I don't understand why anyone cares about the Democrats: Post #1 in an occasional series

There are a lot of strange things about reading political blogs of another country. But for me the weirdest is that I'll be reading a really interesting new blog that seems to have a reasonable analysis and then, out of nowhere, they'll mention the US Democrat party in vaguely complimentary way. Now I will make clear that I believe that talking about the US Democrat party without swearing is too complimenary. But I don't understand why sensible intelligent people who seem to have some analysis engage with the Democrat party at all.*

So I thought I'd start an occasional series where I talked about how much the Democrats sucked, and put forward reasons why people might still pay them attention (I know the general population doesn't - the general population have realised that the Democrats aren't worth voting for and so generally don't vote - but people on the left).

I'm going to start by looking at a myth I find quite common among any discussion of the Democrats - the myth of the good old days. Apparently there was some time in the past where Democrats were better than they are today, where they stood for something. I just don't buy it, and so I'm going to have a quick jaunt through the history of recent Democrat US Presidents in an effort to find out when this golden age could have occured. Now I'll be clear that I'm no expert in American political history (Carter in particular I don't know much about, but to be fair I don't think a lot of other people do either). Most of what I know about presidents I know because I've read about people protesting against them, but it's a starting point.

Clinton: Now I realise that at the time everyone on the left hated him - and welfare reform would be more than enough reason. Possibly his slogan to go down in history as a good president could be: "I just bombed and starved Iraq." But I won't spend too much time on him, because most people acknowledge how right-wing he is.

Carter: He was the one who signed the Hyde Ammendment into law. American's haven't had any right to abortion since that happened. I believe that if Roe vs. Wade gets over-turned it will not be as big a shift in the abortion landscape as the Hyde Ammendment. When 'women have a right to an abortion' became 'women with money have a right to an abortion', then any further differences such as 'women with money to travel to states where abortion is legal have a right to abortion' are just differences in scale, not a difference in kind.

LBJ: "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?" and if that didn't instantly disqualify him from being a candidate for a good president, then the fact that he choose the segreationists over the freedom fighters at the 1964 convention should be more than enough.

At the SNCC national headquarters they had a poster that said "There's a town in Mississippi called Freedom, there's a street in Birmingham called Equality, there's a department in Washington called Justice." (well I may have got the towns and the street wrong but you get the idea). They were talking about LBJ's and Bobby Kennedy's justice department.

JFK: Like LBJ only prettier, creating more problems with Cuba, and without the commitment to social justice.

Truman: Hiroshima and Nagasaki

(also a lot of red-baiting and life-ruining was as much the result of Truman's policy as it was McCarthy's personal vendetta).

Roosevelt: I think, generally, Roosevelt is what people are talking about when they idealise the Democrats. But the first thing people must remember that until the 1960s the Democrats were the party of segregation. Roosevelt's party was the party that enforced Jim Crow. Roosevelt's policies - such as the New Deal or desegregating the army were the bare minimum to dampen resistence.

But it's not just the many things he didn't do that make Roosevelt a bad president. He was the man who ordered that Japanese-Americans be rounded up and put into camps.

Bombing the shit out of a number of places, starting a land-war in Asia, making life worse for women, poor people, and those who weren't white, these are not the actions of people we call friends. Those are not actions that can be forgiven. If these were the actions of the good old days of the Democratic party god help us now if we depend on them in any way.

* I'm not talking about voting for them - I take a very calculating approach to voting and can imagine situations where I might think of voting for a Democrat candidate. I mean paying them any attention, and talking about them as if they were part of the left or particular campaigning for them.