🚀 go-pugleaf

http://blogs.forbes.com/richardminiter/2011/07/18/why-the-democratic-party-
is-doomed/

Why The Democratic Party Is Doomed

The Democratic Party, as we have known it for the past 70 years, is now in 
its last days.

Yes, the House Republicans may raise the debt ceiling for a mix of spending 
cuts and revenue raisers. Yes, Barack Obama may win the 2012 presidential 
contest. Yes, bureaucrats and judges will continue to impose new and costly 
regulations on the economy.

But it doesn�t matter. The long-term trends are almost all bad news for the 
left wing of the party.

This week�s fight over raising the federal debt limit exposes a key 
weakness in the warfare-welfare state that has bestowed power onto the 
Democratic Party: Without an ever-growing share of the economy, it dies. 
Every vital element of the Democrats� coalition � unions, government 
workers, government contractors, �entitlement� consumers � requires 
constant increases in payments, grants and consulting contracts. Without 
those payments, they don�t sign checks to re-elect Democrats.

Like it or not, Obama is not the new FDR, but the new Gorbachev: a man 
forced to preside over the demise of a political system he desperately 
wants to save.

Democrat champions in the punditocracy confidently predict that the future 
of the world�s oldest political party is bright. But in fact, the coalition 
that is the modern Democratic Party is doomed.  Every pillar upholding its 
heavy roof is crumbling.

The Democratic and Republican parties are structurally different.

The Democrats are a coalition, forged in the New Deal, of diverse interests 
that do not get along well. Imagine the deer-hunting union member sitting 
down with the vegetarian college professor and the lesbian lawyer and you 
will begin to see the trouble party leaders have holding the horde 
together. So far, money and government preferences have been essential. It 
is largely a party of unions, government workers and retirees, �green� 
industries, �entitlement� payees, professors, teachers and social-change 
activists � all of whom require government payments in one form or another. 
The only major element of the Democratic base that doesn�t receive 
government payments is the professional class (lawyers, engineers, stock 
brokers and so on). These high-earners amount to less than 5% of the 
population and are not reliable Democrat donors.

On the other hand, the Republicans are a consensus party.  Activists and 
leaders fight like hell � leading Democrats to periodically predict the 
Republicans� demise � only to settle on some principle that is then adopted 
by the majority.  Tax cuts and preemptive invasions were once 
battlegrounds, now they are cornerstones. Significantly, very few of its 
supporters receive government payments. Yes, defense firms, farmers and 
small-business owners get contracts, subsidies or loans. Yet the 
overwhelming majority of Republicans pay more than they receive. They want 
to pay less, not get more.

The exception is retirees, who want their Social Security and Medicare 
while sometimes voting Republican. Since this group is large and reliably 
votes in large numbers, its entitlements will never be severely trimmed in 
the foreseeable future. But that fact actually spells trouble for the 
Democrats. The only way to pay retirees is to 1) raise taxes, 2) borrow 
more or 3) cut funding to other members of the entitlement class. As I 
explain below, options one and two are essentially off the table. Option 
three is a nightmare for Democrats and, if not today then very soon, a 
political reality.

This crisis comes at a very bad time for Democrats. Their coalition is 
either dying off or going broke.

Unions. Private sector union membership has declined from 52% of the 
American workforce in the 1950s to 7% today.  As large-scale manufacturing 
and the Fortune 500 shed jobs, the prospect for increasing unionization 
rates diminishes.  There is no likely scenario in which private-sector 
unions grow by significant amount; indeed they will likely continue their 
slow, steady march into the mists of history.

As for government-worker unions, they too are declining. Wisconsin, Ohio, 
Indiana and soon Michigan are ending their privileges. Indiana ended 
automatic payroll deductions for government unions, shrinking their numbers 
by more than half.  Wisconsin and Ohio expect similar reductions in the 
percentage of state workers paying union dues. Union benefits are also 
shrinking for government workers. Over time, much of the upper-Midwest will 
tip red � making it even harder for Democrats to win national elections.

Federal workers. The civilian government workforce numbers some 2.3 
million.  More than 750,000 federal workers are eligible to retire in the 
next three years.  While Obama has increased salaries to senior federal 
employees and increased the federal payroll at the lower end, that trend 
has slowed. Given the federal government�s $14.5 trillion debt and the 
failing economy it is unlikely that federal government will be able to 
replace more than 10% of those workers.  No matter who is in office, the 
federal workforce will shrink by 2014. Without more federal workers in the 
pipeline, the Democratic base shrinks a little more every year.

While federal retirees will remain a potent political force for decades, 
their health care and pension costs will make it costly to hire their 
replacements.

Media. Nearly every newspaper with a circulation greater than 100,000 
readers has laid off workers.  The Washington Post is losing money for the 
first time in its history; the New York Times is borrowing money from 
Mexican billionaires. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has stopped printing, 
the Miami Herald is up for sale, and so on. Newspaper staffs will continue 
to contract. Broadcast television news is also making painful cuts; cable-
news employment is flat or shrinking.

The only bright spot for liberals looking for journalism jobs is National 
Public Radio, whose audience has doubled to 14 million in the past eight 
years. Still no one expects its budget to grow by more than a few 
percentage points ahead of inflation.

While media is not a real source of money or votes, it is a major source of 
influence. That, too, is declining. The media market is fragmenting, as 
bloggers, talk radio and free weeklies gain mind share.

Professors. New state universities and community colleges provided 
thousands of jobs to baby-boomer scholars in the 1960s and 1970s.  Now, 
expansion plans have been put on hold and new state-run colleges are a 
rarity.  Faculty retirements do not automatically mean new hires; 
administrators often pocket the savings.  The working professoriate will 
continue to shrink.

What�s more, think tanks, the Internet and talk radio offer new ways for 
students to challenge their professors � reducing their influence. Again, 
liberal mindshare is slowing shrinking.

Teachers. Like other unions, teachers unions see flat or declining 
membership rolls.  Budget cuts and changing demographics mean that their 
numbers will probably decline, not rise. The mayor of Providence, R.I., and 
the governor of New Jersey have successfully taken on teachers� unions and 
beaten them. These fights will continue and spread to other jurisdictions. 
Tight state budgets and the teachers� outsized pay and benefits almost 
guarantee that the teachers� unions will spend the next few years fighting 
desperate rear-guard battles.

Trial Lawyers. A major source of campaign funds for Democrats, these would-
be social engineers are losing too.  Texas and other states have enacted 
tort reforms that make it much harder for them to win windfalls.  Federal 
tort reform would doom them.

Piecemeal tort reforms enacted under the GOP-led Congress in the Bush years 
remain in force and cut into the potential earnings of trial lawyers.

In today�s troubled economy, not even a Democrat-run Congress would 
sanction a billion dollar cigarette-style settlement to enrich their trial-
lawyer friends. Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court is continuing to trim the 
ability of lawyers to bring �mass torts� (class actions involving millions 
of plaintiffs), as the recent Walmart case illustrates.

While multi-million-dollar lawsuits will continue until Congress enacts 
serious tort reform, the rate of growth seems to be slowing.

Environmentalists. The economy has sharply reduced public support for 
environmental groups, and public giving to green groups has declined with 
the economy.  Lawsuits and government grants are now their main means of 
support.  Tort reforms constrain their ability to cover their budgets 
through lawsuits while government agencies and private foundations have 
generally not increased grant-making enough to cover the difference. The 
most successful environmental groups, like the NRDC, simply sue the federal 
government seeking tougher regulations, win attorneys fees paid out at 
rates much higher than public-interest lawyers actually earn in friendly 
settlements, and pocket the difference. In today�s budget environment, it 
is hard to imagine that this cozy arrangement continues for much longer.

State Governments. California is on the edge of bankruptcy.  New York 
skirts the abyss with budget tricks.  Illinois and other Democratic 
strongholds have more will than wallet; even if they succeed is pushing 
through unpopular tax hikes, they will still have to trim the rate of 
projected spending increases. Debt service crowds out more and more of 
state-government budgets. Democrat-dominated cities and counties are no 
better off. Overall, high-tax states are losing high-income taxpayers while 
public housing, unemployment payments and other state aid discourages the 
jobless from finding work in other states. This downward spiral of falling 
tax revenue and climbing entitlements forces lawmakers to make painful 
cuts. That, too, will shrink the Democratic Party voting base.

Porn Industry. Usually overlooked by analysts, this lucrative industry is a 
small but important source of campaign cash for Democrats.  But the 
Internet is gutting it.  XXX theatres, a fixture of the 1970s are long 
gone, and the DVD side of the business is dying too. As a 2009 Conde Nast 
Portfolio magazine article shows, YouPorn.com and other porn sites now 
offer hours of video content online for free, squeezing Larry Flint�s 
Hustler, Hugh Hefner�s Playboy and their many print rivals.  The 
underground cultural force of these publications is shrinking with their 
revenues.  While porn is here to stay, the Internet has empowered anyone to 
put up a website and collect revenue from ads or pay-per-view � 
underpricing the Goliaths that write campaign checks. As for Democrats, 
organizing tens of thousands of small-business porn stars will prove a 
difficult and low-margin proposition.

Abortion Services. Abortionists are essentially government contractors, 
receiving billions from federal and state governments to provide 
�contraceptives.�  Some of that money is recycled into campaign cash.  The 
Pro-Kan Do PAC, funded by a Kansas abortionist, helped elect five state-
wide office holders in 2006.

But abortion demand seems to have peaked. The population is aging, on 
average, and younger people appear less likely to use such services.  Polls 
show support for abortion among women of child-bearing age began to slowly 
drop from 2000 onward. For more than a decade, state and federal 
governments have imposed restrictions on minors receiving abortions without 
adult approval � reducing demand by teenage girls for abortions, according 
to a study by University of Alabama professor Michael New.

Planned Parenthood�s image is now tarnished. Young journalists with hidden 
cameras have caught Planned Parenthood workers seeming to agree to illegal 
procedures, making even centrist lawmakers wonder if government grants are 
being properly administered. The GOP-led House of Representatives opposes 
sending billions to Planned Parenthood. Cash-strapped state governments are 
also trimming payments to the nation�s largest abortion provider. In 
Minnesota alone, Planned Parenthood has been forced to close almost half of 
its clinics. As revenue falls, abortion providers will have fewer dollars 
to donate to Democrats.

The Population. Those who fondly remember FDR are largely disappearing.  
The Great Society crowd, now entering retirement, is next.  Meanwhile, the 
Reagan youth is entering its 40s, when most American adults become 
politically active.

With its traditional funding drying up and its core constituencies fading 
away, the Democrat Party of 2020 will look very different. It will either 
be smaller or much more centrist. Without federal money to spread, the 
Democrat Party will have to reinvent itself.  It will. The world�s oldest 
political party knows how to survive.

And it will look back at 2011 as its high point, the year before the tide 
ran out.

Richard Miniter, a Forbes columnist, is the author of Mastermind: the many 
faces of 9-11 architect Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (Sentinel, 2011).