by Michael Shellenberger
Since the election of Donald Trump as president in 2016, progressives have made the argument that taking back the presidency, the Congress, and winning swing states requires that Democrats move to the Left on social and economic issues, aggressively confront structural racism, and stand more firmly with longstanding allies like the teachers’ unions, environmentalists, and criminal justice reformers.
But the election of an underdog Republican candidate, Glenn Youngkin, as governor of Virginia on Tuesday night, the election of Republicans in state races in New Jersey and New York, and the repudiation of progressives in Seattle and Minneapolis on issues relating to criminal justice, suggest that voters in even liberal cities are turning against progressive policies and ideology, particularly on issues relating to race, education, and crime, as part of a backlash to “woke” ideology.
Some progressives say this is a misreading of the evidence. Virginia’s Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Terry McAuliffe, is a Clinton-era Democrat, who ran on a centrist agenda. Progressive candidates won in other cities around the U.S., including in Boston. And, they argue, it was President Joe Biden’s unpopularity, partly due to the obstinance of moderate Democrats like Senators Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema to Biden’s budget proposal, that is to blame for the Democrats’ electoral losses.
But progressive efforts to deflect blame don’t stand up under scrutiny. While it’s true McAuliffe ran on a moderate platform, he refused to acknowledge much less renounce the teaching of critical race theory in classrooms, opposed expanded parental involvement, and campaigned with the teachers union. While Boston’s new mayor promotes progressive policies she also supports shutting down open drug scenes. And progressive demands for expanded federal control over regional electricity markets prevented a budget deal from passing before the election, contributing to Biden’s poor approval ratings, and giving Democratic candidates little upon which to campaign.
“I think Democrats have to look in the mirror now,” said CNN contributor, Van Jones, on election night. “I think Democrats are coming across in ways that we don’t recognize, that are annoying, offensive, and seem out of touch in ways that don’t show up in our feeds, in our echo chamber —”
“When you’re talking about ‘our,’” interrupted Anderson Cooper, “you’re talking about Democrats?”
“Democrats” confirmed Jones
“Because,” said Cooper, “it seems annoying to a lot of people.”
Former advisor to Barack Obama, David Axelrod, agreed. “I think the attitude [of Democrats] is important,” he said. “The Democratic Party has become a more college-educated and urban party coalition with minority voters and the messages tend to be moralizing.”
“Moralizing,” agreed Jones. “Self-righteous.”
“It’s, ‘We’re going to tell you what’s right,’” said Axelrod.
Democratic political strategist James Carville was even more blunt. “What went wrong is stupid wokeness,” he told PBS. “Don’t just look at Virginia and New Jersey. Look at Long Island, Buffalo, look at Minneapolis, even look at Seattle, Washington. I mean, this ‘Defund the police!’ lunacy. This, ‘Take Abraham Lincoln’s name off of schools!’… people see that. And it really has a suppressive effect on all across the country on Democrats. Some of these people need to go to a woke detox center or something.”
Of course, none of these insightful people objected to the woke message as it was being delivered. They were all cheering it on because, in their rarefied world of liberal thought only, they thought that was a winning message. And, they aren’t saying it’s WRONG; they’re saying it’s unproductive to advertise it so boldly.
Yeah, AOC ain’t winning her election unless she hates America more than anyone else, but that only sells in her district or any other extremely liberal district. But where people work for a living, have families they care about and believe this nation has provided them with more than they could have gotten anywhere else on the planet, that mindset doesn’t go over too well. And, though Virginia is mostly liberal, telling parents to go shove it if they object to their daughters getting raped or their young children being taught that, if they happened to be white skinned, they are oppressive garbage, that doesn’t play too well. That’s supposed to be directed only at conservatives, not to THEM. I wonder if that awakening will last more than one election.
It’s funny, because most Republicans today would be called Democrats about 20, 30 years ago.
America is not a democracy, it is a Constitutional Republic. Read the “Federalist Papers” by Hamilton, Madison and Jay. All countries have a police force. When you go to another country: Russia, China, Taiwan, the police have no, yes extremely no tolerance as seen in American police forces. If you did not know, there are or hung jury, or calls for a retrial. sentencing is swift and execution is even swifter.
the Ponzio scheme of the pedophile pres and his gay cabinet it a mantra for foreign invasion. Recently the Task force of the navy-142 pages report stated the navy is “completely, systemically racist” and made the following suggestions on future naval operations–Woke:
There are several reasons to consider the report fundamentally flawed in its approach, inaccurate in its portrayal of the current status of the Navy, and blatantly misrepresentative of the achievement of equality of opportunity in the service through the efforts of generations of Naval personnel. Those reasons include:
Key assumptions are not supported by evidence.
Some conclusions are driven by faulty assumptions.
Some conclusions are the result of logical fallacies.
Some data is misapplied, or misrepresented.
Its language clearly indicates a political agenda.
so where is the adventure in a woke navy? recently in joint operations with the Royal Marines, the US Marines got their asses kicked.
Drink more of the kool-aid- jim jones. oh, that fjb-drink more kool-aid will build back better communism. You all remember who jim jones was???