Victor Davis Hanson // American Greatness
In 2020 we have finally hit peak progressivism. The adjective “peak”—apex or summit— is often used to describe something that has reached its maximum extent but thereafter will insidiously decline—like supposed U.S. domestic oil production in 2000 when more oil was purportedly taken out of, rather than still in the ground. While the idea of peak oil in the days before fracking and horizontal drilling proved vastly premature, we likely are witnessing something like “peak progressivism” today.
By that I mean the hard-left takeover of the Democratic Party and the accompanying progressive agenda now have reached an extreme—beyond which will only result in the steady erosion of radical ideology altogether.
The French Revolution hit “peak” coerced egalitarianism with the Jacobin takeover and so-called Reign of Terror. After all, when you begin guillotining fellow travelers on charges they are counterrevolutionaries and begin worshiping a new atheist secular power “Reason,” institutionalized as Robespierre’s “Cult of the Supreme Being,” you have mostly reached the limits of political radicalism and are into the territory of the nihilistic, if not the maniacal and absurd—with a rendezvous with Napoleon on the horizon.
From 2009 through 2016, Barack Obama recalibrated the Democratic Party’s liberalism into progressive radicalism. He opened the border and all but dismantled existing immigration law. Sanctuary cities sprang up with impunity. Executive orders bypassed the Congress. The Iran Deal ignored the Senate’s treaty-making responsibilities. Obama sought to nationalize healthcare. The concept of “diversity” replaced affirmative action, by redefining racial oppression as distinct from historical grievance and economic disparity and instead lumping together 30 percent of the population as nonwhite, and thus antithetical to the new buzz construct of “white privilege.” Fast and Furious, the surveillance of the Associated Press reporters, Benghazi, the weaponization of the IRS, and the use of CIA, FBI, and DOJ to seed the spurious Steele dossier were all written off as proof of the “most scandal free” administration in memory.
But today Obamaism has been figuratively guillotined by the New Jacobins. It is found guilty of crimes of insufficient revolutionary zeal, as well as compromises with the U.S. Constitution and capitalism.
Once considered a crank socialist, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is now leads in many Democratic primary polls. Arriving with him at this moment in our politics is peak progressivism.
Discussion (5)
Join the conversation. Logged in subscribers avoid the Captcha verification and get priority commenting approvals. No vulgarity, links, or code allowed.
Hі therе very nice site!! Guy .. Beautiful .. Wonderful .. І wіll bookmark youｒ web site ɑnd take thе feeds also...I am glad to seek oᥙt a lοt of useful іnformation rіght һere in the put up, we ԝant work οut more techniques in tһis regard, thanks fօr sharing.
Acts 16:31, 1 Corinthians 15:1-8, 1 Peter 1:17-21, Revelation 22:18-19
pace Aristotle, Politics: ” It is clear therefore also that the political community administered by the middle class is the best, and that it is possible for those states to be well governed that are of the kind in which the middle class is numerous, and preferably stronger than both the other two classes, or at all events than one of them, for by throwing in its weight it sways the balance and prevents the opposite extremes from coming into existence. Hence it is the greatest good fortune if the men that have political power possess a moderate and sufficient substance, since where some own a very great deal of property and others none there comes about either an extreme democracy or an unmixed oligarchy, or a tyranny may result from both of the two extremes, for tyranny springs from both democracy and oligarchy of the most unbridled kind, but much less often from the middle forms of constitution and those near to them… …And these considerations also show the reason why the constitutions of most states are either democratic or oligarchical; owing to the middle class in these states being often a small one, the classes diverging from the middle status—whichever of the two, the owners of the estates or the people, from time to time has the upper hand—conduct the government on their own lines, so that it becomes either a democracy or an oligarchy. And in addition to this, because factions occur and fights between the people and the wealthy, whichever party happens to gain the upper hand over its opponents does not establish a common or equal government, but takes the superior share in the government as a prize of victory, and makes it a democracy in the one case and an oligarchy in the other.” And what is the characteristic principle of democracy according to Aristotle? Freedom. That is, freedom to follow and indulge in every wayward and freakish passion and whim that floats through the “minds” of the multitude. The result: peak progressivism.
My humble opinion is that the militant Left Progressive Communist Party have always been radically vicious and militant in their ideology and their Politics. Also in their corrupt abuse of Power of self enrichment and lack of value and ethics. This cost a lot innocent American lives, the de-gradement of culture, values, language, family, Faith, the sanctity of human life. It debases all humanity. The above was because they were not challenged, not because they were not evil, but because they were always corrupt, in their hearts and before they became public servants. Barrack Hussein Obama did not turn them into treasonous anti-American Revolutionaries. They were his kinsman, not his victims. I believe Bernie Sanders has never intended to be President. It was his life's work to not to become the President but gain wealth from running. Hillary Clinton paid him 1 million dollars to get out the President Race when she was running. Bernie bought another house. Bernie Sanders became quite wealthy by not becoming the President and the lack of ethics and fraud as he is more a Capitalist than Mr. Bloomberg.
So you're sayin' everything will be just fine?