Politics: August 2024 Archives

Transcript: Lessons from the 1968 Democratic Convention: Under the Shadow of Protests - Retro Report

Sen. Fred Harris (D-Oklahoma) remembers the conflict between old-guard Rust Belt and Yellow Dog Democrats and the New Left in the Vietnam War Era:

"I came out of that convention terribly depressed about the failure to adopt an anti-war plank, about what had happened in the streets. And I was very bothered by the fact that the Democrat Party was undemocratic. People felt the anti-war movement represented the majority of Democrats in the country, but that was not reflected in the selection of the delegates to that convention. They were establishment people, a big part of whom, what we now call 'super delegates.'"

Harris, as DNC chairman, reformed the nominating process, but it led to George McGovern and the biggest loss in the party's history in 1972:

"I was elected the Chair of the Party in 1969. I appointed a reform commission to be sure that there'd be democracy in the selection of delegates. The main thing we wanted was that they'd be elected, but then in 1984, another commission decided to go back to some super delegates."

Except for Jimmy Carter's surprise "win" in the 1976 Iowa caucuses (he finished second to Uncommitted), the Democrats under Harris's reform kept losing with northern progressives. The introduction of super-delegates in 1984 helped more conventional left-of-center politicians (Mondale, Dukakis) to the nomination, but they still got beaten badly. The Democratic Leadership Council pushed for a regional Southern primary (Super Tuesday, starting in 1988) to give a boost to more moderate Democrats to counterbalance the momentum of candidates backed by left-leaning Iowa activists and New Hampshire voters. That paid off with Bill Clinton's surprise 1992 victory.

Church leaders: If you think you're neutral, you're drifting left | Clear Truth Media

Joel Berry writes: "The particulars of the political parties aren't just a set of neutral tools, they are a series of conclusions that follow logically from very different starting points. The politics of the right grow from the worldview of the Right. The politics of the Left grow from the worldview of the Left. There are sinners on both sides, there are imperfect solutions on both sides. But they are far from neutral.

"And right now, the culture, all our institutions, our politics, and our pop-culture, are all moving Left. Christians aren't leading the way in this drift. At this point, they're just along for the ride. At the highest levels of Leftism both culturally and politically, you see people who are unapologetic about their hostility towards God and everything good, true, and beautiful. The Leftist movement starts with the assumption of a godless universe populated by an animal species that through evolution can build heaven here on earth. All their politics follow from that beginning. Every power center on earth, almost without exception, is following their lead."