"The Twilight of the Liberal Left:" A Liberal Bemoans the Catastrophic Failure of the Anti-Trump "Resistance"

I'm just here for the gloating.

These are dark times for the liberal-left--for its media organs, politicians, writers, and thought leaders. Eight years ago, Trump could be dismissed as an aberration. The anti-fascist industry boomed. It was easy, since Trump did not win the popular vote, to call him illegitimate....

Why didn't they listen? This is the anguished cry of the liberal media critic who was sure the New York Times, despite its anti-Trump alignment, had perniciously normalized Orange Man. This is the cry, too, of the Times opinion page, of elite academia, of the Atlantic set, of the staffers at the Washington Post who longed for a Kamala Harris endorsement, and the many ponderous New Yorker writers with their grayish, interchangeable prose. This is the cry of a Democratic National Committee so sure, after the 2022 midterms, there was nothing more to do than call Trump a fascist ten thousand additional times--if only then, those dolts in Bucks County would listen....

The fading reality TV star he once mocked at that Washington dinner will be, barring a health crisis, a two term American president. Whereas Obama, eight years on, has plainly left little to the Democratic Party, Trump has thoroughly immolated and rebuilt the Republicans in his image. He is as consequential as Reagan and Nixon, and he might loom in American life just as long. The Trump era began when he descended the golden escalator in the middle of 2015 and it might not end until 2028. The next Republican to run for president will not be able to do it without Trump's firm endorsement. His is a cult that is now far too large to be called one.

Now, for the Democrats, it is all wide open. There will be no one anointed in 2028. Instead, there will be a long, bloody fight for the nomination, and that is democracy. The liberal-left resistance, meanwhile, will have to stagger into a future they failed, over and over again, to head off. No movement, perhaps, has accomplished less. No movement has done so little to reach what was supposed to be an existential goal. Trump, eight years into the resistance, is at his apogee. The editorial boards and NGO bosses and magazine writers and braying congressmen and MSNBC panelists must contend with this bare, inarguable fact. The electoral map ran blood-red. How? Why? It was the racism of an Arab majority city voting for Trump, the white supremacy of the Bronx, New York's poorest borough, deciding Trump needed more of its vote than ever before. Pundits prattle about misinformation, as if all the voters were toddlers who needed to be bolted down and told why Brat Summer was so vital for the future of the republic. There are calls now for a feminist Joe Rogan, as if the actual Rogan did not already endorse a Democratic presidential candidate in 2020. The liberal-left reaps what it sows. It was not merely Trump that was chosen. It was the not-Democrat, the option that wasn't in power. A vote is a middle finger aimed to the sky. In the heat of all this, the liberal-left will have to recalibrate or dissolve. Radical chic is fading. The Hitler analogies are played out. So are the speech wars. They will have to, somehow, consider material conditions. This is never easy if you've never lived anything close to a precarious life. Harder, still, if you've allowed condescension and indignation to become the pillars of a worldview. The smug never inherit the Earth. If only the Bible printed this, or someone took it to cable television in time. Much grief could have been saved.

Via Ed Morrissey, the liberal progressive Wall Street Journal declares that the global progressivism movement is over.

This past year showed that the progressive politics that dominated most industrialized countries over the past two decades or more is shifting to the right, fueled by working-class anxieties over the economy and immigration, and growing fatigue with issues from climate change to identity politics. ...

Part of the shift is the normal pendulum of politics swinging back and forth between established parties on the left and right. The difference this time is a strong strain of populism and a growing rejection of traditional parties.

In country after country, many working-class voters--especially those outside the biggest cities--are signaling the same thing: They mistrust the establishment--from academics to bankers to traditional politicians--and feel these elites are out of touch and don't care about people like them.

Years of increased migration and trade, coupled with low economic growth, have led to a backlash and a rise in nationalism, where people want more of a sense of control, political analysts say. The rise of social media has exacerbated divisions and led to an upsurge in antiestablishment parties.

That's not really true. Marxism is Dracula; you can stake it in the heart, but it will always arise from the grave again.

I'm suspicious of voices on the left claiming that the insane authoritarianism of the past ten years is "over." I think they want you to believe it's over. But what they intended to do is distance themselves from it, but then simply change the wording and drop the most egregious 10% and ram the other 90% of it down your throat via a quickie rebrand.

posted by Ace at 05:15 PM

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