For a movement that grew out of the anti-corruption campaigns of the late nineteenth century, and was nurtured in the hothouse built by domestic Communism and Socialism, modern progressivism seems curiously unwilling to think about, much less cope with, institutionalist models of politics. Enacting legislation is not a matter of getting a president and a filibuster-proof majority, unless you happen to have a congress filled with career-suicide bombers. It is a matter of getting a filibuster-proof majority and a bill that either no one cares about, or is supported by close to a majority of voters. (Actually, it's much more complicated than that. But as a general rule, this simple model is much more effective than believing that shortly before electing Barack Obama, America collectively read Gunnar Myrdal and shifted about 20 points to the left.)Here's more McArdle on the letdown on the left:
This sort of ridiculous posturing pervades every post campaign let down. Oh, yes, Barack Obama couldn't have been elected without progressives. He also couldn't have been elected without lower-middle class Moms who like to drive to Wal-Mart in their SUVs to buy enormous flat-screen televisions for the family room. Guess which group is larger?I would add that progressives themselves have identified their activists as the heirs to the radical leftsts of the 1960s and 1970s.
And while there are more Wal-Mart SUV moms in the coalition that elected Barack Obama, the media elite are firmly on the side of today's hardline secular radicals and their campaign to strip the public sphere of traditional moral values and objective truth. That, and the possibility of Obama's "secret theory of progressivism," means that all of these developments are in fact more complicated than McArdle allows.
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