Dreaming of Elephants -- Thinking of Jackasses

My latest essay on the delusional state of the Democratic Party can now be read in the April edition of  The Atlantic.

You can read the entire piece here. (subscription).

Let me warn you, this is not pleasant reading for giddy liberals.  Here's a couple of graphs just to start raising your blood pressure:

Sampling the dinner parties, salons, book events, and fundraisers on the liberalish West Side of Los Angeles over the past few years has been its own sort of nightmare, thank you very much. It features the liberal left as the new incarnation of the John Birch Society, the black-clad beneficiaries of studio residuals and university tenure—often banking family salaries deep into six figures (or much, much more), their offspring booked into $20,000-a-year prep schools—as the last-standing defenders of enlightenment and democracy. At one liberal party last year, in a sprawling Sunset Boulevard mansion bedecked with statues and gold leaf, where Aaron Sorkin and Rob Reiner clinked glasses with Laurie and Larry David, the Chanel-clad hostess (a very wealthy industrialist) mounted her staircase and, speaking to the all-Democratic crowd, vowed to dedicate her energies to fighting George W. Bush. To thunderous applause she announced, "We are tired of being disenfranchised!"

In the weeks following the election, as these same liberals were convincing themselves that another dark conspiracy had rigged the vote, the after-dinner chatter sometimes veered toward fleeing to Canada (good-bye Sunset Boulevard, hello Yellowknife). This was mere joking. As were the Web-circulated maps depicting a red-state "Jesusland" surrounded by a new blue-hued United States of Canada, which included the secessionist West Coast and New England of the former USA. Joking, yes. But joking on the square.

I encourage you to read the whole thing and then offer some comments. No brick-throwing allowed. That's my job.

Comments

[the other josh]

perfect.

[David Ehrenstein]

Typical.

[Brian Siano]

Well-deserving of a response longer than a single word.

Personally, I'd use "painful," "accurate," "well-reasoned," "entertaining," and "I'm glad someone else has noticed that George Lakoff is full of shit."

[Marc Cooper]

Thanks Brian... here's the message I just got from a prominent Los Angeles liberal blogger:

"Sorry marc. I guess there are those of us who simply don't like to be
thought of as "the liberal left as the new incarnation of the Johh
Birch Society." Now, what could be offensive about that? Why don't
you figure it out? Go fuck yourself and stay away."

I guess he disagrees!

[fahroud]

Is there anything that is new to what you're saying though? I don't see anything that would surprise anyone. For a person like Marc Cooper whose politics is not that radically different from the average liberal, I don't see what the big deal. So liberals opportunistically rely on the beneficience of wealthy sponsors in addition to other constituencies who compromise the party's commitment to a working class politics.
How is that any different from someone like yourself who supports large budgets for military spending? Is Rob Reiner any more compromised than Marc Cooper? Come on Marc, someone's gotta pay for no fly zones and occupations you know, it ain't gonna happen if we channel such budgets into social democratic ones.

[Marc Cooper]

Man, Fahroud, are you ever lost. Why dont you read the whole piece before trashing me? You're not even close in guessing my politics. Try again.

[fahroud]

ok mr. cooper, how do you propose paying for no fly zones, military surveillance and threats to North Korea and China, extended occupations of iraq and kosovo and god knows where else without big military budgets and pay for your precious ideas like public investment in health care?
Tell me that you don't support such contradictory positions, no differently from those you trash in the Democratic Party?

[too many steves]

Wow.

Among my liberal friends - of which I have many for I live in the greater Boston area and would have no friends if I didn’t befriend liberals - I am given to say, when an argument is in danger of becoming hostile, “I’m just not smart enough to be a liberal”.

I mean it as a joke - as much about myself as my interlocutor. But if it is so, as some wise man once said, that the truth is often first spoken in jest, then there is some truth to the fact that a significant proportion of the liberal argument, on any topic you choose, is beyond my understanding. It simply does not make sense to me. There is something about it that I just don’t get.

So, rather than try to interject some of my opinion here I will simply say that Marc Cooper, who I judge to be a liberal of the rather progressive variety, is attempting to provide a service with what he has published. Good luck to him and his sympathizers because God (or the deity of your choice) knows this country needs a counter-balance for the folks currently in power (who I tend to agree with but no power should go unchecked).

[Mark A. York]

It's good essay. I agree with Frank, Republicans are much better at snowing the masses,all the while evidence of their policy failures piles up like wind driven snow. It's the stereotype of the west side liberal that Bush scoffs at that drives them to his lair.

They're just a small subsample at the top of the income brackett that doesn't mind paying more taxes to lift up those below. You can't say that about the other side so only by deception and emotive social issues can they succeed in the ruse. It works.

Some reframing is necessary but academics like Lakoff take it too far. That's college for you: overkill cum laude. With framing Bush's skating service record became heroic and Kerry's real heroism became suspect. Up is down, baby! Someone has to turn the hourglass over. It's time.

[Neil]

I for one am sold. Stronger america, membership fees, mutual support, good. Conservatives doubleplusungood. Once Pa hears about this he might even stop whupping me. I can't wait to tell the rest of the sheeple how stupid we've been this whole time.

[Robert Fiore]

It's as if the left thought it could salvage a moral victory from decades of defeat by refusing to learn anything.

[reg]

"I was somewhere around West Los Angeles, headed toward a mansion on Sunset Boulevard, when the drugs kicked in..."

[arnold]

what left? he's talking about liberals, corporate limousine liberals. some great insight there, they compromise their principles and get it on with conservatives. wow, shocking revelations.

[reg]

(I can't get the complete article on this specialized company machine I'm chained to today, but I hope it gets better...I'd like to discuss, not scoff...but having only read the totally asinine clip quoted here, there's not much choice.)

[Marc Cooper]

Reg.. two posts without yet reading the piece? Restrain urself!

[Billmon]

Funny, I always thought of the Atlantic Monthly as an east-coast liberal kind of magazine. Maybe that explains why they published your piece -- Birchers being known for their fondness for incoherant paranoid rants.

[reg]

Sorry...I had almost an hour with nothing to do while rendering video effects on a Mac that's not loaded for Word so I couldn't read the article ...but IMHO that John Birch Society line isn't so much offensive as opaque...comes across as totally gratuitous sniping - with a Howitzer and at some pretty soft targets. Makes them seem more sympathetic than even I think they probably deserve and the commentator seem like a bit of a bully.

[jim hitchcock]

Until you figure it out, Reg, can we call you DblTap?

And is that why I can read the column, because I don't have Word? Oh, well...

[Mark A. York]

I played a reporter in Fear and Loathing shot at the Ambassador. I don't smoke, so the damn thing almost killed me. Come to think of it, a reporter for Rolling Stone in Man in the Moon. Typecast again.

[Tom Grey - Liberty Dad]

'Now, what could be offensive about that? Why don't
you figure it out? Go fuck yourself and stay away'

Um, I thought this comment was exactly like a Leftist. And I'll try to call them Leftists because F.A. Hayek was a great liberal, and this is a reasonable time to try to reclaim "liberal" for those who want to look at arguments.

Mark York's "Republicans are much better at snowing the masses,all the while evidence of their policy failures piles up like wind driven snow." -- is VERY rich. I strongly like to compare the anti-war policy Left in Vietnam; and in Iraq.

In fact, to those with eyes open, it is Republican SUCCESS that drives more Rep support. Measurable success like more blacks owning their own homes, like poor blacks in voucher programs reading better than similar poor blacks in gov't schools.
Yeah, the rich get richer -- but the poor, too, get richer.

The Left is all too often too angry at the rich, rather than really supportive of the poor. What most poor folk want is obvious -- better jobs. How many Leftists hired 10 or 20% more people last year?

Finally Marc, you quoted well that "gays, guns, and God" is the Leftist anti-Rep chant, but why they fail at politics. Leftists are pro-gay, anti-guns, and anti-God. By choice -- and excommunication of anybody who disagrees.

And they, YOU, will keep losing elections until you change. I suggest ceasing with the anti-God junk. Why NOT let students voluntarily pray in school? Have the 10 Commandments (Protestant or Catholic or Jewish version?) on the wall in gov't buildings. Let pro-life folk be Democrats. Dems should be supporting vouchers, and measuring progress in reading.

You have a great critique of BAD Leftist thought, Marc; how about something constructive? (Perhaps asking too much. TNR is suggesting more pro-guns, pro-Iraq war, pro-Democracy. That seems inevitable, to me, too.)

As a newly registered Republican, let me say I agree totally with your previously stated idea that the US needs a strong second party.

[alice]

"n fact, to those with eyes open, it is Republican SUCCESS that drives more Rep support. Measurable success like more blacks owning their own homes, like poor blacks in voucher programs reading better than similar poor blacks in gov't schools.
Yeah, the rich get richer -- but the poor, too, get richer."

tom, it's good to have religion, but in the real world you need numbers. nothing in numbers supports what you say about the last 4 years.
in fact, if it were even remotely true, you'd see more than 10% of Blacks voting for Republicans nationwide...get real

[Marc Davidson]

Tom Grey's "second strong party" looks a lot like a second Republican Party... maybe that would put an end to the never-ending victimization of the Right -- a one-party state.

[Frydek-Mistek]

Maybe American liberals could actually learn something from Tony Blair and New Labour. You can preside over an ethnically diverse country that has national healthcare, a more generous safety net, monthlong vacations, etc. AND aggressively depose dictators and despots.
Nedoba

[alice]

Unfortunately not, you forget the major, in fact, glaring! difference. The US puts out way more in expenditures on miltary adventures like the invasion of Iraq and the present day occupation. There is no way the US could follow the Blair formula without a huge huge tax increase across the board, which isn't on the agenda on either side of the aisle. *OR* the US would have to make massive military budget cuts, in which case adventures like Iraq would be impossible to sustain.

[Frydek_Mistek]

Alice,
I don't know enough about the USA to disagree with you from a cost standpoint. What I meant was that from a philosophical standpoint American liberals should advocate universal healthcare, stronger unions etc. AND advocate aggresive policies that promote worldwide democracy. In other words, whatever the costs, these goals don't have to be mutually exclusive.
Nedoba