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Running against Bush, Running from Themselves

Posted: 01 Mar 2010 08:36 PM PST

With his ratings plummeting and his administration coming
undone, the Great Savior of the Democrats in the White House is more
focused on finding ways to blame Bush and congressional Republicans for
the current mess, than anything else. And that is predictable enough
because the progressive left has built its identity around opposition more
than anything else.

Even when in power, the left draws a picture of itself as
perpetually embattled. That is the case in a democracy and even in a
tyranny, such as the USSR or Cuba, which remained focused on fighting
increasingly imaginary enemies. It is no surprise then that Obama can't
put down the left's well-worn security blanket, because it is too much a
part of his movement's ideological identity.

The left's identity is
built on uprooting tradition, in the same way that the identity of the
right is built on preserving it. The left's love for "reform" and
"revolution" are just different ways of expressing their desire to
dramatically overthrown and overturn society and nations. Their core
identity is tied into their belief that they are the revolutionary
vanguard of the class struggle against the established powers. And when
they are in power, they cling even harder to that identity, fighting new
"established powers" to wage war against.

Like Saturn, the
revolution devours its own children. This is the cycle of perpetual
revolution, as we could clearly see with the French Revolution. Such is
the fate of every ideological revolution, whose goal is a pseudo-religious
state of perpetual liberation through a new state of national and global
consciousness, as opposed to one grounded in a desire for personal
liberties and property rights, as the American Revolution was.

The
American left is the long echo of the America revolution's own ideological
radicals, such as Paine and Jefferson, who did not get their way, but who
helped create the American left's ideology which contended that a true
revolution had been thwarted by a small moneyed elite. That charge would
gain new force with the rise of Communism, which promised to overthrow
those elites in favor of a people's dictatorship.

The struggle
between the American Right and the American Left is the old argument
between the American Revolution and the French Revolution, of freedom as
grounded in individual liberties and property rights, or in a transcendent
fellowship of the state. FDR, JFK and Obama are all typical of the
messianic figures of the transcendent state of government meant to tear
down all barriers in a perfect unity of government.

And since such
a state can never be achieved, the "dream must die", because of the
interference of the "established powers" and become transformed into a
struggle against the reactionaries and the right who killed the dream.
With FDR, the struggle itself was aborted by the rise of Hitler, which
forced a global war. With JFK, it was an assassin's bullet. As a result
the failures of the New Deal were swept under the rug, overshadowed by the
largest war in human history. As a result, the failures of the JFK
administration were overshadowed by the myth of Camelot, and passed down
to LBJ, who would collapse under them.

The Dream of Obama however
offers no such grand exit. His is simply a myth gone sour. Scott Brown's
victory provided some breathing room by breaking the Democratic party's
Supermajority, which saved the faithful from asking the uncomfortable
questions about why a party with a Supermajority was still unable to
achieve that transcendent state of government and elevate America with it.
And Brown's victory has enabled Obama and his admirers to refocus his
spite on the Republicans, blaming the superminority for his own
failures.

But all the tirades being broadcast now by Democrats against
the rules and procedures of the Senate serve as a useful safety valve,
allowing them to return to their roots, agitating against the "powerful
interests" standing in their way. Despite the fact that their rise to
power was the product of a great many powerful interests converging to
supply them with unheard of amounts of money and influence, the average
liberal still likes to pretend he's at Woodstock or outside the 1968
Democratic Convention shaking his fist at the man. Even when he is "the
man".

If Obama loses in 2012, history will still record yet another
progressive dream killed by the right. It is a more comfortable version of
the historical record, than admitting that the left had embraced another
myth, that its instincts are totalitarian, and that it is far better at
scheming, than at legislating. That it is hopelessly out of touch with the
people it claims to want to help, and worse yet, that it has no interest
in actually listening to them.

The left has never had a great deal
of use for Democracy. Like Islam, the left views popular elections as a
useful tool for implementing their own rise to power, at which point
popular elections are no longer relevant, because the popular will has
already been asserted with their own victory. Which naturally makes them
very sore losers, blaming election victories on either their own lack of
radicalism or the "powerful interests" who are always standing in their
way with their "vast right wing conspiracies".

And so the Democrats
constantly need to run against Bush, when they aren't running against
Nixon, because it is much easier than looking in a mirror and confronting
themselves. A son's rebellion ends when he realizes that he is much like
his father and that is how it should be. So does a daughter's. But the
left has been fueled by the endless revolutions of those who never wanted
to grow up, become adults and make the difficult choices. Who always
wanted to blame the increasingly shadowy figures standing in their way for
their own failures.

The left's history of the world is a long
narrative of conspiracy theories, best exemplified by Howard Zinn, in
which the progressive forces are constantly stymied by increasingly
byzantine conspiracies meant to fool and manipulate the people. The only
people you can find living by a more arcane conspiratorial worldview would
be in the Muslim Middle East... and that is no coincidence at
all.

The left's inability to recognize its own hubris and
totalitarian habits, their faith in organizational over representative
government, and their tolerance for their own extremism has made it
impossible for it to transform in a positive direction. Instead boiled
down to the basics, the left's voice consists of tantrums and thrown
fists. Once in power its agenda self-destructs quickly in a democratic
system, and self-destructs slowly in a totalitarian system in which they
have absolute power-- so naturally the left wants absolute power in order
to "get things done".

By the time the USSR and North Korea "got things done", neither
country could produce enough food to feed its own citizens, or produce
much of anything else for that matter, except second rate military
equipment. An ironic but not unexpected turn of events for the left, which
constantly protests against the "military industrial complex" which
focuses on making weapons instead of feeding the people.

But of
course this too is an inevitable effect of the cycle of revolutions, whose
only domestic product is bureaucracy and repression, and whose only export
is war. The left cannot break the cycle because it refuses to acknowledge
that it is the source of the problem, instead always turning to a shadowy
network of conspiracies and powerful interests who are in their way. Who
are always to blame for their failures.

And so Obama is back to
running against Bush and the Republicans. Just as he always will be.
Because to do otherwise would be to admit his own inexperience and the
feuding egos and agendas of the Democratic congress, the same sort of
pettiness that has toppled many a revolution before. And such an admission
for an ideology that venerates the redemptive powers of government and
transcendent messianic leaders is a dangerous one. It would almost be
blasphemy.