The progressive moral majority

"Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes
There's gonna have to be a different man"
          David Bowie, "Changes," 1971

 

"Go right ahead. Publish it."
          Ralph Bowman

Ralph Bowman

I consider Ralph Bowman a poet. He offers a warning about something in the zeitgeist.

I read him the way I did Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, or Bob Dylan's "Ballad of a Thin Man." Dylan's Mr. Jones is unhappy because he doesn't quite know what's going on, does he? But it is something.

Bowman was responding to two posts I wrote earlier this week about Democrats and Sunday school. Bowman sent me this: 

Peter,

You have hit on it. I keep feeling watched and judged by my liberal church. Each member is GOOD. Educated in politics, environment, social work, school systems.

They know. They know MORE than you because they are convinced of their RIGHT over SIMPLE, their INSIGHT is DEEP and UNCLUTTERED. They understand SPIRITUAL They understand the DOGMA, they got the right take on THEOLOGY. 

They know the ORDER of the service. They do not CHAT. No SMALL TALK. They wiggle their hands instead of LOUD CLAPPING. They read the LAND ACKNOWLEDGMENT as approved by the tribe.

And they belong to groups that do GOOD WORKS. And have TRANS speak in the services. They are all white people who have kids who have INTERMARRIED with other RACES. All or most all are DEMOCRATS. 

I had written that I respected Jimmy Carter and his presidency, but recognized that his dedication to doing the right thing was a moral virtue but a political liability. It is dangerous to be better than the people one seeks to govern, even if one genuinely is more Christian in every Sermon-on-the-Mount way. And maybe it's being genuine makes it especially uncomfortable for voters.

Progressive Democratic policy leaders are sure they are the good guys at the vanguard of social justice.  Many Americans read it as holier-than-thou posturing. Too intentional. Too civilized and precious. Or maybe it is just change, but in an irritating "oh-for-Christ's-sake" way. Democrats have a moral majority vibe. Of course it is sensed and resented by the MAGA crowd. But people on the left feel it too.

That is the warning signal sent up by Ralph Bowman. The left has developed a Sunday school vibe and it is a turn-off. 

Here is a strange thought. Maybe Democrats need to erase that vibe by choosing a scamp for a leader. A Bill Clinton type, with a little of the "bad boy" in him. (Does any Republican think Trump is telling the truth when he tells them he did not have sex with Stormy Daniels? They know he is lying, and they don't care.)

Here's a stranger thought; What if the GOP's trolling insults directed at Kamala Harris, the ones that made snarky allusion to the idea that her political success came from having provided sexual services to Willie Brown, were, in fact, a net positive? Maybe Americans are more comfortable with a hypocrite than they are with a moralist.

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