A Modest Proposal For Democrats Purging Their Problematic History

By Andrew Stiles

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Being a Democrat is hard. You know deep down in your bones that you’re a “forward-looking” and “inclusive” person, but then you look at the current field of candidates seeking your party’s presidential nomination in 2016 and see five boring white people with an average age of 65.

The Republican field, by contrast, is far more diverse.

It’s got two Hispanic senators, an African-American brain surgeon, a female former CEO, an Indian-American governor and a temperamentally disabled businessman who, until recently, identified as a Democrat.

None is an avowed socialist like Bernie Sanders; he belongs to the “party of the future.”

Democratic supporters are venting their understandable chagrin — after all, their party is the one constantly preaching the value of diversity for diversity’s sake — by expunging a couple of white dudes even more ancient than Hillary Clinton.

For decades, Democrats have honored former Presidents Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson as their party’s intellectual founders.

State activists host annual “Jefferson-Jackson Day” dinners to raise money, hear from candidates and celebrate the ideals (equality, economic populism, etc.) commonly associated with the two leaders.

No more. State parties across the country are cutting ties with the dead presidents as part of a broad rebranding effort.

The goal, in the words of Iowa party chairwoman Andy McGuire, is to ensure that the seminal feast “align[s] with the values of our modern-day Democratic Party: inclusiveness, diversity, and equality.”

So, naturally, they must disassociate themselves from the guy who wrote “all men are created equal” on the piece of paper that created America.

History, of course, is problematic.

Jefferson owned slaves. Jackson was kind of a lunatic who turned the White House into fraternity row and ordered tens of thousands of Native Americans on a death march. Neither had particularly strong feelings about climate change or maternity leave.

If Democrats insist on giving themselves an image makeover, it shouldn’t be hard to find some less controversial figures to name their dinners after. Should it?

Missouri Democrats have already settled on Harry Truman. This is a good example of trial and error, emphasis on error.

Sure, Truman was a decorated war hero, but elevating his status within the party might be seen as a deliberate attempt to whitewash the war crimes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, tragic events that did little to change the outcome of a war that could have just as easily been won via “smart power” outreach to win the hearts and minds of moderate factions within the Japanese Empire. (Where’s Wendy Sherman when you need her?)

Why not Truman’s predecessor, Franklin Roosevelt, instead?

Our longest-serving president, FDR used the power of government to rescue the nation from the Great Depression and gave us Social Security, a program 80 percent of the Democratic presidential field is now eligible to receive.

Unfortunately, FDR also presided over the quarantine of more than 100,000 civilians.

Even worse, he was a big fan of those Jefferson-Jackson dinners. Above all, choosing FDR would send a terrible message, because we all know that political dynasties and massive unearned wealth have no place in today’s Democratic Party.

Who, then?

Prominent Democrats like George Wallace and Bull Connor are out, obviously, but there’s always Lyndon Johnson.

He signed the Civil Rights Acts into law, and featured prominently in “Selma,” a film many Democrats believe should have won more Oscars (and would have done, if Hollywood weren’t run by conservatives).

This would be a natural choice, perhaps, if not for the fact that LBJ was a hugely problematic racist who insisted on using racial slurs to address his black chauffeur, and would often rant about the “hordes of barbaric yellow dwarves” running around East Asia.

Still, he was relatively tame compared to another tempting option, Woodrow Wilson, who mourned the Confederacy’s loss in the Civil War.

Perhaps a more contemporary leader would be best. Bill Clinton was the “first black president.”

Why not him? Well, for starters, he signed a litany of problematic legislation — “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the Defense of Marriage Act, welfare reform, mass-incarceration policies — that his own wife has been forced to disavow.

Who needs history, anyway? The Obama Day dinners will be splendid affairs.