Former Democrat Roger Gitlin:

What we are witnessing today as 2011 turns the page, is a slow, agonizing death of the once proud party of the people.  In decades past, the Democratic Party was the party of the working man. It was the party that fought to even the playing field with unscrupulous and an all-too greedy American industry. Over time, real progress was made and working folks were paid a decent wage and afforded a lifestyle that many today would envy. I was fortunate enough to grow up in the America of the 1950s and 1960s that molded me into what I am today. In 1968, I was proud to cast my first ballot for Hubert Horatio Humphrey. Things have changed a bit these past 45 years.

Today the Party of the working man has become the Party of the non-working class.  The Democrats have devolved to become the Party of moochers, leeches, and victims. And this Party of hope and change has morphed into a Frankenstein that would turn FDR in his grave. The Democratic Party is an abomination that is slowly strangling the greatest country in the world: The United States of America. …

Democrats don’t have a lot of faith in the everyday humble guy. Democrats think they know what’s best for us and are continually sticking their bureaucratic noses into our everyday business.  That’s why the Party of the Donkey is slowly succumbing to an ugly demise. I can’t say I will miss the Democratic Party after it passes away, next year.

Indeed, we are a divided country. There are those like me who believe passionately, “ I know what’s best for my family and me.”  I loathe this over-government bureaucracy which, as it swells larger and larger, becomes less and less efficient. Is there anyone in the room who thinks the Federal government can or will handle the health care needs of this country of 307 million, without adding a single new medical doctor?  Of course not. The party cannot even dole out a $529 million dollar loan to a fraudulent “green” company, without losing track of YOUR precious taxpayers’ funds.  The Democratic Party has been hijacked by the grifters, con men, and hustlers who should be behind bars rather than behind the Justice Department, the EPA, the National Labor Relations Board, or countless other useless, worthless agencies which serve no purpose and have long overstayed their usefulness.

Ken Gardner has a more succinct version of the same point:

The bases of the two political parties have changed. The Dem base is the bottom 20% income class and people with college credentials — the types we are seeing at OWS rallies. The GOP base is essentially people of all economic classes who do productive private sector work. For the GOP, this means it should focus on policies that help or reward these people — a combination of lower taxes, lower borrowing and spending, fewer regulations — in sum, getting government the hell out of their way.

That brought up this interesting comment:

See, I’m thinking the eggheads are right…we have jobs that HAVE to get done, and some of those jobs do require a degree, or at least an education you can acquire only through institutionalized advanced-education (not hands on experience) means. …

In this process of earning advanced degrees, there is a fraction … numerator is, coursework that is functionally useless, denominator is total coursework. It seems this fraction has started out as something like 10-15 percent back in the 1960’s or so, and now is more like 80%. We’ve got all these precious snowflakes graduating who can tell you all about how we’ve oppressed Indians and gay people but can’t even begin to describe how to build a bridge. And … our bridges are falling apart now.

I find it unlikely that the Democratic Party is actually dying. (And the discussion of the proper role of in-your-major coursework to outside-your-major coursework cannot be resolved in this blog.) But there is little question that the Democratic Party is increasingly abandoning those who do not “do productive private sector work” in favor of those who get paychecks or other largesse from government (including politically connected businesses). The connections national Democrats made with business in the 1990s are almost completely gone.

Meanwhile, Democrats’ BFFs, the unions, are offended over an assertion of Wisconsin Club for Growth:

From my email inbox comes this gem from the Wisconsin Club For Growth:

“Government unions exist chiefly to enable those who seldom produce anything of value to the real economy to take freely from those who produce value every day.”

Apparently the folks at the Wisconsin Club For Growth aren’t big fans of the services provided to society (and the contributions made to the real economy) by firefighters, police officers, probation & parole agents, corrections officers, trash collectors, nurses, and teachers, just to name some of the government employees represented by government unions.

The last time I checked, the protection against widespread fires breaking out – fires that would no doubt negatively impact the economy – certainly seems to provide something of value to the real economy.

While I’m at it, what about police protection? Does police protection provide something of value to the real economy? To borrow a phrase from Sarah Palin, “You betcha!” After all, without police protection businesses would no doubt fall prey to robberies, burglaries, etc., which would obviously negatively impact their ability (and willingness) to do business and grow the economy.

For Solidarity Wisconsin (a name that is a tremendous insult to those who put their lives on the line to defeat Communism in Poland) to assert what will “negatively affect their ability (and willingness) to do business and grow the economy” is amusing given that Solidarity Wisconsin apparently is confused over what grows “the real economy.” (Hint: It ain’t government.) If police and fire agencies didn’t exist, someone would create a police or fire business, charging customers for service. There already are private sanitation companies and private schools, and there are few government-owned hospitals in Wisconsin. Other than national defense and a few other areas, it is a failure of imagination or ideology sealed in concrete to assume that everything government does can be done only by government, and specifically “government employees represented by government unions.”

Even if that wasn’t the case, it is indisputable that those who do “productive private-sector work” are paying for all of the government services we get, whether or not we want them. (And since our taxes pay government employees’ salaries, and “government unions” are funded by employees’ union dues, our taxes are paying for the “government unions” too.) The more “productive private-sector work” there is, the more money there is for employees and for government.

Solidarity Wisconsin is also being deliberately obtuse when they equate “government employees” with “government unions.” The former perform public services, though those public services do cost money. The latter deserve to die.