Democratic analyst: The Party has been hijacked by secularist elites

Mark Stricherz discusses how the Democratic Party has lost touch with it’s base, and begins the process of analyzing how pro-life Democrats can take back their party:

Asked about how to change the Democratic Party back to its original connection with average Americans, Stricherz said that is was critical to democratize the internal process, but added that, “I just don’t see the constituency, the drive to bring that change… those with college degrees, who tend to be more secular are in control of the party, whereas more religious, working folks are kept out of the loop.”

“There have been some small victories from the pro-life people inside the Democratic Party, they are very small, but I encourage people to take up the fight… even if I am very skeptical about the results.”

Finally, he said that, despite current polls, Republican presidential candidate John McCain has a greater chance to win the election because “the Republican party has a more democratic process of candidate-selection, and therefore have chosen the strongest candidate; whereas the Democratic Party’s system promotes the desires of the political leadership and [they] have selected the weakest candidate.”

I empathize with this sentiment entirely. There’s just no room in the modern Democratic Party for pro-lifers, not because there aren’t pro-life Democrats out there, but because the leadership of the party has been hijacked by its most extreme elements.

Of course, this isn’t to say that Catholics are entirely at home within the Republican Party either.  Take any number of issues: immigration, living wage legislation, interventionist foreign policies, corporatism, and the death penalty.  
You’ll find a lot of divergence, but the one issue Catholics cannot compromise on is abortion.
Now true, Catholic social justice theory isn’t ironclad.  It sets the goals, not the methods.  For instance, a living wage could very well be accomplished in a capitalist society just as well as it could be accomplished in a regulatory state, socialism, distributism, or a libertarian one.  Provided the means are moral, there is plenty of freedom to explore alternatives.  

What often gets lost is that within a “culture of life” there are certain fundamentals that a Catholic holds dear, the right to exist among them.

So long as the Democratic Party continues to reject that basic right, Catholic voters (or properly catechized ones, anyway) will continue to drift towards political alternatives more aligned with their morals and ethics.  It’s a question of conscience, and I’m glad to see there are some within the Democratic Party willing to have the discussion.
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