by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
PJ Media<\/em><\/p>\n Our New Regressivism<\/strong><\/p>\n About fifteen years ago, many liberals began to self-identify as progressives \u2014 partly because of the implosion of the Great Society and the Reagan reaction that had tarnished the liberal brand and left it as something akin to \u201cpermissive\u201d or \u201cna\u00efve,\u201d partly because \u201cprogressive\u201d was supposedly an ideological rather than a political identification, and had included some early twentieth-century Republicans like Teddy Roosevelt\u00a0and Herbert Hoover<\/a>\u00a0[1].<\/p>\n But twenty-first century progressivism is not aimed at political reform. There is no new effort at racial unity. There is not much realization that we are in a globalized, rapidly changing, high-tech economy or that race and gender are not as they were fifty years ago. Instead, progressivism has become a reactionary return to the 1960s \u2014 or even well before. The new regressivism seeks to resurrect the machine ethos of Mayor Daley, the glory green days of\u00a0the\u00a0<\/a>Whole Earth Catalog<\/em><\/a>\u00a0[2], the union era of George Meany, Jimmy Hoffa, and Walter Reuther, the racial polarization of the old Black Panther Party and the old Al Sharpton, and a Walter Cronkite, John Chancellor, or Peter Jennings reading to us each evening\u00a0three slightly different versions<\/a>\u00a0[3] of the Truth.<\/p>\n The New Old Chicago<\/strong><\/p>\n Barack Obama is trying to turn back the way of politics to the era of the pre-reform Chicago machine. He was the first presidential candidate to renounce campaign-financing funds since the law was enacted. He opposes any effort to clamp down on voting fraud. Even\u00a0his compliant media worries<\/a>\u00a0[4] that the president\u2019s current jetting from one campaign stop to another in the key swing states is a poorly disguised way to politick on the federal government\u2019s dime. Bundlers are, as was the ancient custom, given plum honorific posts abroad. Obama has held twice as many fundraisers as the much reviled George Bush had at a similar point in his administration. Obama supporters now target large Romney givers and post their names with negative bios on websites,\u00a0as if we are back<\/a>\u00a0[5] to Nixon\u2019s enemies of the people. Websites sprout up that go after administration critics in Agnew style, but without the latter\u2019s self-caricature. The 2008 criticism about ending the revolving door, lobbyists, and pay-for-play renting out of the Lincoln bedroom was, well\u2026just examine the career of a Peter Orszag. An embarrassed media keeps silent about the new reactionary ethics, apparently on the premise not to endanger four more years of the \u201cprogressive\u201d agenda. On matters of presidential style,\u00a0we are likewise retro<\/a>[6], as Obama sets records for playing golf, and in Marie Antoinette style the First Family bounces between Vail, Aspen, Martha\u2019s Vineyard, Vegas, and Costa del Sol, often in separate jets, as if we, the people, receive vicarious joy from catching glimpses of the Obama versions of Camelot. We have Kennedy wannabes without their own Kennedy money.<\/p>\n Earth Day Forever<\/strong><\/p>\n On matters of energy, Obama has regressed to the Earth Day mindset of the 1970s, when we were reaching \u201cpeak\u201d oil, and untried wind and solar were soon to be the new-age remedy for soon-to-be-exhausted fossil fuels. Add up the anti-empirical quotes from Obama himself, Energy Secretary Chu, and Interior Secretary Salazar (inflate your tires, \u201ctune up\u201d your car, look to US algae reserves, let energy prices \u201cskyrocket,\u201d hope gas rises to European levels, don\u2019t open federal lands even if gas reaches $10 a gallon, etc.) and, in reactionary fashion, we are time-machined back to the campus quad of the 1970s. In this Lala-world of Van Jones, evil oil companies supposedly connived to stifle green energy and hook us on fossil fuels, inferior energies that have nothing to recommend them. It is as if the revolutions in horizontal drilling, fracking, and discoveries of vast new reserves never occurred, as if Exxon and Chevron dodge taxes in a manner that Google and Amazon never would, as if efficient smaller gas engines, clean gas blends, and pollution devices have not made the American car both clean-burning and economical beyond our imagination forty years ago. The Obamians, frozen in amber, really believe oil is about to run out, \u201ctuned up\u201d internal combustion engines powering underinflated tires pollute as they did in the 1920s, and Teapot Dome US oil companies\u00a0need to be \u201ccrucified\u201d<\/a>\u00a0[7] \u2014 as regional EPA director and Obama appointee Al Armendariz, in fact, boasted. So we borrow hundreds of millions of dollars to subsidize money-losing solar and wind plants, while putting federal lands rich in oil and gas off-limits to companies eager to pay royalties, hire thousands, and supply the US with its own energy \u2014 and all for a regressive ideology. Few see that Solyndra really is the new Teapot Dome.<\/p>\n The UAW and the Big Three \u2014 Forever<\/strong><\/p>\n And the economy? We know statism, whether the Soviet and Chinese brand or the softer European socialist sort, did not work. And as the rest of the world\u00a0flees from state-controlled and command economies<\/a>\u00a0[8], we in America look back fondly toward them, as if the US could be run perpetually in peacetime\u00a0as it was for four years during World War II<\/a>\u00a0[9] or that we could have an endless 100 Days of the first three months of FDR. We can make the unionized Postal Service work (as if there is no FedEx, email, or text messaging) like GM or, better yet, turn a doctor\u2019s visit into a brush with the TSA. When the president scoffs at capitalism with \u201cwe\u2019ve tried that,\u201d one wonders whether he means \u201cyes, we did and that\u2019s why the US per capita income and per capita GDP are among the highest in the world, and the poor have appurtenances, housing, and \u2018stuff\u2019 unmatched by the middle classes in most countries abroad.\u201d In reactionary fashion, we measure poverty only in terms of relative worth, never by an absolute standard, as if Americans do not have access to televisions, hot water, appliances, and cell phones and do not suffer more from obesity than malnutrition. Our new regressive template for the economy dates from about 1950, when our grandfathers in the AFL-CIO and UAW worked in big unionized factories to supply a war-torn world with almost everything, at a time when China, France, Germany, Japan, and Russia had been flattened and Taiwan and South Korea did not exist as manufacturers. Solyndra and the Volt are to be like Ford circa 1946: assembly lines buzzing with endless solar panels and cars, built by 100-new-rules-a-day unions, without much competition, and products all backordered by a war-wearied and materially deprived world.<\/p>\n Freedom Riding Forever<\/strong><\/p>\n On matters racial, we are endlessly back in the 1960s with more Bull Connors and Lester Maddoxes, with Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson fighting them on Freedom Marches, not a half-century distant from the \u201cI have a dream speech,\u201d in a troubled era where over 90% of African-Americans who die violently at the hands of another are not lynched, but shot by other African-Americans, and where blacks are 30-40 times more likely to commit some sort of violent crime against whites than vice versa. Without more of the Great Society, there is always said to be the threat of another \u201cresurrection\u201d like Watts, not periodic flash mobbing to rip off iPhones and iPads. In the world of Eric Holder, affirmative action is\u00a0yesterday, today, and tomorrow<\/a>\u00a0[10], as if we are Old Confederates who measure non-white lineage by a 1\/16 drop standard, as if blond Elizabeth Warren, candidate for senator in Massachusetts and one-percenter Harvard professor, really is a \u201cnative-American\u201d as she and Harvard claimed for purposes of minority status. In the real world, the problem is not the absence of civil rights, but an absence of courage to discuss the causes of racial disparities in categories beyond income, from rates of illegitimacy to crime. For the new regressives, someone like John Foster Dulles, the old white guy, is still secretary of state, rather than the truth that a white male has not held the office in over fifteen years. We live in a suspended animation world of\u00a0To Kill a Mockingbird<\/em>\u00a0where the Duke Lacrosse players\u00a0are still guilty<\/a>\u00a0[11] by the fact of their association with a black stripper,\u00a0Trayvon Martin is a martyred hero<\/a>\u00a0[12] (and even if a court proves it is not so, he still will be), and the members of the Black Caucus are given exemptions to utter racist and inflammatory rhetoric, given the burdens they shoulder of a segregated society peopled by George Wallaces and Strom Thurmonds everywhere.<\/p>\n Ivy League on Viagra<\/strong><\/p>\n For the new regressives, universities are still hallowed centers of liberal instruction. There is no interest why professors have the reputation of used car dealers (with apologies to used car dealers),\u00a0tuition soars faster than inflation<\/a>\u00a0[13], for-profit vocational schools siphon off students, and student loans mimic\u00a0the 2008 housing bubble<\/a>\u00a0[14]. In the regressive world, Barack Obama knows something about political science and the law, because Columbia and Harvard certified that he does. Indeed, we are all supposed to believe our children are educated because they have a BA certificate and took a cutting-edge Chicano Studies or Film Studies course at institutions who jack up prices faster than the rate of inflation and are subsidized by big government loans \u2014 and to question any of that earns the charge of being \u201canti-intellectual\u201d or denying the children the right \u201cto be all they can be.\u201d We are supposed to make-believe that the overpriced campus of rock-climbing walls and \u201cthe poetics of low-riding\u201d is every bit as rigorous as the 1950s Great Books courses at Chicago.<\/p>\n All the President\u2019s Men \u2014 Again and Again<\/strong><\/p>\n The new media is the most regressive of all. It too is back to the days of the early 1960s when it did not report the antics of the Kennedys in worry about endangering the New Frontier. At least the old reactionary press hid government lapses as well as liberal ones \u2014 but not the new regressives: for the\u00a0Los Angeles Times<\/em>, releasing photos of American soldiers with gruesome trophies in Afghanistan is necessary candor of the My Lai sort; yet suppressing Obama\u2019s comments at a banquet for Rashid Khalidi is\u00a0proper censorship for the cause<\/a>\u00a0[15], as if someone saw Jack Kennedy nude swimming in the White House pool with a co-ed and\u00a0had to shut up about it<\/a>\u00a0[16]. Apparently, whether Obama was to be elected was for the media a matter of national security, but not so whether the war in Afghanistan was threatened. For the regressive journalist, Guantanamo and renditions were to be everyday news until January 20, 2009.<\/p>\n Retreads<\/strong><\/p>\n What is scary for the new regressive is present-day and future America. It is changing by the hour and making obsolete all the old big government, big union, big race, big university, and big media liberal assumptions of the past. And as the world leaves behind the progressive and as he turns regressive and bitter, give him some credit: he does not go down without the old fight against Rockefellers everywhere, Shell, the Alabama racists who insist on IDs to vote, union-busting scabs, tabloid journalists who threaten Cronkite-like Truth, and all the other old enemies of the people.<\/p>\n URLs in this post:<\/p>\n [1] and Herbert Hoover:http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0066211700\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=pjmedia-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0066211700<\/a> \u00a92012 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media Our New Regressivism About fifteen years ago, many liberals began to self-identify as progressives \u2014 partly because of the implosion of the Great Society and the Reagan reaction that had tarnished the liberal brand and left it as something akin to \u201cpermissive\u201d or \u201cna\u00efve,\u201d partly because \u201cprogressive\u201d was supposedly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[78,11,99],"tags":[12,1023,1057,134,213,1042,93,219,358,1054,9,359],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-cQ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7198,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/illiberal-liberalism\/","url_meta":{"origin":796,"position":0},"title":"Illiberal Liberalism","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 10, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The left's disdain for ordinary Americans has deep historical roots. by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/\u00a0Defining Ideas\u00a0 During the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama let slip his disdain for the middle-class when he explained his lack of traction among such voters. \u201cIt\u2019s not surprising then,\u201d Obama said, \u201cthat they get bitter,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/482px-Presidentwoodrowwilson-241x300.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11279,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ten-commandments-of-the-supreme-court\/","url_meta":{"origin":796,"position":1},"title":"Ten Commandments of the Supreme Court","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 17, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review What is sacrosanct? Whatever advances progressive causes. 1)\u00a0Right to Left.\u00a0The majority of post-war Republican Supreme Court nominees, who were initially perceived as conservative, turned liberal on the bench (Harry Blackmun, William Brennan, David Souter, John Paul Stevens, Earl Warren), or went from right-wing to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Supreme Court"","block_context":{"text":"Supreme Court","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/supreme-court\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9708,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/why-the-anti-israel-sentiment\/","url_meta":{"origin":796,"position":2},"title":"Why the Anti-Israel Sentiment?","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 5, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review World opinion against Israel comes from a great many factors \u2014 especially a certain ancient one. Secretary of State John Kerry, echoing other policymakers in the Obama administration, blasted Israel last week in a 70-minute rant about its supposedly self-destructive policies. Why does the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Middle East"","block_context":{"text":"The Middle East","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3308,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-unexamined-president-and-his-media-enablers\/","url_meta":{"origin":796,"position":3},"title":"The Unexamined President and His Media Enablers","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 29, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton Advancing a Free Society As usual, the mainstream media are getting wrong the significance of President Obama\u2019s release of his actual birth certificate. In the liberal-left narrative, the \u201cbirther\u201d issue was always evidence of the Republican Party\u2019s fringe kookiness: as the\u00a0Daily Kos\u2019s Markos Moulitsas crowed, \u201cWhat\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":772,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-stupid-party\/","url_meta":{"origin":796,"position":4},"title":"The Stupid Party","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 20, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thronton FrontPage Magazine The presidency of Barack Obama has established once and for all that modern liberalism is now the stupid party. Very little of liberal thought these days represents anything fresh or new, but rather comprises what Lionel Trilling once reduced conservatism to: \u201cirritable mental gestures\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8248,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/our-illiberal-immigration-policy-leads-to-chaos\/","url_meta":{"origin":796,"position":5},"title":"Our Illiberal Immigration Policy Leads to Chaos","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 26, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"We need a meritocratic, ethnically blind system \u2014 the opposite of the status quo. by Victor Davis Hanson\u00a0\/\/ National Review Online A federal judge has temporarily blocked President Obama\u2019s executive order that overrode existing immigration law. The result is more acrimony and chaos. 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\n
\n[2] the :\u00a0http:\/\/reason.com\/blog\/2010\/09\/10\/new-at-reason-brian-doherty-in<\/a>
\n[3] three slightly different versions:http:\/\/news.investors.com\/article\/541156\/201007211852\/the-smoking-gun-for-media-bias.htm<\/a>
\n[4] his compliant media worries:\u00a0http:\/\/freebeacon.com\/live-not-by-obamas-lies\/<\/a>
\n[5] as if we are back:\u00a0http:\/\/directorblue.blogspot.com\/2010\/10\/unlike-tricky-dick-nixon-obama-wears.html<\/a>
\n[6] we are likewise retro:http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424052702304723304577370050555075714.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion<\/a>
\n[7] need to be \u201ccrucified\u201d:\u00a0http:\/\/hotair.com\/archives\/2012\/04\/27\/whodunit-the-case-of-the-missing-epa-crucifixion-video\/<\/a>
\n[8] flees from state-controlled and command economies:http:\/\/pjmedia.com\/eddriscoll\/2012\/04\/29\/around-the-world-in-80-basis-points\/<\/a>
\n[9] as it was for four years during World War II:http:\/\/pjmedia.com\/eddriscoll\/2008\/03\/17\/a-century-of-liberal-fascism\/<\/a>
\n[10] yesterday, today, and tomorrow:\u00a0http:\/\/pjmedia.com\/instapundit\/138461\/<\/a>
\n[11] are still guilty:\u00a0http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=E3F4uRoWnxQ<\/a>
\n[12] Trayvon Martin is a martyred hero:http:\/\/justoneminute.typepad.com\/main\/2012\/04\/is-the-ny-times-breaking-news-or-breaking-wind.html<\/a>
\n[13] tuition soars faster than inflation:http:\/\/washingtonexaminer.com\/opinion\/columnists\/2011\/12\/sunday-reflection-higher-ed-bubble-bursting-so-what-comes-next\/156681<\/a>
\n[14] the 2008 housing bubble:\u00a0http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=1RZVw3no2A4&feature=player_embedded<\/a>
\n[15] proper censorship for the cause:\u00a0http:\/\/pjmedia.com\/rogerlsimon\/2012\/04\/04\/the-l-a-times-should-release-the-khalidi-tape-for-passover\/<\/a>
\n[16] had to shut up about it:\u00a0http:\/\/patterico.com\/2008\/07\/25\/la-times-censors-bloggers-on-edwards\/<\/a><\/p>\n