In amongst the snark, sometimes Sadly, No makes a serious political point that cuts right to heart of current ‘progressive’ discourse: today it’s HTML Mencken (best blogonym evar) that’s taking on soft liberals, specifically Matt Yglesias:
But, you know, I’ll skip the thing about the war per se right now, and go to the other point this brings up: the definition of “Progressive.” I thought it meant something closer to ‘left-wing’ than ’sensible centrist.’ The cluelessness of some of these people with regard to their own position on the ideological spectrum simply astounds me. Yglesias, who has railed against left-populism, who is if anything to the right of Brad DeLong on free trade, who gave his blessing to a stupid fucking war, actually thinks he’s some kind of flaming lefty.
One of the many, many things that drives us real lefties (by which I mean those of us who don’t hesitate to descriobe ourselves as socialists as opposed to just playing one on the internets and who even join a socialist political party) is bloody, bloody US centrist ‘liberals’, especially those who describe themselves as ‘left’ or ‘progressive’ when they’re nothing of the sort – Like Yglesias and Kevin Drum to name two of the most prominent, who think their own mushy political tendency should have, by right, the lion’s share of the leftwing transatlantic discourse.
Well, they have had, and look where it’s got us.
There’s a lot of useless centrism about. That’s why we have two categories in our list, ‘Sensible liberals’ and ‘Democratic (In)action’ – and this gets filed under both. I’ll let HTML explain why:
Let me be helpful: Just because you fiercely oppose — so fucking belatedly — a certifiable crypto-fascist like George Bush does not make you George McGovern, or even FDR.
Gah. And look, here’s Kevin Drum calling himself a ‘Social Democrat.’ Hilarious. That’s even better than Brad Delong’s working definition of ’social democracy’ — a progressive taxation scheme and education spending.
If these people are social democrats, WTF do you have left to call the Swedes? If these are social democrats, then Greens must be… ooh, communists! Thanks for doing the wingnuts’ work truncating the ideological spectrum for them, nimrods!
Actually, General Glut was right so long ago: there isn’t a bit of difference between these people’s ideology and, say, John Anderson’s in 1980. They’re basically Rockefeller Republicans. Just the kind of folks wingnuts want as leaders of the opposition.
Sadly, yes.
No backbone, no gumption and fungible politics; always triangulating, always looking for the angle, never sticking to a political principle for more than 5 minutes at a time or until the next fashionable political buzzword comes along, whichever’s soonest – because of their self-absorbed political finagling, in which their future careers as pundits hold equal weight (and I’m being generous there, it’s probably more weight, if truth be told) with the future of the nation and the world, Bush has walked all over democracy, and they’ve let him.
They’re careerists pure and simple, who’ll say what’s necessary to advance said careers, and I hold them personally equally morally responsible, with the Republicans, for the godawful political mess we’re in.
No doubt there’ll be offended squeals from the sensible liberals over these attacks on their amour-propre. Tough titty. It’s been something I and many others on the European left have been saying for a long time and it’s good to see the US left awake to it too.
And yet for pointing this out those of us who are yer actual leftists get attacked by the reasonable liberals and the otherwise politically in tune yet persuadable that this is being uncivil and divisive.
T’ain’t us who’s divisive: the likes of Yglesias and Drum have been doing the Right’s job for it all this time with their support for the war, their counselling of ‘reasonability’ and their advocacy of arcane process politics, as if the Republicans haven’t just demolished the political process like a ten ton steamroller.
“Listen to us, we’re the reasonable people, not like those wild-eyed uncivil lefties!” – to deliberately disengage a huge swathe of politically sophisticated and committed people from your party by denigrating them as little more than online thugs – that’s divisive.
What you’ve got from all this is a compromised and powerless opposition party with the soft liberals in charge, useful tools every one. Does anyone really see the Democrats as anything more than than that? They’ve done effectively nothing since the midterms and if anything have enabled Bushco further. It’s their careers, see.
It’s been nothing short of infuriating to see suckup milquetoasts held up as the voice of the left when they’re the voice of what the US Right wants the left to be. There’s a reason their careers are going so well, and it’s because they’re saying what the Right wants them to.
But they still just don’t get it: useful they may have been but in the end to the Right we’re all the same – not them, ergo enemies. We’re all enemies if we disagree, whether we’re being their useful tools or not.
What the likes of these pundits have actually been doing all this time is little short of appeasing a quasi-fascist movement, and that makes them complicit in it. I’m sick to death of this “Not me, guv, I may’ve supported the war but I’m OK really” business. Too late, they should’ve thought on at the time. In supporting the war they enabled all the rest.
So don’t come running to the left when you need protection, kool kidz, we won’t be there for you. You weren’t there for us when we were the only ones telling the truth before the war; too interested in making a name, sucking up and getting the good gigs. Let’s see if your sparkling pundit/political consultancy careers keep you warm when it all goes to shit in DC.
