Past Grievances, Present Hype
Rick Perlstein

The . . . most crucial difference: back then, when it was Medicare, the center-left much more firmly understood the concept of the reactionary — that this small and predictable minority of obdurate Americans would automatically fight any serious social reform as harbinger of the apocalypse.

Politicians had the moral confidence to push it through nonetheless, past the shrieks of the scared extremists and their corporate ideological partners. Meanwhile, they rhetorically stigmatized the shriekers — confident that wise and enlightened legislation would before long establish cherished social rights (keep the government out of my Medicare!).

With Obama care, however, too many Democrats proceeded from the suspicion that the shriekers might just have something important and useful to say about the broader judgment of of the electorate. And so ultimately, too much political energy and capital was expended trying to achieve an impossible bipartisan consensus on too little reform. Luckily — with financial reform and energy policy — Democrats will have two more bites at the apple.

There will be shrieking. It will be the shrieking of a small minority. Democrats stand nothing to gain by paying overmuch attention.

There was a time, not long ago, when the tagline of this blog was “I’m not Liberal, just paying attention.” But there is no denying my Liberal background/upbringing. Or Progressive. Or whatever. But these Democrats wont get it no matter how many wacks you give them, and I’m done ponder the fruitless question of are they just stupid or are they in collusion with the enemy. It is what it is, right?

Thoreau:

Despite my disdain for much of the punditocracy and my insistence that I am not a liberal, I am at the end of the day a latte-sipping academic on a good trajectory in an elite profession, and I am definitely NOT a conservative or Republican. I am an outsider, and perhaps I am simply too removed (and uninterested) to get what is really going on. Well, the same was true of the elites who didn’t get Nixon and didn’t get how he got as far as he did. I don’t think Palin will get nearly as far as Nixon did, but I do think she will remain on the scene and a factor on the right for some time, even as the rest of us scratch our heads in bafflement.

I could get caught up and become invested in the strategy of it all… WHY ARE THEY NOT LETTING THESE TEA BAGGER FOLK SHOUT THEIR IDIOCIES FROM EVERY ROOFTOP! Then again I’m probably making the typical assumptions about the capacity for people to recognize things for what they are… myself included. And here I’m stuck. Going around in circles, repulsed by the Right, weary of the Left and politics in general.