Good (and Bad) Advice for Democrats

deacon at Power Line linked today to an article in the American Prospect by Michael Lind under the heading 'One Leftist Gets It." There is much to like in the piece - read deacon's post (and the original, of course) for several highlights. Here are some more of the good bits:

According to the authors of The Great Divide: "If our analysis is correct, demographics will slowly bring the current Republican ascendancy to an end, even in retro America." This deserves to go down in history in a collection of famous last words. The truth is that the demographic prospects for blue-state Democrats are grim.
Phillip Longman of the New America Foundation has pointed out that in terms of fertility rates the red states had a 12-point advantage over the blue states in 2004. This partly reflects the higher fertility of Latino immigrants in red states like Texas, but among white Americans fertility differences reflect a gulf between the religious and the secular...

My typical middle-class suburb included middle-class blacks and Latinos, whites and Asians, Protestants and Jews and Catholics and Hindus, Democrats and Republicans. It had a dense civil society, revolving around common institutions like the public schools, sports teams and backyard barbecues along with the sectarian communities based on churches and synagogues. I only encountered real anomie and social isolation when I lived for four years in Manhattan, where neighbours never spoke to one another in apartment buildings or stores...

Even the most appealing economic programme cannot save American liberalism if it is associated with values that most Americans reject...

Unlike fundamentalists, a majority of Americans support gay rights and civil unions for gays and lesbians. At the same time, a majority of Americans oppose redefining marriage to include gay couples - but so do a majority of Europeans, to judge from the fact that only a few European countries have redefined marriage in this way...

That's all good stuff, but even an enlightened liberal like Lind still harbors some of the same ol' blue-state prejudices he so nobly warns against. He compliments Bush for adopting a religious tone of 'Enlightenment deism' while suggesting that his invocation of Jesus as his favorite political philosopher was a mistake. On the contrary, Bush's debate answer was the most frank moment in the history of those sorry, every-word-coached-and-rehearsed affairs. No one could have anticipated that answer, and none could doubt its sincerity.

Lind also accuses the Republicans of gay-baiting during the campaign. How? By being honest about their opposition to gay marriage, along with the majority of the public? In fact, it was the Kerry campaign that seemingly couldn't get through one discussion of homosexuality without mentioning Mary Cheney. Why? Once, maybe...but why again? Of what possible relevance to national policy is the sexuality of Dick Cheney's daughter? Kerry's gratiutious reference was the opposite of Bush's, and his rushed delivery gave him away. It was obvious from his awkwardness that this was a coached reply.

Still, it is encouraging to see that not all elements of the Left think that Bush won because we're all a bunch of fanatical idiots. Lind's article, despite its occasional missteps, is a success because he gets the fundamental point exactly right. You can't win the votes of someone you look upon with undisguised disdain.