Abstract

Eric Foner

The article focuses on the Democratic Party in the United States, following its defeat in the 2004 elections. Rarely has a presidential election produced such widespread despair on the left. By any objective standard, George W. Bush has been among the worst Presidents in American history. One of the main purposes of elections in a democracy is to act as a check on those in power by confronting them with the possibility of being removed from office. If Bush can be re-elected after having alienated virtually the entire world, brought the country into war on false pretenses and mortgaged the nation's future to provide economic benefits to the rich, what incentive will other Presidents have to act more reasonably? The left must do what it has always done in American history: stake out a clear position in favor of social and economic justice, at home and abroad, and articulate it as clearly and forcefully as possible. Nothing would revive progressive politics more effectively than a reinvigoration of American unions.