(Column by Kim Strassel in the Wall Street Journal, online Feb. 28) Note from Quin: This column makes two points, and you will want to read the full thing here. The excerpts below will be out of published order, but instead re-organized by me to give a taste of both points.
1. IT IS THE DEMOCRATS’ OWN FAULT THAT THEY ARE IN THE POLITICAL WILDERNESS.
Democrats are wandering somewhere between the desert and the wilderness. Their Trump thumping left them without power, a leader or a message, and their current, near total irrelevance is one result. Mr. Trump blazes his way through Washington while Democrats—a day late, and two topics short—stage stand-ins outside the Treasury building, Chuck Schumer shout-gasping “We will win!”
Win what? The Democratic Party can’t effectively oppose Mr. Trump’s worldview if it doesn’t formulate a coherent one of its own. Many Democrats rolled out of the election acknowledging the urgent need for a change in direction—for moderation, an end to cultural radicalism, a reconnect with working-class Americans. They immediately crashed into the left-wing base, threatening political death to heretics. Even if the party had the spine to push back, who exactly on the Democratic bench even remembers how to be a moderate?
What looks like a rapid collapse was years in the making. …The problem isn’t so much that Democrats won’t embrace moderation as they no longer know how. Today’s Democratic “moderate” is a lawmaker who ventures the occasional criticism of Hamas or of men in women’s sports while hurrying to flag his support for gun control, climate absolutism, racial “equity” and the “human rights” of government-provided health, housing, education and daycare. To agree with Bernie Sanders only 95% of the time is, in today’s Democratic Party, iconoclastic….
[THE GROUPTHINK IS CULTISH]
2. REPUBLICANS ARE USING THE SAME TACTICS AND MAKING THE SAME MISTAKE, EVEN IF IN THE OTHER DIRECTION.
Donald Trump’s shock troops are bro fist-bumping, having used their online influence to browbeat GOP senators into confirming most of the president’s nominees. They might be careful of the political conformity they wish for….
This could be the MAGA future. The GOP is a party of many factions, and their policy disagreements frequently produce stalemates and governing heartache. Influential Trump supporters are honing their own methods for stamping out even mild disagreement with the president’s approach: rally online supporters to pile on, label the target a member of the “uniparty” or the “establishment,” threaten a primary. This exact playbook was exercised numerous times over the past few weeks of nomination votes. [It is the MAGA version of evil Saul Alinsky’s] “Rules for Radicals.”
It’s a recipe for intellectual stagnation. …
It mistakes the goal of party unity (the act of members compromising on strongly held positions for a legislative victory) with the tyranny of party conformity (think like we do, or get the boot).
And look how it worked out for Democrats. [HINT; VERY VERY BADLY]
[Again, the full column is here.]
