Democrats' Foundation of Faith -- GOP is Evil

Martin Peretz, editor-in-chief of the liberal New Republic, has this column which argues that liberalism is dying. I mentioned it the other day. It is as close to an honest examination of some of the problems facing Democrats today as you are likely to see. Unfortunately, he can't help but affirm Krauthammer's axiom:

Liberals... have not yet conducted an honest internal conversation that assumes from the start that the very nature of the country has changed since the great New Deal reckoning. Surely there are some matters on which the regulatory state can relax. Doubtless also there are others that can revert to the states. Still, liberals know that the right's ideologically framed--but class-motivated--retreat of the government from the economy must be resisted. There will simply be too many victims left on the side of the road.

Got that? Liberals are in denial about the way America has changed, but those lying conservatives have a secret desire to victimize poor people.

This reminds me of a post-mortem written by Joe Klein after the 2002 election, Can the Democrats Be Revived? He noted that the Democrats suffered because they were too dependent on liberal special interests. This would have been a good start toward an understanding of what ails them. Unfortunately, he followed it by writing:

This is not to say that the Republicans' special interests are any more noble; they are, in fact, spectacularly vile.

They just can't help it. The belief in the inherent evil of Republicans is their religion. They could no more abandon it and remain Democrats than a Baptist could abandon belief in the divinity of Christ and remain a Baptist.