I just came back from seeing the movie, "The Incredibles." It was very good. It reminded me of an article penned by Andrew Sullivan about the how this movie. He talks about how this Disney movie is a "conservative" movie in that it talks about rewarding talent instead of hiding it. He also thinks this movie, along with Team America by South Park creators, Matt Parker and Trey Stone has a message for Democrats about what America is really about. Here is a money quote:
"This is what the left has lost sight of. Americans tend to believe that talent needs no apology; that action is often better than complaint; that their own country, despite its many faults, is still a force for great good in the world. The left tends to view things a little differently. The most shocking manifestation was the way in which the far left saw 9/11 as an indictment of America, rather than of Jihadist nihilism. A more anodyne version was the way in which the Kerry campaign tried to reassure Americans of Kerry's commitment to national defense by playing up his Vietnam record, rather than unleashing him to rage against the evil of terror. The legitimate criticisms of the Iraq war seemed at times to emanate from a welter of whining, rather than from a determined attempt to win in Iraq, and from righteous, well-deserved anger that Bush had botched it. Facing a world of unprecedented danger, the Democrats still offered little in the way of a constructive message about what they would do proactively to defeat the enemy. For all his faults, Bush did."
I think he is right on the money here. For some reason the Left tends to see America, with its economic and military power as somehow evil-that it got to this place of prominence unfairly and tend to minimize enemies of this country. Take the War on Terror. You don't have to agree with how Bush is handling this operation (I sure don't), but you do have to agree that Americans are a marked target after 9/11. We have to find ways to minimize that threat. The Left tends to think that we basically need to tell the world we're sorry. That is not a winning strategy.
If the Dems want to become a majority party again, they have to understand this nation again. They need to understand that we are a nation that rewards talent and hard work, that can still be a force for good in the world despite all its faults and that we are an optimistic people who believe we can conquer anything put in front of us. They don't have to copy the Republicans to do this. What they need to do is take these values that Republicans have used and fashion them in a Democratic mold. Until they do that, they can expect to lose and lose again.
Posted by Dennis at December 5, 2004 12:41 AM