When we started up Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, I knew we wouldn't be popular in some quarters. After all, conservatives have had the corner on putting forward breakthrough ideas for most of the past generation. And they have grown used it.
Progressives have let them get away with setting the terms of the debate. What is the last major, serious, big new idea that you've heard Democrats put forward? Jimmy Carter's energy independence? Harry Truman's universal health insurance? Democrats have a great agenda of things we need to do and things we need to get back to after the Bush Administration's wrecking crew gets through, but we also need to add new elements that respond to the challenges we face in the 21st century.
But I never thought it would be other Democrats leading the charge against Democrats having new ideas. Yet, that's what we've seen. My Co-Editor at Democracy, Ken Baer, and I published an op-ed in today's Los Angeles Times fighting back.
We're fighting back against people like Jonathan Chait, who works at the New Republic, and wrote a previous piece in the Los Angeles Times trying to argue that Democrats don't need to put forward any new ideas or have a vision that speaks to America. Just approach things on a "case-by-case" basis and you'll be fine. Anyone with a basic knowledge of American history would know that's just plain silly. Democrats at their best have offered America something -- and those are the only times we've won.
The fact of the matter is that the biggest divide among Democrats today isn't between centrists or liberals, its between Democrats who want to put forward a big agenda to America and those who want to just slide by on the other guys mistakes.
I know about that second strategy - I fought against for more than a year while I worked on the Kerry campaign.
But the rift continues and its between Democrats with the courage of their convictions and Democrats who are just plain scared.
As we wrote today, these Democrats are like the 98-pound weakling who lives in fear of the school bully. They will say anything to avoid being stuffed into a gym locker: I don't really believe in anything! I don't stand for anything! Please just leave me alone!
Passing off this sniveling advice is a band of gnome-like "intellectuals" who counsel Democrats to avoid offering any vision or direction for the country and simply to wait for voters to so tire of Republican government that they will turn to more competent Democrats to administer a conservative state.
Don't we believe that Democrats can do better than run on Bush's incompetence and DeLay's crimes? Can't we put forward an agenda that inspires people around the country to rally to our side; that reshapes the political map so we can build a real majority and not just win a couple extra votes to carry Ohio or Florida?
And, by the way, can't we propose some real solutions that would make America and the world better in major ways once we actually win?
Sometimes, I shudder when I think about what Franklin Roosevelt or Harry Truman would think. They broke with the past in major ways to deal with new challenges at home and around the world. They created the New Deal and NATO, the GI Bill and the Marshall Plan. What would they think of these timid souls who think all the thinking has been done and Democrats can offer nothing better than a more competent job administering our conservative political system?
Having seen the failure of a generation of conservative ideas on fiscal and foreign policy, Americans are ready to listen to an alternative. Now is the moment for Democrats to offer a set of breakthrough ideas that will create a governing majority for a generation. That's our long-term goal at Democracy: A Journal of Ideas. But this will happen only if they are willing to be more than the railroad conductor making sure the trains run on time, and instead put America on a new and different track.