to offer America a sense of history to fill the void left by Republican jingoism. It's their job to support democracy by arming voters with context and lucid analysis.

It's not their job to forfeit their constitutional responsibility to check executive power, granting the president the right to declare an arguably self-destructive war at will. It's not their job to prioritize their own re-election campaigns over the safety of their country -- especially when their efforts for self-protection have only backfired, depriving them of an energized voting base and costing them control of the Senate.

Rather than fearing public opinion, the Democrats must take the initiative to mold public opinion -- to engage the already-active left and attract moderates with the passion that will naturally emanate from truth-telling in a world this dire, where so many lives hang in the balance.

I'm not patient enough to wait for the Green Party to take over. Maybe I'm too pessimistic about its ability to cause positive change. And maybe I'm too optimistic about the Democratic Party's ability to change itself. But as long there's a group in Washington that even calls itself the "left," I'm willing to scream at it until that label starts to mean something.

Dan Fishback is a senior American Identities major from Olney, Md.

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