Categories
BW Member Blog

AOC & co. are Distractions

Beware shiny objects, my friends. The kabuki theater of our national political circus is oh so adept at feeding us bait, and I think we’d be wise to avoid missing the bigger picture.

(I do love Dug.)

While the unhinged lunacy of AOC, Bernie Sanders, and their ilk is a telling indicator of the direction Democrats have been headed in, and Trump’s smart tactic of forcing the Democratic party mainstream to either defend or disown its overt loons may yet work, let’s not actually delude ourselves into thinking that Nancy Pelosi and her lot are any less crazy or their policies any less disastrous for the USA. I fear we may be tempted to breathe a sigh of relief if this fringe rebellion is put down — phew! dodged that one! — without considering that our opponents on the Left all ultimately want the same thing and will take us to the same collectivist dystopia. Some are just more patient than others, and willing to accept a guaranteed long-term victory through steady incrementalism over the temptation to show their hands and push changes so hard and fast that the American people will notice and take action to stop them. In the end, our frog gets boiled just the same.

I gratefully acknowledge that we are in significantly better shape than if Hillary Clinton had been elected. But even under President Trump, federal spending and our national debt continue to balloon out of control, and Obamacare is still on the books and not showing signs of going away. Not that we have a viable alternative, but the party of “slightly less big government” (or perhaps the same big government, just growing out of control at a slightly slower rate) hardly seems to be diverting us from the long-term course that Progressivism has had us on for past 100 years. I hate to despair so much, and I sincerely hope I’m wrong in this assessment and will be happily surprised by what happens next. But the long-term trendline doesn’t seem to have changed all that much, and I fear being too easily distracted by the outrage machine and the scandalous lunatics of the moment is in some part what got us here.

As we rightly respond with outrage and ridicule that openly avowed socialists are attempting a takeover here in the land of the free (knock on my door and try it, pal!), I guess what I’m saying is: let’s also keep the long-term in mind, and make sure we have a plan for that too. Besides sitting here waiting for the water to boil.

6 replies on “AOC & co. are Distractions”

I think the flaw was partially in the “pining all our hopes on one man” in that we thought we had two branches and just needed the third to get the legislation passed that we had been promised. Once we had the man, we found out some of the other men were not, but snakes in disguise, fork tongued and sly. We also have a much larger tent but that means we let in people of various stripes and they do not all have the same goal in mind, and those that do have many paths to it, such that our efforts are divided.

My hope is that with many people seeing a path forward behind Pres Trump might strike out on their own and others, seeing finally that they will be derided no matter what they do but because who they are, will just live up to who they are and do what they should.

We do have to remain vigilant, both of our own and of the other side. I know others have made mention of a tactic to propose a wildly crazy idea and then when it does say “well here is something that isn’t half bad” and seems sane by comparison. Others make mention of the Overton window, a name for the incremental shift Leftward that you mention.

Yes, the shifting of the “Overton window” is a corollary to this. The crazies may not be seen by us as getting their way, but they have the long-term effect of enabling others to push us leftward.

The experience of awakening to the fact that one cannot win the Left’s game of identity politics and will eventually be attacked, denounced, or excommunicated no matter what one does is a powerful one. While many seem to persist in believing that the monster they’ve created won’t come for them (surely they are of pure enough heart), the daily purge of wrongthinkers is making the phenomenon harder and harder to ignore. I can’t imagine wanting to be part of a movement that would gleefully throw me under the bus at any moment. Let’s hope more wake up and see the lunacy of it.

Troy, your cautionary note seems reasonable, and not defeatist. There is always risk in pinning our hopes on a man, rather than on a set of enduring ideas, time-tested to result in a happier society. It’s also quite easy to think that the picture is the thing. (Ceci n’est pas one pipe.) The sideshow in the media is not description as often as attempted prescription…driving the herd toward the trap. Thanks for posting this.

Thanks, Scott! I appreciate your effort to find the sense in my point. I agree very much: principles over candidates. But of course we need actual candidates who will carry those principles into battle and (at least once in a blue moon) stick to them. Even if we had a flawless, ironclad conservative in President Trump who addressed all our main concerns, there’d be the ever-present risk of that progress being lost when the political pendulum swings the other way. I guess we can find some hope in the Dem candidates being in such complete disarray (seen from our perspective, anyway), but I dare not underestimate what can happen (especially if we let our guard down). I saw Obama elected twice — the second time, with the public’s full knowledge of what he was all about. The “it can’t happen here” readout on my crystal ball is evidently broken, so I’m left to try to read the tea leaves of our long-term civilizational direction.

Well we’re extrememly lucky to have Trump on our side. The dems are a long way from getting anyone on their side to challenge him. The present laughable culture of the democratic party causes all those terrible candidates and spokes-idiots to rise to the top, while more moderate or viable people don’t even bother trying. It must be a terrible feeling if you are a centrist dem, with nobody to champion. Long term, the trouble is that Trump eventually has to step down and there’s nobody who is a force of nature like him to carry the fire. And yes – what would be nice is if someone with similar political skills did come along who would fight the entitlements and debt war.

I agree, Martin, and I do see that things could be much worse! It’s just the long term, larger current we’re swimming in that worries me. I guess all one can reasonably focus on is what we can do to make things better. But I have to wonder whether our efforts will end up just producing small deflections in course in the grand scheme of things. We had Reagan and that didn’t last. Now we have Trump, but as you point out, who could possibly take up the battle next? I wonder if the Dem party’s leftward and the uncomfortable position you point out will push some of those “centrists” (to whatever extent there are any left) out of the party. Might not be enough to make a huge difference, but it will be interesting to see.

Leave a Reply