In the philosophical realm, arguments about meaning can go on forever. Meaning arises from interpretation, which makes it a personal matter rather than something that can be pinned down once and for all. But average persons don’t spend a lot of time in the philosophical realm, Ayn Rand’s exhortations notwithstanding. By and large, we deal with one another on the objective plane. In that plane, the meanings of the words we use must be agreed upon with a high degree of specificity.
Consider just how awkward and irritating communication with others would be, were we all to take Humpty Dumpty’s attitude toward words:
'As I was saying, that seems to be done right—though I haven't time to look it over thoroughly just now—and that shows that there are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents—'
'Certainly,' said Alice.
'And only one for birthday presents, you know. There's glory for you!'
'I don't know what you mean by "glory,"' Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. 'Of course you don't—till I tell you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for you!"'
'But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument,"' Alice objected.
'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.'
'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master—that's all.'
The Gentle Readers of Liberty’s Torch are surely familiar with the Left’s tactic of redefining common words to give them wholly new meanings. The manipulation of language for political purposes is among their favorite ways to avoid actually confronting an issue. It’s frustrating and maddening, which is why it works. Communication is impossible between two persons who give different meanings to common words.
But this is the Year of Our Lord 2026. The hour has come in which the Left’s unwillingness to give words specific meanings can be turned against them. It has arrived in the form of a question the Democrat Party cannot answer:
Like it? I thought you might.
The domination of electoral politics by two major parties has many negative consequences, but it does provide one convenience: to attain political power requires alignment with one major party or the other. For power-seeking purposes, if you’re not a Hatfield, you must be a McCoy. And the Left is utterly consumed with power. Therefore, it has focused on capturing the Democrat Party and bending its stances to serve a hard-Left agenda.
The men who determine the platform and tactics of the Democrat Party are focused on getting their candidates elected. Those strategists naturally want there to be more Democrat voters than Republican voters. All else is a sideshow. What their victorious candidates will do with their offices after being seated is almost completely irrelevant.
This has given rise to a “Big Tent” pseudo-philosophy in which – by the decisions of party leaders – it’s unnecessary for any two persons who claim to be Democrats to agree on anything. All that matters is that they vote for Democrat Party nominees. What do those candidates stand for? Never mind that; just pull the “straight ticket” Democrat lever and go home.
That makes “What is a Democrat?” answerable in only one fashion: “He votes for Democrat Party nominees exclusively.”
Do you doubt this? Then read this article:
Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair Ken Martin closed his party’s summer meeting in Austin, Texas, on Aug. 15 by calling the Democratic Party a “big tent” and telling members to stop applying litmus tests to one another. The speakers who followed him over the next hour demonstrated how much room that tent is being asked to cover.
Former DNC Chair Terry McAuliffe told members to stop using factional labels at all. Meanwhile, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) claimed to be part of the “economic patriotism wing” of the party and laid out a policy agenda. Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), who sits on the leadership of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, warned that progressive candidates must be careful not to hand Republicans ammunition.
Martin, closing a three-day meeting that also adopted the party’s 2028 presidential nominating calendar, framed the argument around the size of the party’s coalition.
“We don’t strengthen our party through stricter and stricter litmus tests,” Martin said. “You do not build a majority by constantly looking for reasons to throw people out of it.”
He traced the point to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal coalition, which he said brought together big-city residents, small-town Americans, rural Southerners, northern labor unions, and working-class families. That coalition also included “people who have been pushed to the margins, including religious, racial, and ethnic minorities,” Martin said, and the party welcomed all of them into the Democrats’ “big-tent party.”
I find it particularly illuminating that Martin cites FDR, as that president governed in a fashion diametrically opposed to his party’s 1932 platform. Yet it was that platform that got Roosevelt elected.
Here is what Roosevelt said when confronted by that disjunction:
The broken party platform, as an object, had a curious end. Instead of floating away and out of sight as a proper party platform should, it kept coming back with the tide. Once it came so close that the President had to notice it. Then all he did was to turn it over, campaign side down, with the words: "I was able, conscientiously, to give full assent to this platform and to develop its purpose in campaign speeches. A campaign, however, is apt to partake so much of the character of a debate and the discussion of individual points that the deeper and more permanent philosophy of the whole plan (where one exists) is often lost."
At that the platform sank.[Garet Garrett, The People’s Pottage]
This makes the question “What is a Democrat?” effectively unanswerable.
Say, remember when Matt Walsh was asking various Democrats and Leftists “What is a woman?” They didn’t care for it much, did they? Does that suggest anything to you, Gentle Reader?
I just looked back over this mountain of drivel and was appalled. It quotes Lewis Carroll, The Epoch Times, and Garet Garrett in a single Liberty’s Torch piece! Amazing! And probably never to be repeated… well, at least this year. But the point remains salient. There is no way to distinguish a Democrat from a non-Democrat other than by the lever he pulls in the voting booth.
Given that distinction, is it fair to ask a Democrat “What are you voting for?” Or is it merely cruel? And to what or whom is the matter of most use?
I may return to this tomorrow. Meanwhile, have a nice day.
We need the Democrat party to fix itself. We need to stay a two party system and we need both parties to compete in ideas of how to make America better. JFK, who was not perfect, was the Democrats last pro-America, pro-constitution, pro-capitalism president. Most Democrat politicians lie, the must lie because what they believe and want to do once elected would doom them to lose. We need the Democrats to get their stuff together and once again become a positive movement for America.
ReplyDeleteI think their downfall was once they discovered that they could use taxpayers money to bribe people to vote for them they followed that inevitable course into socialism and their supporters only interested in more free stuff kept demanding more. I fear this cycle cannot be broken and we are in a irreversible decline.