My Old Dems Are Back, Feudin' and Fussin'
To that remark, the crowd erupted in cheers and applause. I wanted to join them but, remembering the old journalists' ethic of "no cheering in the press gallery," I restrained myself.
The #BernieOrBust bros didn't win any new fans on my Twitter. More often they were compared to a bad day at Chuck E. Cheese's. Sounds about right.
But the ill-mannered activists inspired some nostalgia on my part. I was reminded of how long it has been since I have seen the sort of passion that brings a political convention to a halt.
"I am not a member of any organized political party," said Will Rogers. "I'm a Democrat."
I have not heard that line much since 1992. That was when Bill Clinton's campaign pulled the famously fractious party's many factions together long enough to present a seamlessly organized convention to television viewers from New York's Madison Square Garden and win the White House.
Since then, after losing five of the previous six presidential elections, Democrats went on to win the majority vote in five of the six presidential elections that have been held since then. That's what the superdelegate system, among other reforms, helped to bring about.
Now it is the Republicans who have become the fractious party, divided into populists vs. establishment just like the Dems.
It says something about our times that both parties are so loudly divided by insurgent candidates over some of the same issues -- job loss, income inequality, comprehensive immigration reform -- although they offer very different solutions.
But it's important for the dissidents on both sides to pay attention to the lessons of history, particularly this one: The party that has the least unity usually loses -- and probably deserves to.
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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com.)
(c) 2016 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
