This column has been updated.
Is a decade of destructive progressive ideology finally over?
It’s the San Franciscans, a number of the United States most trusted liberal voterschose Tuesday to call back Chesa Boudin County District Attorney, one of the The most left skinis a sign of hope.
Voter patience over what Mayor of London Breed of San Francisco calls “all the bullshit that has destroyed our city” – ferocious theft, Car theft is rampant, outdoor drug usedirty homeless camp, sidewalks turn into toilets – finally runs thin.
Continuous over-reach has its price. Even for progressives.
What is happening in San Francisco is happening across the country, and not just in matters of criminal justice and urban governance. Sector after sector, the left is being battered by reality, to borrow Irving Kristol’s famous quote. Let’s look at a few examples:
Inflationary. For more than a decade, progressives asserted that inflation was a cause of the right, ignoring a large increase in asset prices. Then, last year, they insisted inflation was temporary – a “red herring”, quote the economist Joseph Stiglitz. Then, when it became clear that inflation was still ongoing, some began to be bolder: Inflation was good. Like a passage from The Intercept put it last November, “Inflation is bad for 1 percent but helps almost everyone else.”
Really? Typically, 1 percent can afford to protect their wealth through inflation-protected assets – a rare violin, a vacation home – while the less fortunate have to Struggling with three-digit grocery bills. The left’s combination of indifference to inflation (it will wipe debt!), coupled with a reluctance to deal with it forcibly, is why the left so often loses voters working class for the right.
Energy. Not long ago, the progress of development complaining about low gas prices, on the theory that stopping driving would help the climate. Maybe House Democrats should try running on $7 a gallon as an environmental benefit and see what happens to their majority. Or maybe, the Biden administration should let the Saudis know where they can put the oil, instead of begging them to pump more.
Or maybe not. One form of progressive nature that cannot be understood is human nature. If they ever wonder why their climate fervor hasn’t translated into more policy victories, they should grapple with the fact that the economy’s rapid decarbonization is not something most people would like to see. Most people are willing to pay dearly, at least from their own pocket.
How about working on a different message, one that is measured, adaptive, and rational, rather than harsh, grim, and apocalyptic?
Culture. How did progress come about after the loss of the culture wars? How did they come to be the laughing stock of the greatest comedians of our time, from Bill Maher to Dave Chappelle? Why are life-long libertarians at universities, newspapers and publishers constantly whispering about the caste Maoism of their young colleagues?
Simple: Radicals have gone from being all about emancipation to being all about imposition. When a college-converting swimmer like Lia Thomas identifying as a woman is liberating – a decision that certainly takes courage and deserves respect.
But when Thomas was allowed to compete in the women’s races, it was a blatantly unfair act that brought Thomas victory after victory while undermining the legacy of female athletes. . It has become difficult to say this is merely emphasizing the point.
Minorities. Remember when? The future of American politics is Democracy because the future of American demographics will be less white?
That consoling prediction fails because members of minority groups don’t necessarily enjoy being stuffed at the end of progressive acronyms like BIPOC or stymied by progressive policies, such as the force skipping entrance exams to selective public schools, or bypassing the law. priorities in order and in the poorer communities that most often need them, including those on the southern border.
World. Radicals (supported by isolationist Republicans) have spent a decade demanding the US disengage from distant military commitments, especially in Afghanistan. , so that we can build more nation at home. Joe Biden was wrong to believe it, and his presidency hasn’t recovered yet strategy and moral withdrawal problem.
So is the world. The perception of American difference and incompetence, with which the administration has worked so hard against Ukraine, was part of what prompted the Kremlin to invade in the first place.
The list goes on, but the message stays the same. When Kristol talks about libertarians being masked by reality, he says it turns them into neo-liberals. It would be enough if today’s progressives, in the second study, found their way back to liberalism.
