Cures for Democratic Disarray

July, 2025

Washington — The disarray plaguing Democrats can be overcome by uniting behind this mantra:

Ditch identitarianism;

Embrace humanitarianism;

Compete extra hard in rural areas;

Election wins will follow. 

This has been the plea of many of us for the past decade, because identity politics has been a clear loser at the ballot box.  Good causes must be supported on grounds of humanitarianism and universalism — once Democrats' strong suits — without identity group impediments.*  Moreover, it should now be clear that the divisiveness of group identity politics is counterproductive to achieving humanitarian goals, at home and abroad.  Ditch identitarianism, swiftly and decisively.**   

Rural areas are key.  Losing them in elections is not the problem; losing them so badly that the losses cannot be made up elsewhere is.  Democrats must compete in rural areas to make a respectable showing.  They must show up, listen, and have something to offer rural voters.  There has never been a better time than right now, given the torrent of anti-rural policies currently flowing from Republican office holders at every level.  

Is the Democratic National Committee paying attention?  Many of us are waiting to see.  So far, there is not a lot of evidence of it. 

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* As advanced by philosophers from Aristotle through Locke, Kant, Mill, and Adorno, among many others, as opposed to the identitarianism of philosophers like Nazi apologist Carl Schmitt. 

** Bring back the thought, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."

Beyond Single-Axis Ideological Descriptors

July, 2025

Washington — If I were a reporter, pundit, podcaster, or writer of any kind offering political analyses these days, I would be careful to limit my use of terms such as right, left, liberal, conservative, red, blue, libertarian, socialist and the like.  

Such terms suggest a single continuum of political ideology.  Unfortunately, the more the terms are deployed, the more divided the population itself becomes.  That's bad enough, but these single-axis descriptors aren't accurate for most Americans, who view themselves as ideological mixtures and are likely to vote on the basis of other factors.

Social scientists often try to deal with these oversimplifications by adding a Y axis to the existing X axis  to allow for people who may be fiscally conservative on one axis, for example, but socially liberal on another, and vice-versa.  This places people in quadrants and gets closer to reflecting their actual viewpoints.  

But within each quadrant are other variables, some of which may be nominal rather than continuous and do not lend themselves to graphing.  Consider that some people may favor a strong central government for policy implementation, others want decisions made locally, and others are pragmatic.

Is there a way to describe people in four quadrants with three options within each; that is, 4 x 3 = 12? 

One way would be to use the colors of the chromatic scale in a color wheel.  The musician Alexander Scriabin, who heard notes as colors, identified twelve such colors.  So rather than using red and blue to divide people, a twelve-color wheel would get closer to reflecting viewpoint reality.  It might show that many of us are yellow, green, or steel gray.  This would also identify more opportunities to work together because commonalities as well as differences are revealed in such a display.  Listening for Scribin's colors as notes, as he did, might reveal harmonies through which disparate people could make music together, so to speak. 

Another way to depart from the divisiveness of single-axis descriptors would be to consider political viewpoints as particles in quantum physics.  Observers can't be sure where they are, let alone whether they are particles or waves at any moment.  And they may change their behavior when an attempt is made to observe them.  Despite the uncertainties, great breakthroughs are based on those understandings alone.  

So the next time you hear terms like left and right applied (or shouted as epithets), think how Max Planck and Werner Heisenberg might consider their positioning, or how various viewpoints might sound as notes to a musician like Scriabin.  

Listen for political leaders who know how to play notes together harmoniously.  Such leaders are currently in short supply.  Their pitches are likely to be other than those on a single, overused, and divisive axis.