Aug 27 2010
A Progressive Liberal Meltdown
Update: I must have been channeling Charles Krauthammer this morning:
Now we know why the country has become “ungovernable,” last year’s excuse for the Democrats’ failure of governance: Who can possibly govern a nation of racist, nativist, homophobic Islamophobes?
Note what connects these issues. In every one, liberals have lost the argument in the court of public opinion. Majorities — often lopsided majorities — oppose President Obama’s social-democratic agenda (e.g., the stimulus, Obamacare), support the Arizona law, oppose gay marriage and reject a mosque near Ground Zero.
What’s a liberal to do? Pull out the bigotry charge, the trump that preempts debate and gives no credit to the seriousness and substance of the contrary argument.
As I said, the more they realize they are losing the political heart of the nation, the more they will lash out at that nation that rejected them – end update
Rejection hurts. We all know that. And I can understand how many of those holier-than-thou liberals, who were absolutely certain of their screwed up policies that relied on the goodness of big government would work, really did believe they were God’s gift to mankind. They were told they were the new saviour class. As Obama said, it was them we all were waiting for!
Rejection on top of grand delusions is especially painful.
Reality has a habit of bringing us all down to Earth. We may complain that we should, by this point in humanity’s evolution, be able to control the damage of hurricanes, stop oil spills with a snap of a finger, make everyone above average and rich, , or conclude (wrongly) that we know what the climate of the world has been for 1000 years with high accuracy. But the reality is we are still simple human beings. We succumb to illnesses that are not the fault of anyone – but the rules of a dynamic and brutal nature. We have, as a whole, many faults and frailties. We can be easily lulled into making mistakes (e.g., the Challenger-Columbia accidents, oil spills, voting for Democrats so international war would go away). And then there are the truly rotten apples who think bombing innocent people into oblivion is a political tool to power, or wiping out Jews will be the answer for the Aryan race, etc. Humankind is the product of nature and it is not perfection.
At best we are attempting to evolve towards higher perfection – but it is a long path and we have not arrived. We are not even close (unless you look back from whence we came).
The liberals and progressives were given a shot to show their stuff. And they did show their stuff. And the nation is preparing to throw them out and undo their stuff. We The People made a mistake, we voted on emotion and not without much thought or research as to what could be the worse case consequences (ignoring all the flowery campaign BS). It is important to note that the liberals and progressives were LEGALLY voted the reigns of power. In no small part this mistake, and its results, was one of general making and also a product of this great nation of ours.
Sadly, the progressives and liberals are the ones being rejected, and for some it is too much for them to handle. They have gone from believing in failed policies to cruelly and wrongly lashing out at the nation, because they know the rejection is coming and it will be brutal. One old time believer in big government is from DC (no surprise there) and he is pathetic in his emotional meltdown:
The Rev. Walter Fauntroy, the non-voting delegate who represented the District of Columbia from 1971 to 1991, called on African-Americans to organize a “new coalition of conscience” to rebut the rally scheduled for Saturday at the Lincoln Memorial featuring Fox News pundit Glenn Beck and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
“We are going to take on the barbarism of war, the decadence of racism, and the scourge of poverty, that the Ku Klux — I meant to say the Tea Party,” Fauntroy told a news conference today at the National Press Club. “You all forgive me, but I — you have to use them interchangeably.”
Like I said, pathetic. When absolute failure becomes equated with racism, you can tell the person has lost their mind. This guy is mad because he knows the center left-right Tea Party movement helped ignite a spark of libertarian outrage which will, we can only hope, wipe out a century of foolish belief in big government. We may be on the precipice of turning this nation around, returning it to believing in its people. This frightens the many. The far left sees a nation of misfits that need direction, need to be told what to do and think, who need to give up their personal liberties (like choosing their healthcare) before they hurt themselves.
The nation disagrees of course. The rest of us see an army of wondrous potential that needs to be unleashed. Especially when the big government liberals have proven to be just as inept and greedy as any other segment of the population. America will not let companies or unions or religion run their lives – who thought we would allow inept bureaucrats to run them? Who else could think up as bad a stimulus bill as the lovers of big government???
Powerline has another example of a progressive, liberal meltdown as the reality of this election season sinks in:
That ill-informed woman — her head stuffed with fabrications that could be disproved by a pre-schooler — now makes up a representative third or more of the Republican party. It’s not just that 46 percent of Republicans believe the lie that Obama is a Muslim, or that 27 percent in the party doubt that the president of the United States is a citizen. But fully half of them believe falsely that the big bailout of banks and insurance companies under TARP was enacted by Obama, and not by President Bush.
So Egan thinks Republicans are dumb. But let’s take a closer look. His 46 percent is an unpublished number from a Time magazine survey that is described in a Politico article to which he links. The Pew survey found that 31 percent of Republicans purport to believe Obama is a Muslim. The difference is likely explained by the ways in which the question was framed.
But what about non-Republicans? In the Pew survey, 10 percent of Democrats and 18 percent of independents say Obama is a Muslim. Not only that, a majority of Democrats–51 percent–say either that Obama is a Muslim, or that they don’t know what his religion is. Obviously, something is going on here, and it isn’t merely that Republicans are stupid.
Unfortunately we are going to see a rise in this juvenile lashing out as we progress through this year’s elections. The far left would rather view America as evil and inept (which is not too far from their more positive view of us as incompetent) than face the fact they were wrong and are being rejected because they failed. Heck, they don’t believe in failure (or failing grades), so maybe asking them to take responsibility for their mistakes is too much to ask. They think they should be given praise for trying. Who can miss the new talking points about the mountain of results the Democrats produced, avoiding to note the rot of that mountain. The left produced a pile of failure – they were very productive and hard working in doing so. And we need to stop them before they produce any more.
The far right should be careful. America knows it is partly responsible for this mess by voting on a slogan instead of seeing all the warning signs of an inexperienced politician with a questionable grasp on matters of complex import. America knows it will have to fix this mistake legally and through the election process, because that is how this country corrects these kinds of things. It is built into the process of self governing. As humans are an imperfect product of Nature (which is beautiful and awe inspiring), the current leaders of America are a product of this great nation. A flawed product.
No one should gloat or confuse this needed course correction with support for the Democrats’ opposition. It was only two years ago the same rejection was applied to the right side of DC. What is happening now is an awakening of libertarianism – a drive for freedom from government. It is a drive to limit the power of the parties and the meddling of DC bureaucrats. This is not a ground swell for conservative government – at best it is a ground swell in line with small government conservatism.
The great liberal-progressive experiment is over. Government stimulating our economy failed under FDR and now under Obama. Socialized, government medicine is failing around the world – and thankfully we have the time to use the experience of the UK and Canada to roll back Obamacare. Keynesian economics is dead, now that we know it results in trickle down poverty that can quickly destroy that shining city on the hill. We have learned a lot in this failure – as usual. We always learn from our mistakes.
Reagan and Bush and Kennedy have been vindicated (again). Only lowering taxes can unleash broad economic growth. We cannot get this fix with the current political make up.
Now the only stimulus capable of pulling us out of this tail spin is a massive sea change in DC come November. Once this current crop of DC screw ups is out of office, there will be hope again in the nation. And with that hope will come renewed energy to build are nation back up. Something that can never take place under the cloud of liberal-progressive negativism and pessimism. This nation can easily fix itself, but to do so the views of a lot people are going to be rejected. Most will take it reasonably well, but a good number our going to have anger-driven, emotional meltdowns, as we are already seeing. It will not be pretty, but it is necessary for our families, neighbors and communities.
This great progressive experiment is not going to go quietly. After all they spent years convincing us that President Bush was a right wing born again warring moron, who thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. They convinced us that tax cuts ruin economies by depriving our government of much needed revenue, that a few well placed warriors in Afghanistan could never find Osama bin Laden or keep al Queda at bay, that Fanny and Freddy were really fine, and that Christians are inherently bigoted and unjust.
The big BOOM is coming!
“The far right should be careful. America knows it is partly responsible for this mess by voting on a slogan instead of seeing all the warning signs of an inexperienced politician with a questionable grasp on matters of complex import.”
AJ, which politician are you referring to, Obama, or perhaps Bush?
I would like to believe we have seen the end of this type of progressivism. However, these people will never quit. It is their religion. They will re-double their efforts. They will blame their failure, and their systems failure on the lack of scope and size i.e “the stimulus did not work because it was too small.”They have a vision of global socalism/communism with politicians as the elete rulers. The Lords and Ladies will be politicans.
I agree the current wave of resistance is not a groundswell for conservatism. The electorate is voting reactively, not proactively.
I doubt the left will ‘quit’. They will be rejected. And they either take is a lesson and respect the decision of America, or they lash out and that rejection becomes permanent.
That is the warning for the far right. Accept America’s comfort zone and work within it. Go outside it and their will be hell to pay.
If Conservatives are more thinking then feeling and Progressives are more feeling then thinking……Bush was a pretty good blend.
Kathie,
Bush was an incredible President who got us through 9-11 and the economic impacts, won the Iraq war in the face of heavy liberal defeatism (pining for the good ‘ol days of Vietnam!), turned al Qaeda from the inspiration of Islam to the enemy of Islam, turned Pakistan and Afghanistan into potential successes (he always said it would last beyond his terms), put in place a market based drug plan for seniors, etc, etc, etc.
The man’s accomplishments rival all our most beloved presidents. It will just take time for some sore losers to get a clue.
“The man’s accomplishments rival all our most beloved presidents. It will just take time for some sore losers to get a clue.”
Right on, AJ. We only have to look at those who supported the debacle in the WH now to understand that they may never “get” George W. Bush as their world view is a parallel reality, imho. After all, the democrat party is the party of the “it depends on what the meaning of is, is” donncha know.
Approaching the danger zone.
I couldn’t agree more AJ.
AJ,
You are going to see from the Left more of things like the Congressman Russ Carnahan office Leftie-blogger fire bombings and NY City Muslim Leftie slasher attacks as the Left tries to manufacture “the Violent Right” narrative.
Trent,
Yes I know. They are becoming desperate as their world comes crashing down around them. And their delusions of grandeur sadly allow them to rationalize all sorts of behavior to save their causes.
Just establishing expectations now, so these reactions can be called out for what they are – the desperate, violent acts of bad losers, rejected by America for not just their failures, but their unwillingness to face their failures in a mature, professional and legal manner.
With Obama’s election, I’m afraid it has given loons permission to act out in a way we don’t see often in this country. I agree with Trent. I hope Obama will stand up to these guys and tell them to back down, for the sake of the country. I wonder if he will? So far, his inclination is to create firestorms, like in the Gates and the Mosque cases.
“This is not a ground swell for conservative government – at best it is a ground swell in line with small government conservatism.”
AJStrata,
This statement confuses me. If by this you mean that this ground swell of support is not a ground swell for a Republican-led government, then I am in total agreement with you. If you’re saying that conservative government is something to be avoided, then I will have to disagree. To me, conservative government is limited government. It is the Republicans who lost their way by abandoing conservative principles in the years prior to 2006, not Conservatives. Conservatives and Libertarians have never been so close in thought and belief as they are now.
Highlander,
There is no ground swell for government (left or right). It is a libertarian wave. The wave aligns with ‘small government’ conservative principles. Sometimes referred to as economic conservatism, it is distinct from social conservatism – which attempts to impose cultural moralities on everyone.
The conservatives better get adjusted. This wave wants government shrunk, not activist. That includes any ideas of rounding up illegals. There is a line many conservatives never see that they cross (and then you get 2008 elections). There is a new sweet spot in the conservative world where there is massive support. But outside that common ground massive and swift rejection awaits.
The Republicans in Congress are still lost in their way…
The conservatives are not to be painted as the evil ultra-right extremism. Otherwise, the founders should be painted just the same.
I agree with you AJ and think the people will / have started to figure out that the Liberals ( Democrats ) want to make everyone dependent on the Gov. The job market has dried up and with around 11.5MM unemployed, people want jobs. The old saying about a hungry man “give him a fish or teach him how to fish” Democrats ( Liberals ) vs Republicans ( Conversative).
You commented about Bush and yes he was one of the greatest presidents that I can remember (along with Reagan).
One needs to remember that during the Bush years, while Republicans had control of Congress, there were 54 months of positive job growth. From 2002, after 9/11, the unemployment rate peaked at around 6%, and by the end of 2006, was around 4.4%. And when did the economy start to slow down and nose dive? Democrats took over in 2007 and as their policies started to take hold and the continued support of Fannie and Freddie, the economy started to suffer. Remember, the start of the Recession was December 2007.
Most Liberals blame Bush for the regulations, economy, etc. They forget to remember, from Gov. 101, rules, bills, spending is ALL done by the Congress. The President can only veto or approve the bill, he does not create it.
One final note, people don’t really realize how bad the current unemployment means to the country. Just read an article from Brookings and they point out that each month more and more people enter the job market (graduate, etc. – about 125K). Now if we take that into account and had a job creation rate of say 200K per month, it would take over 11 YEARS to recover to return to levels before the recesssion started.
http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2010/0702_jobs_greenstone.aspx
http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2010/0806_employment_looney_greenstone.aspx
AJStrata,
Thanks for the explanation. I guess then that I am more of a Libertarian than I realized, because though I am somewhat socially conservative as well as being in favor of small government – and even though I am convinced unchecked liberalism in society is a cancer; I wouldn’t deign to tell someone else how they should run their lives.
But, if you agree with me (an assumption, I know) that rampant liberalism in our society must be curtailed, and if the rest of us were all about live and let live, what, other than conservatism, is left to restrain it?
Moderates, “the center” could have had a very experienced centrist president in McCain.
Instead, they knowingly picked an inexperienced extreme left candidate, who can speak well.
If they are unhappy now, they should not lay blame on the social conservatives.
You wanted Obama, you got him!
Well, yeah, America DID vote these socialist clowns into power.
The question is – why? Since when do American countenance Socialism?
The answer, in my estimation, is since the Leftists took over the American education establishment and begun to pump our kids’ minds full of Leftist agitprop. Obama’s election was decades in the making, as the Leftists infected the minds of the present generation of young adults with their looney, unAmerican ideas. I can only hope that once the White House is safely out of Socialist hands, the new American President turns her attention to purging the socialists out of our children’s classrooms.
>It is a libertarian wave. The wave aligns with ’small
>government’ conservative principles. Sometimes referred to as
>economic conservatism, it is distinct from social conservatism –
>which attempts to impose cultural moralities on everyone.
I disagree for a couple of reasons.
First, we are seeing flat out a lot of people who were never political become political, with economic conservatism — defined as a smaller government in terms of economic size and regulatory power — as their base politcal philosophy.
Second,we are seeing a lot of Conservatives, who were only loosely political, get actively political.
Neither group, broadly speaking, are “libertarian” or “moderate” as we understand the words.
The first group are from the “politically unformed” part of the American electorate who are coming into political awareness for the first time as small government economic conservatives.
Two recent examples of this emerging political identity group are
1) The Anti-War Left activated by their opposition to Vietnam War. They found expression to their unformed political identities as Liberal/Leftists and kept it their whole political lives,
And
2) The Religious Right that Ronald Reagan pulled somewhat from inside the Democratic Coalition, but mosly from the southern Baptists who last saw political relevance during Alcohol prohibition.
The second group of conservatives are far more important.
They are from what a friend of mine calls the “Underserved Right.”
America has always had a rather large “Underserved Right” that is extremely nativist and not “social conservative” as we know the term.
Think Jacksonian, slightly religious, and very, very tribal.
The polling data has shown this for ages. Since at least the late Reagan Administration there’s been a substantial “underserved right.” Underserved being defined in the sense that no one serves them up the political candidates they want to vote for.
(There’s also an underserved left but it’s maybe 1/3 to 1/5 the size of the underserved right.)
Too quote a science fiction write friend of mine — from an unrelated conversation about the sci-fi concept of a “Third World Napoleon” — on the nature of the “Underserved Right” :
The one truly independent study of bias in the media that I’ve found had something interesting to say besides the foregone conclusion that the media was left biased compared to the bulk of the American people.
The interesting thing, which was really ignored by the study, was that Fox was just about dead center.
Think about it. The channel that most people would say was “right wing” was just about central in the American viewpoint.
Which meant there was a huge group to the “right” of Fox who considered even _them_ to be namby-pamby liberal weanies.
That is what this poll has revealed. Running well to the right of Bush, given the liberal head-lock on most major methods of communication, would be hard. Very Very Very hard. They would actively ridicule any such candidate to the point he became, for many people, a laughing-stock.
But the reality is that a significant proportion of the electorate are _there_.
Some of them don’t vote simply because nobody is far enough _right_.
And, no, I’m not joking. Just as there is probably a Third World Napoleon, there is such a candidate out there. A man so far right that he makes (Senator Ted) Kennedy seem centrist.
And he’s electable.
Sarah Palin, frontierwoman, is a cultural icon that calls to the tribal identity of the “Underserved Right.”
That is one of the reasons why she is so scary to the Left.
Trent,
I think you have something there. I have not really cared for anyone I have voted for since Regan.
GW and Daddy Bush were big Govt “neo”- conservatives. John Bob Mc-Dole version I and II were war heros but too much into the mainstream Republican “machine” to be political heros.
I guess that why the we in the “underserved right” know a real plain talker when Sarah speaks.