(Oct. 1)
The liberal media freakout about the loss of historically radical legislation is providing a sad case study of psychosis.
Witness what Jon Meacham, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian usually promoted as a voice of thoughtful centrism, said on MSNBC Friday morning . As one of the panelists for Joe Scarborough on Morning Joe, Meacham was lamenting the inability of President Joe Biden and congressional “progressives” to bully into law one of the most expensive bills in history, not to mention one with some of the most controversial policy choices .
As a backdrop, consider that under the status quo, meaning if Biden’s $5.5 trillion social spending bill does not pass, the federal government will still be spending more money than at any time in history, while running by far the biggest debt in U.S. history, for a nation already enjoying an encouraging 5.2% unemployment rate — below what was once considered “full employment.” In sum, the greater risk is too much spending for too little reason, not the other way around.
But to Meacham, the thought of this unprecedented, radical bill not passing brings fears of the “end days” — or something.
After prefacing his comments with the disclaimer that “I don’t want to be hyperbolic,” Meacham did just that. He said that Democrats “right now have democracy with a lower-case ‘d’ in their hands.” Then he offered a completely off-point segue about how too many people still believe former President Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen. Meacham made it sound as if, just by virtue of opposing Trump, Biden deserved to have his own radical agenda passed.
Biden, he said, “has promised the American people, insofar as any human being can promise, that constitutional republic, that this democracy, can deliver for them.” Unless the bill passes, he said, it’s almost impossible to “argue that the system works.”
As if “delivering” a radical bill opposed by half the country is the measure of whether the constitutional republic can survive…. [The full column is here.]
