No one likes the status quo

Both bases of both major parties hate the status quo of today. The problem is that the leadership of the Republican Party knows this, but the leadership of the Democratic Party does not.

The Republican Base wants the following things: the elimination of the New Deal and Great Society programs; the restoration of a "Christian society", with church as the central organizing force in life, women taking care of the children at home to raise good families and the men working to support the economy and defend the country; the elimination of burdensome government structures and tax codes the eat up profits for businesses; and the elimination of threats to the nation, including Islam, homosexuality, feminism, communism, and anything else that can be identified as "other". All of the Republican leaders, along with the supporting think tanks, media, and colleges, support these ideas.

The Democratic Base wants the following things: the expansion of the New Deal and Great Society programs to include universal employment, whether by the government are by the private sector, along with universal health care; the rejection of the oppressive "Christian society" which eliminated the hopes and dreams of women and minorities; the full representation of all minority groups in business and government; the flattening of society through a progressive income tax so that there are no rich or poor, simply citizens who can enjoy the "good life" without having to compete with each other for resources; the inclusion of all alternative perspectives that support life, including Islam, Wicca, New Age, paganism, animal rights, environmental protection, etc. Essentially, the Democratic Base likes harmony, and believes that industrial capitalism destroys harmony, so the government must limit the reach of industry in order to protect harmony in the environment, in the family, and in society. However, the Democratic Leadership largely ignores these desires. The Democratic Leadership supports industrial capitalism because it benefits from industrial capitalism. It also does not see the connection between industrial capitalism and disharmony because it is insulated from the disharmony by the wealth it receives from industrial capitalism. As a result, the Democratic Base is forced to go against its desires and vote for leaders that don't agree with its agenda in order to prevent the Republican Leadership from making the status quo worse.

Thus, the current political environment is something like Star Wars, especially the Empire Strikes Back. The Republicans are constructing the political and military equivalent of the death star and they have routed the Rebel Alliance from their base. The mercenary general hired to help defend the Democrats, John Kerry, was tricked by the Republicans' Darth Vader, or Karl Rove, into thinking that the Republicans won the 2004 election even though he was being fed information suggesting this was not true. Hence, at the end, Kerry was frozen in carbon by his concession speech. The Jedi in training, Howard Dean, is trying to restore the Democratic Party to its ideals, just as Luke tried to restore the Jedi order. However, just as Darth Vader cornered Luke, the Storm Troopers of the Republican Party - the Democratic Leadership Council - are trying to corner Dean and prevent him from becoming the leader. Hence, the Rebel Alliance has been routed, their erstwhile leader is out of commission, and the only hope is that the Jedi in training becomes a Jedi so that he can restore the Democratic Party to new glory.

There are two ways that the Democratic Party can become a New Age Democratic Party. First, the Base need to become the leaders, or elect leaders who share their desires. This can only happen from the grassroots level, starting at the local and state level: city council, county boards; state assembly and senate. Once enough New Age Democrats are elected at the local level, they can start on the second way. They can change the ballot access laws and the districting lines so that (1) small parties that share their views can also be elected, and (2) Congressional House and Senate seats are no longer gerrymandered to produce 60-80 percent of the vote for incumbents.

The main reason the Democratic Part has lost so much ground since the days of Roosevelt, Kennedy and Johnson is because it has been focused so much on change starting at the top. Top-down change worked from Roosevelt to Johnson, but then the rules of Congress changed and more interest groups started to gain power. In addition, primary voters started to gain power. Democrats have expected the person in the White House to do everything, when in reality it is the state and local representative who controls the distribution of resources. The secondary reason that the Democratic Party has lost so much ground is that it has failed to articulate the ideals of the Base to the leadership. If the Democratic Leadership is out of touch with the Base, we can expect it to be in touch with the rest of the country. The Republican leadership makes sure it is tight with the Republican Base, and then it forces the rest of the country to follow along with the leadership once it takes power. In contrast, the Democratic Leadership tries to go in many directions at once to appeal to different groups, and so it doesn't appeal to the base. This weakens its political power by hurting its ability to persuade.

The Democratic Party must turn its attention to the local and state level first, and do that in every state of the country, before trying to capture federal offices. Only then can the Democratic Leadership reunite with its base to produce change.