The Democratic Party Is Just Fine, Thank You

If the only thing Democrats can do to return to power is bring “God back into the conversation,” as suggested by Richard A. Viguerie and David Franke (“The Democrats’ Self-Created Hell,” Commentary, Nov. 15), then I suggest we ratchet up our educational institutions and start the proper dialogue of determining why religious thinking propagates illegal and immoral wars, believes life really starts at conception and continues to impose its beliefs about marriage on all our citizens.

More than 55 million people voted against this administration. Doesn’t this count for something? If the only way Democrats can get back into power is by joining up with the superstitious, I suggest we wander in the wasteland until the other 59 million come to their senses and give up their childhood fantasies.

Ralph Mitchell

Monterey Park

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What your commentators who suggest that the Democrats need to get God back into the party miss is that the Christian right will not support the issues the Democrats stand for, ever. If the Democrats want to be watered-down, neo-radical-conservative Republicans just to win an election or two, I suppose this misguided advice might sound good; hey, even Bill Clinton suggested it recently. But it’s an awkward fit no matter how you cut it, and the Democrats would be better off being true to themselves.

Instead of asking for more religion in our politics, it might be better for the country if we pay attention to what Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Ben Franklin and the rest of those amateur politicians from the 1700s suggested, and keep church and state separate. I’ll bet in four years the country will be sick to death of hearing how they should live their lives from the conservative religious zealots who want to build their mansions in a city on the hill.

Mark C. Bruce

Cypress

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Let’s hope the Democratic Party takes none of the suggestions in “Blimey, That Could Save the Democrats” by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge (Commentary, Nov. 14). Privatizing Social Security at enormous estimated costs in a time of massive deficits when Medicare may be the real program for review? Pass. Rolling back women’s reproductive choices and caving to fundamentalist thinking? Pass.

Michael Moore’s approach isn’t nonsense. Democrats and people who live in a reality-based world do need to fight as hard as radical conservatives. Democrats also need to the stay the course. As this administration continues to push for the end of an enlightened populace, the true “loonies” will be turned out by the new majority -- surely.

Maria Fotopoulos

Los Angeles

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Micklethwait and Wooldridge’s theory that the first lesson the Democrats need to learn is “you can never be too close to the center” is flawed. Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Council won’t save the Democratic Party.

In fact, it was Clinton’s movement to the center on economics that destroyed the traditional Democratic coalition by sending blue-collar and rural voters running to the populist movement of the Christian right.

If Democrats want to recapture the heart of America, they need to withdraw from the culture war at the national level and start to promote social justice as a religious value. Comparisons between Tony Blair’s Britain, an increasingly secular welfare state, and the United States, an increasingly fundamentalist and laissez-faire capitalist state, are immaterial.

Joseph Magazenni

Echo Park

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Re “Evangelicals Want Faith Rewarded,” Nov. 12: In his letter to President Bush after the election, Bob Jones III says that “you owe the liberals nothing. They despise you because they despise your Christ.” Well, he’s right in a way. As a die-hard liberal I despise his distorted interpretation of Christ’s message. How on Earth can he reconcile his faith in Christ’s teachings with the killing of 100,000-plus people in Iraq?

Zena Thorpe

Chatsworth