An opinion piece from The Wall Street Journal. It’s mostly preaching to the converted here, but it’s nevertheless encouraging to see an effort to speak the truth about issues that have been festering for decades.

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The Democrats Gave In to Radicals and Gave Up on Common Sense


By Joseph Epstein

George Orwell noted the nervousness of people on the left when confronted by those even further to the left. This nervousness stems from leftists’ fear that they will be taken for impure in their own leftism, that their thought and actions don’t go far enough, that they are, finally, not really on the bus. In America during the 1930s, Communists mocked liberals for their weakness, and liberals worried about not measuring up. Hence the phenomenon of the “fellow traveler,” someone who sympathized with the Communist Party but couldn’t bring himself to join it.

Orwell’s observation remains in play. In the mid-1960s, Stokely Carmichael and other young black militants pushed the American civil-rights movement leftward, and away from its goal of integration. Liberals, unable to face down this left-wing pull toward Black Power, knuckled under. A gloriously successful campaign for equal rights based on conscience and dignity devolved into an angry, incoherent movement based on guilt and victimhood. The last thing allowed was the concession of progress of any sort in racial matters. Impressive civil-rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., Whitney Young, Roy Wilkins, and A. Philip Randolph were replaced by such dubious figures as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. The movement never recovered.

The same phenomenon appeared in American universities. In faculty meetings everywhere, small groups of the most radical professors were able to get their way through political pressure.

Liberals, generally in the majority, were worried (if not terrified) of seeming to be on the wrong side. When they didn’t give in completely, they sought compromises that invariably favored the radicals. Standards and intellectual authority in universities have given way to political correctness and identity politics.

The same scenario is playing out in the Democratic Party. Since nominating George McGovern in 1972, the party has moved progressively leftward. If the Democrats may by now be said to have a center, it cannot hold, as William Butler Yeats has it in his poem “The Second Coming.” Among today’s Democrats, “The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.”

By ceding moral authority to the far left, the Democrats have lost the power to counter bizarre proposals with simple common sense. When a freshman congresswoman proposes a wildly improbable Green New Deal, instead of responding as Democrats of an earlier day would have—“Whaddya, kiddin’ me?”— they now take it seriously and several adopt it. When two other freshman Democrats make anti-Semitic pronouncements, no one in a party overwhelmingly the choice of Jewish voters has the authority to tell them to knock it off. When Democratic presidential candidates propose to provide free health care for all, or eliminate college tuition and college debt, or enlarge and pack the Supreme Court, or eliminate the Electoral College, all this is taken in earnest. And the Democratic Party is being held hostage to identity politics, so that no national ticket can ever again be without a black or female candidate.


Donald Trump’s aggressive personality has hastened the Democrats’ radicalization. Party members measure the intensity of their idealism by their hatred of Mr. Trump. The tone and temper of the contemporary Democratic Party encourages— indeed fully supports—this sad condition.

Consider Speaker Nancy Pelosi. A serious and skillful politician, she was finally pushed by her party’s left wing into permitting a hopeless impeachment proceeding that violated her own sensible criteria: that the reasons for impeachment be compelling, the evidence for it overwhelming, and the support for it bipartisan. When the impeachment failed in the Senate, as she had predicted it would, it drove her to the distinctly un-Pelosian act of tearing up her copy of the State of the Union address on national television.

What is to be done? No one has a good answer. Perhaps the only hope is that the Democrats put together a nightmare ticket—Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker, say, or Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris—and the party is so crushingly defeated in November that it returns to its long-lost political seriousness.

Mr. Epstein is the author, most recently, of “Charm: The Elusive Enchantment.”

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quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
Perhaps the only hope is that the Democrats put together a nightmare ticket—Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker, say, or Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris...

Entirely likely.

quote:

...and the party is so crushingly defeated in November...

Also entirely likely.

quote:

...that it returns to its long-lost political seriousness.

Entirely unlikely. Rather, based on their recent history, the post-defeat analysis will again be "Apparently we didn't go far enough left!"

They've effectively ceded all control of their helm to the vocal, radical minority, and any "moderates"/"centrists" are now just along for the ride. The inmates are truly running the Democratic Party asylum.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
Entirely unlikely. Rather, based on their recent history, the post-defeat analysis will again be "Apparently we didn't go far enough left!"

And not just recently.

I’m reminded of the 1972 campaign when the Democrats nominated even further left George McGovern to run against Richard Nixon after Nixon had defeated leftist Hubert Humphrey in 1968. I believe it was National Lampoon in which I saw a picture of Nixon and his staff all laughing uproariously and the caption was, “They nominated who?”

Okay, comparatively recent history. 50 years is still comparatively recent history for a party that's been around for 200.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
50 years is still comparatively recent history for a party that's been around for 200.

True.
But probably not recently enough for anyone there to remember the lesson. I sometimes actually wonder if they’re being done a favor by having things like this pointed out, but after it’s been published in a national newspaper I figure it’s not likely any of the Democrat leadership will be looking to this forum for political advice.

When truths (even the evident ones) are spoken, it is refreshing to my soul. Every time. Such a condition can only exist after so much parsing of total sheep dip that one forgets it is possible to hear it from the so called main stream. Unfortunately, very few on the left still have an open mind to it, or anything else.


I am legitimately shocked it was allowed to be published.

Good article.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
Perhaps the only hope is that the Democrats put together a nightmare ticket—Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker, say, or Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris...

Entirely likely.

quote:

...and the party is so crushingly defeated in November...

Also entirely likely.

quote:

...that it returns to its long-lost political seriousness.

Entirely unlikely. Rather, based on their recent history, the post-defeat analysis will again be "Apparently we didn't go far enough left!"

They've effectively ceded all control of their helm to the vocal, radical minority, and any "moderates"/"centrists" are now just along for the ride. The inmates are truly running the Democratic Party asylum.

I've been detecting a shift in the pendulum's swing for a while, now. I hope the Dems keep pushing it harder.

One thing I've noticed in the last 5+ years is that whatever the DNC accuses the GOP of, they are likely doing themselves to a higher degree.

Along the same lines they tout "commons sense" this and that, but have clearly abandoned baseline common sense for radical ideology.

Smoke and mirrors to a level never before seen in recent history in the USA.

Writers for The Wall Street Journal aren’t hesitant about pointing out what they consider to be Trump’s foibles, but they are far more even-handed in their discussions about politics and the state of the nation in general than the rest of the BS news media businesses. The above piece isn’t an unusual one-off by a token conservative, and I’m not the least surprised that it was published in the paper.

I have subscribed to the WSJ for years and that’s because they cater to my biases, … err, report the facts better than any other major news source I’m familiar with.

The whole Nixon/McGovern aftereffect lessons are distorted by Watergate and the years of Church hearings, a poor economy and the end of the Vietnam conflict (at least our participation there).
After that, the country was so tired of the scandals and mostly blamed the Republicans, any Republican. Jimmy Carter wouldn't have been elected in more normal times and was tossed out the next election cycle when the country had started to come back to their senses. He was much more of a moderate than any of the likely Democratic contenders.
The other big question that seems mostly under the radar now is, how will all this influence the Congressional and Senate races?

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
Writers for The Wall Street Journal aren’t hesitant about pointing out what they consider to be Trump’s foibles, but they are far more even-handed in their discussions about politics and the state of the nation in general than the rest of the BS news media businesses. The above piece isn’t an unusual one-off by a token conservative, and I’m not the least surprised that it was published in the paper.

I have subscribed to the WSJ for years and that’s because they cater to my biases, … err, report the facts better than any other major news source I’m familiar with.

Word.

Trump has plenty of shortcomings, however the WSJ is not fixated on them unlike the NYT and WP (the other two national news rags), it doesn't drive their positions or serve as the pivot point in their criticism. They actually report...the news or, as objectively as one can in this environment of commercial journalism and click-bait attraction.

quote:

Originally posted by 220-9er:
The whole Nixon/McGovern aftereffect lessons are distorted by Watergate and the years of Church hearings, a poor economy and the end of the Vietnam conflict (at least our participation there).

In the long run, that’s true, but my point was that after Humphrey was defeated in 1968, the Democrats doubled down on so-called “liberalism” by nominating McGovern who then suffered one of the worst electoral defeats in our history. And why did they think McGovern would win? I believe it was probably because they thought that after three plus years of Nixon the electorate would realize what a bad President he had been and would be willing to accept a major change of direction. In fact, of course, that was absolutely untrue. Watergate, the pardon, and other factors kept Ford from being reelected, but that was well after McGovern.

I suspect that whatever thinking Democrats are putting to the question of whom to nominate now, it’s along the same lines: “Trump is such an obviously horrible person and President that we can nominate anyone, no matter how radical, and get him/her elected.” I believe (and hope), but not blindly, they will be in for a McGovern-type letdown, and I’m hardly alone, even among Democrats. At this point I’m seeing a lot of similarities first to 1968 and then 1972.

quote:

Originally posted by Rightwire:
One thing I've noticed in the last 5+ years is that whatever the DNC accuses the GOP of, they are likely doing themselves to a higher degree.

Absolutely +1. It's a strategy straight out of the Saul Alinky playbook.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
Writers for The Wall Street Journal aren’t hesitant about pointing out what they consider to be Trump’s foibles, but they are far more even-handed in their discussions about politics and the state of the nation in general than the rest of the BS news media businesses. The above piece isn’t an unusual one-off by a token conservative, and I’m not the least surprised that it was published in the paper.

I have subscribed to the WSJ for years and that’s because they cater to my biases, … err, report the facts better than any other major news source I’m familiar with.

totally agree

it's basically the last trustworthy 'objective' newspaper remaining IMO

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quote:

Originally posted by Sig209:

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
Writers for The Wall Street Journal aren’t hesitant about pointing out what they consider to be Trump’s foibles, but they are far more even-handed in their discussions about politics and the state of the nation in general than the rest of the BS news media businesses. The above piece isn’t an unusual one-off by a token conservative, and I’m not the least surprised that it was published in the paper.

I have subscribed to the WSJ for years and that’s because they cater to my biases, … err, report the facts better than any other major news source I’m familiar with.

totally agree

it's basically the last trustworthy 'objective' newspaper remaining IMO

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Years ago my son had to subscribe to the WSJ for a college project. I began reading it after he had finished the issues, and found it to be very objective in just about all of the topics.

Glances at it present day issues, shows it's not changed.