It would seem that the progressive left has abandoned all pretense of preserving the liberties enshrined in our Constitution, and they now advocate openly for wealth redistribution and other forms of socialism. The Democrat party has also eschewed any attempt to give cover to this lurch to the left by claiming they are merely standing up for the working class and blue-collar America.
The proof? 20, 30, 40 years ago Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would have been pulled into the Democrat Speaker’s office (who after all must govern the whole party) and told to “cool her jets” or risk getting unelected, with the additional threat that she’d be lucky to get a job bussing tables, forget waiting tables and tending bar in her district.
But Nancy Pelosi is signaling (forget trial ballon, think Hindenburg) that she approves of AOC’s antics. She probably approved of them all along and behind closed doors. But the party structure is so weak now, that Pelosi can’t even put on the facade of trying to discipline her own party by trying to appear moderate.
Let’s hope the Dems’ political theater plays out to their detriment in November 2020. Otherwise the state of our union is much worse than we can imagine.
Good point. A few thoughts:
Party discipline is weaker now than in recent memory. This is probably due to interest groups, SuperPACs, and mainstream media (#mediajackals!). Also direct primaries vs. party bosses picking candidates.
Rep. Pelosi has 2.6M followers on Twitter; Rep. Ocasio-Cortez has 4.6M, accumulated over a much briefer period of time. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez can bypass the party and appeal directly to her base, which is probably national, not local.
It’s a long way to November 2020, but Sen. Kamala Harris seems to be her party’s frontrunner. The Senate is currently 53-47. If she wins the presidency, the Democrats would need to gain three seats to retake control (because they’d have the VP). Let’s say the Dems pick up Colorado, Maine, and Arizona.
If the Democrats have the House, Senate, White House, and a SCOTUS chief justice willing to cough up creative 5-4 rulings when necessary, how does your scenario play out?
Not well. Scenario #1 - DEMs win the political branches of Federal Gov’t fair and square, without a hint of voter fraud. This means that the founding principles of this country are no longer important to the voters. (Nor to the people who aren’t bothering to vote.) Liberty will take a holiday and America will get an up close look at a 21st Century version of the French Revolution.
Scenario #2 — DEMs win, but with significant evidence of voter fraud and election tampering. (This tactic is, after all, from their playbook.) The militant normals don’t accept the results, but with #mediajackals supporting them, DEMs will rush through “emergency” legislation to impose their version of order. Schumer - Senate Majority Leader AOC - Speaker of the House Filibuster - dead. SCOTUS - 8 new justices. Eric Swalwell - Director BATFE. Kamala Harris - Director FBI. Borders - Open Healthcare - Nationalized Regional Crisis (Temporary) Management Districts created. NY’s Gov. Cuomo heads N.E., Mayor DeBlasio heads mid-Atlantic, Stacy Abrams heads S.E., CA.s Gavin Newsom heads Pacific, etc… Dogs and Cats living together!
Basically both scenarios play out the same way, with #1 playing out slower and more deliberate. Under #2, the petty tyrants will know they have limited time and therefore act with speed and without caution.
There’s something to the interplay between social media and politics that I haven’t quite put my finger on, beyond bypassing party elites (and #mediajackals).
I think it’s that social media rewards extremism. It creates a positive feedback loop where posting extreme remarks leads to greater “engagement,” creating an incentive to post even more extreme remarks. Writing “both sides make reasonable points, and here’s some potential common ground” doesn’t get much likes.
This is a form of radicalization. It was bad enough when it was just the blue checkmark brigade #mediajackals on Twitter. Now politicians have succumbed to it. This might explain why one presidential candidate talked casually about nuking his political enemies, and a sitting member of Congress started talking about WWII-era concentration camps. I’m not saying that social media alone contributes to this, but when echoed in news reports, it seems to play a role.
I just did a search and I’m not the first to come up with this explanation. Damon Linker wrote a good piece in The Week in January 2019:
And of course, Twitter is now intentionally inserting incendiary tweets into your timeline. More engagement, right?
Another partial explanation appears in this report from Data for Progress and the Justice Democrats:
What’s interesting is that this report recites the usual list of lefty demands: Medicare for all, “free” college, raising the minimum wage, higher taxes, more regulations on banks, taxpayer-funded abortion on demand, etc. But it does not mention repealing the Second Amendment, gun restrictions, or confiscating firearms.
My guess is that this is simply a matter of elapsed time. The report was published in April 2018 (and presumably written in early 2018). By July 2019, the feedback loop of political radicalization has made acceptable talk about mandatory confiscation that would have been beyond the pale 18 months earlier. It’s been only three years, or a lifetime, since President Obama’s tearful “I believe in the Second Amendment.”
Happy Election Day 2020!
And one more link buttressing your hypothesis: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/07/the_perilous_mainstreaming_of_democratic_socialism.html
Another data point on the power struggle within the DEM party. https://thehill.com/homenews/house/451856-ocasio-cortez-hits-back-at-pelosi-after-she-knocked-progressives-for-voting
More from Commentary Magazine on the Socialist revolt in the Democrat party. https://www.commentarymagazine.com/politics-ideas/the-monster-comes-for-its-creators/