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Exasperated with the Insanity of the Left: Post SOTU Back Biting Edition [1]

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Date: 2025-03-08

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results

- Either Albert Einsten or an anonymous Al-Anon pamphleteer.

In the wake of a world burner of an address by the Orange Bumbler in which he heaped lie upon lie to set out a fascist vision for America, the stupid smart progressive intelligentsia has focused on Democratic handling of the matter, and internal wrangling that we have learned about from gossip by people speaking out of school.

Nevermind, the person or persons speaking out of school may have political agendas, and may have mischaracterized the conversations. The key take away is that the Democratic Establishment, and perfidious moderates are beneath contempt, a claim they voice in such uncompromising terms, there's simply no way any self-respecting Progressive can possibly bring themselves to vote for or support Democrats unless and until these miscreants are purged.

Thus the stupid smart progressive intelligentsia are setting the stage to doom the progressive cause, and condemn Americans to more success by the fascist right... again.

Same as it ever was.

I am an old school liberal who was accused of being a socialist and radical feminist back in the day. I am probably to the left of most who post here.

I have watched for decades as the intelligentsia on the left refused to adapt to the destruction of the New Deal Coalition thanks to the siren song of the Southern Strategy. That necessitated forming a coalition with more moderate factions to replace the loss of support from white male blue collar workers. By moderate, I do not mean conservative either. I mean skeptical of government born of their Vietnam experience, and therefore the New Deal government centric approach to problem solving.

They were a conflicted bunch., the original modern era libertarians. They took to the streets to protest the war, support McCarthy and progressive goals, etc. However their manifestos called for universal healthcare, fair distribution of the commonwealth while decrying overbearing government, the establishment, and authority generally with calls for power to the people. Good luck squaring that circle of internal contradictions. I mean, universal healthcare without big government?

The point being is that post New Deal coalition collapse, that is what Democrats had to work with to stem the success of the right. Nothing epitomized this better than Bill Clinton. Here's a guy whose first major policy iniative was to make healthcare access universal, and whose first major policy address is remembered for the statement, 'the era of big government is over.'

I disliked Bill Clinton. I am not defending him. I thought that statement was stupid no matter how politically expedient. However it was not Democrats selling out to big corporations, etc. It was Democrats speaking to the moderate faction in their Caucus who were as anti-establishment as progressives.

The problem with this new coalition was that moderates' preference was impossible, inherently flawed. Any progressive worth their salt could tell them that. Yes, market forces could be and should be harnessed to address problems whenever possible, i.e., the neo-liberal approach, but some problems cannot be addressed in that manner.

Some require government intervention. Healthcare is one of them, by the way, though there is more than one way to skin that question too. I was studying economics at the time, and remember those debates about the optimal policy mixes, etc. I think that's why I enjoy Krugman so much. He is a product of that era too.

At any rate, the progressive intelligentsia could not accept that while they were right on policy, i.e., their goals consistently recieved majority support in poll after poll, they're approaches did not fare so well either in polls or at the ballot box. This led to counter-productive responses. They'd blame Democrats for not fighting hard enough in uncompromising terms, undermine their support among progressive voters with false equivalence between the parties, and promote third parties instead. They effectively helped the right gain and retain power cycle after cycle.

Much has been said about the Overton window of US policy moving right. The conventional wisdom faults moderates and weakness on the part of Democrats. I fault the progressive intellientsia who have moved the Overton window of acceptable Democratic policy accomplishments at every turn. It's proven to be a self-defeating feed back loop for the progressive cause that has allowed the right to move policy further and further right.

Clinton was the first, and last, 'third way' coalition candidate. I fully understood progressives turning on him. He ran to the left of Reagan, but he was to the right of any Democrat that came before him. I did not fully appreciate the impact of the death of the New Deal coalition on our political reality. My outlook and understanding was similar to that of the progressive intelligentsia at the time.

That had changed for me by the time 2000 rolled around, but not for the progressive intelligentsia. Gore ran to the left of Clinton but he wasn't progressive enough. So the Greens ran Nader, the guy who in the late 70s appeared before Congress to argue for deregulation of the transportation sector. Nevermind Gore was the most environmentally friendly candidate since Carter.

Obama ran to the left of Gore, but his policy accomplishments weren't progressive enough so the left turned on him too. Just two years in, the Republicans regained the House and proceeded to sabotage and dismantle policies that had moved the ball forward towards progressive policy goals.

Hillary Clinton ran to the left of Obama, but she wasn't progressive enough so the intelligentsia turned on her too. I voted for Sanders in the Primary by the way. I was disgusted by his supporters who refused to accept his defeat, and did their utmost to sabotage Clinton. With the fascist Orange Bumbler running against her, it was unforgiveable.

Biden ran to the left of Clinton, on arguably the most progressive agenda since FDR. The Democrats' legislative accomplishments were the most progressive since Lyndon Banes Johnson according to none other than Bernie Sanders, and were achieved with razor thin majorities thanks to the skilled leadership of none other than Speaker Pelosi. Yet again, it just wasn't good enough for the intelligentsia, so they turned on Demicrats. Two years in Republicans regained the House and proceeded to sabotage and dismantle policies that had moved the ball forward towards progressive policy goals.

Kamala ran to the left of Biden, but she wasn't progressive enough. In the face of the return of the fascist Orange Bumbler, the intelligentsia turned on her in uncompromising terms that undermined support among progressive voters. Again, it was unforgiveable.

The other evening I was at bar reading Kos, ruminating on this progressive self destructive feed back loop and the pithy saying I came up with, the left are so smart, they are stupid smart. I mean these are extremely intelligent people, so I just don't get why they don't get it. That's when I blurted a line from a poem I hadn't thought about in half a lifetime…

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by

madness, starving hysterical naked,

dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn

looking for an angry fix,

Howl, Alan Ginsburg, 1956 allpoetry.com/...

The bartender looked at me like I was nuts.

The bottom line is this. We do not live in a parliamentary system. What we need to do is accept that the only way to beat back the right is to learn how to work as a team in a party that is comprised of both the left, i.e., progressives, and the government skeptical left, i.e., moderates. Slagging each other for not seeing eye to eye is just stupid.

That goes for moderates as well as progressives. I could go on for pages about how dumb moderates can be on policy, tactics and speaking out of school. Fortunately, you don't see many diaries reveling in it as if it's a virtue.

Tolerance for moderates is how the far right has been so successful. They kept their eye on the ball, and kept moderates in the GOP around until they no longer needed them. They worked incrementally and employed an under the radar messaging campaign directed at small communities to win them over to their outlook.

Progressives need to accept and build on incremental progress instead of slagging it, which only inevitably hands power back to the right. They need to finance an under the radar speaking tour to small venues in rural America by progressives like AOC, Sanders, Warren, Walz, Murphy, etc. No glitz, or big media, just the above rightwing bogeymen so Americans can meet them unfiltered and they can explain what a progressive approach means for them and their communties.

That's what Reagan did for years prior to running for office. The tour was sponsored by a corporation.

And a musical coda…

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