The astonishing irony, of course, is that there could hardly be a moment more propitious for an ideological swing in the other direction. People are hurting badly. Elites are vastly richer today than they were three decades ago. The connection between the two, in the form of predatory Wall Street plunderings continually aided, abetted and even funded by the government, is no longer even particularly hidden. And yet there is no left at all on the national horizon, apart from an occasional Bernie Sanders or Dennis Kucinich. Indeed, quite the opposite is the case. All energy is with the blind raging tea party mentality, which only seeks to vastly exacerbate the problem through some sort of vague libertarianism that will further unleash corporate dominance and further shred what little is left of a tattered social safety net in America.
You really have to hand it to the right. They understand mass psychology so much better than progressives do. They know that rationality is the first victim of fear, and that fear breeds upon itself, amplifying its own effects exponentially. They understand how fragile a thing is a thoughtful, sober and responsible democracy, and how readily undermined it can be for nefarious and hidden purposes.
And they understand how easy it is to buy off those with the capacity to prevent a country's political and economic suicide.
Barack Obama and Elena Kagan have gotten everything they've ever wanted from life.
All they had to do, in return, was to stand for nothing.
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David Michael Green is a professor of political science at Hofstra University in New York. He is delighted to receive readers' reactions to his articles (
dmg@regressiveantidote.net), but regrets that time constraints do not always allow him to respond. His website is
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