Southern Democrats – Memphis Flyer

Greg Cravens

About Joe Boone’s music feature, “Venerable Studio Changes Hands” …

What did they do with the hundreds of pictures of Sai Baba that were hanging everywhere?

Yeah Man

About Steve Steffans’ Viewpoint, “Southern Democrats: Down, Not Dead” …

I’m going to get this article tattooed to my forehead so I don’t have to keep saying this over and over again when I talk to any Tennessee Democrat who isn’t from Memphis.

Autoegocrat

About Bruce VanWyngarden’s letter from the editor, “Good Cop. Bad Cop” …

I’ve been an advocate of a constitutional ban on union representation for public employees for quite a while.

But I have to admit, if I were a police officer and had heard and read all of the idiots and their mindless followers blaming “economic inequality” as the root cause for the recent highly publicized police incidents, I’d probably want a good union steward, too.

Nightcrawler

Your call for police departments to “man up and acknowledge their bad apples” is one of the best positioned arguments on the issue I have read. Unfortunately, this posture of “protect your own no matter what” permeates so many organized labor organizations, to the detriment of the reputation of the organization overall. From teachers to bus drivers to NFL players, the representing labor organizations seem to go out of their way to protect even the most obviously unqualified or, at times, criminally inclined members at the expense of the reputation and good work of its majority.

There are bad people in every profession. If others in those professions would acknowledge that and help clean house, it would benefit everyone — fellow professionals and the customers of those professions alike.

rjb

I’m still wondering why no one is talking about the fact that Ohio has an Open Carry law. In fact, the city of Cleveland’s ban on open carry was overturned by the Republican legislature — something the NRA praised. And before you say, “Well, kids are not covered by open carry!” Remember that the officers after the shooting called in: “Shots fired. Male down. Black male, maybe 20.”

Charley Eppes

About Wendi C. Thomas’ column, “The Roots of Protest” …

It appears Obama and the Democrats are going to fix the black unemployment problem by opening the borders to millions more illegals and giving amnesty to those already here. I’ll admit I don’t understand how flooding the job market with an unending supply of cheap labor is going to help African Americans get jobs, but I’m sure all of the black Democratic politicians have it figured out because none of them are complaining.

GWCarver

Every Republican and Democratic administration in the past 30-plus years has refused to enforce the laws that would have fined employers of illegals thousands of dollars per hire. That simple upholding of their sworn duty would have saved those jobs that big business couldn’t export via the myriad of free-trade agreements. It ain’t a Democrat vs. Republican thing.

CL Mullins

The prospect of low-cost labor has been very appealing to both Republicans and Democrats alike. And the lack of any sort of sustained protest from the general public who enjoyed those lower priced goods produced by that cheap labor was also a factor. Call it the Walmart Factor. There are many who scream about what they consider Walmart’s “slave” wages, but they also enjoy the low prices, so they really don’t complain too much.

Arlington Pop

I can agree that public investment in Graceland is nonsense, but what other economic development plans are on the table for Whitehaven? Southbrook Mall? That is even more nonsensical by a large margin.

If it’s all going to boil down to race for everything that occurs, then the point that the money is being spent in Whitehaven rather than downtown or in East Memphis should amount to something. But it is conveniently forgotten in this column.

Brunetto Latini

Well, to the surprise of no one, national political columnists began last week to suggest that national Democrats should write the South off for any major election from this point forward. This came in the wake of the defeat of Mary Landrieu recently, as Louisiana failed to reelect her to the United States Senate for a fourth term.

No, it’s not good right now for Southern Democrats, confined, for the time being, to urban areas and rural areas dominated by people of color. Why, indeed, shouldn’t we say to hell with it and all move north, or east, or to California?

Because we love it here, that’s why, and the South is worth fighting for. We have to do it slowly; what happened here didn’t just happen overnight with the election of Barack Obama, though that may have brought things to a head. So, how did we get to this place?

Part of the problem for Democrats in the South is that many people were Democrats not based on a liberal or progressive ideology, but because those #$%@ Republicans started the War of Northern Aggression, as it is inaccurately referred to in these parts. Their mommas, daddies, grandparents, everyone was a Democrat back then.

However, after the Civil Rights Act of 1965 was passed, and southern Democrats began to realize that government assistance was for all people, not just people who looked like them, a slow and steady migration took place. Republicans now control every house of every legislature in the South, even Arkansas.

So, we know how Democrats got here, but how do they swing the pendulum back? The first thing Democrats must do as a party is to stop running away from national Democratic issues and causes. People respect you when you stand up for what you are, clearly and concisely define yourself, and don’t allow your opponents to do that for you. That has been a particular problem here in Tennessee.

What Chris Devaney and the Tennessee GOP are doing with their “Red to the Roots” program to elect Republicans at every level is exactly what Tennessee Democrats should have done 30 years ago, when they had the legislative advantage. Pity that they never conceived that they would be out of power.

The road back for Democrats has to begin at the local and county levels. Whoever is elected on January 10th to succeed Roy Herron as chair of the Tennessee Democratic Party needs to have a plan in place to get the county Democratic parties functional at every level — raising money, recruiting candidates, and honing a message that reflects Democratic values.

To paraphrase the great Howard Dean, we need a 95-county strategy. This is partially to get local Democrats excited and get them working for our values and candidates, and partially to get money out of Nashville and into the outlying counties, like Dean did with his 50-state strategy, by getting money away from Washington and its too-conservative Democratic consultants.

More than anything else, we need to stand for specific values that support families, workers, and small businesses, and not big business, big banking, and Wall Street. Draw that line in the sand and stand by it; respect can only follow.

This isn’t going to be easy, especially when most national media refuse to challenge or call out Wall Street or big business, since that’s who owns national media. It’s hard to get a message that isn’t Fox News or Rush Limbaugh to areas like Weakley or Obion counties, who get their televised local news from Paducah, Kentucky, Cape Girardeau, Missouri, or Harrisburg, Illinois. The same can be said for southern Middle Tennessee, which gets its television news from Huntsville, Alabama.

This is why our new chair and the executive committee will have to build their own communication networks via person-to-person contact and social media to get the message out. That’s where having clear, concise Democratic values and messages are crucial to regaining the trust of people who have been scared off from the Democratic Party.

It’s time to be proud Democrats in Tennessee and throughout the South. The way back starts now.

Memphian Steve Steffens is a Democratic activist and the proprietor of the well-read blog LeftWingCracker.blogspot.com.