5.21.2010

If a powerful left movement were harassing Washington…

…Obama would declare a state of emergency

Luckily we need not worry about an Obama emergency regime. The left in America threatens no one. As David Sirota observes:

I'm always amused by popular references to the allegedly all-powerful American "left." The term suggests that progressives today possess the same kind of robust, ideologically driven political apparatus as the right — a machine putting principles before party affiliation.

This notion is hilarious because it is so absurd.

Yes, there are certainly well-funded groups in Washington that call themselves "progressive," that get media billing as "the left," and that purport to advocate liberal causes regardless of party. But unlike the right's network, which has sometimes ideologically opposed Republicans on court nominations and legislation, many "progressive" institutions are not principled at all — sadly, lots of them are just propagandists for Democrats, regardless of what Democrats do.

Everyone in professional "left" politics knows this reality "deep down in places they don't talk about at parties," as Jack Nicholson might say — and they don't discuss it for fear of jeopardizing their employers' nonprofit tax status or undermining their employers' dishonest fundraising appeals to liberal donors' ideals.

During the Bush years, this truth was easily obscured, as bashing the Republican president for trampling progressive initiatives was equivalent to aiding Democrats. But in the Obama era, the "the left's" destructive, party-over-principles motivation has become impossible to hide, especially recently.

It may still be a Nader Moment in America (see this, this and this), but the country, with the help of its progressives, elected Barak Obama to be its President. Sirota understands what this election means.

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