E.J. Dionne wonders if 2010 go down as the year of liberalism's Waterloo.
WASHINGTON -- Was 2010 American liberalism's Waterloo? How are we to square the achievement of so many goals that have long been on progressive wish lists with the resounding defeat suffered by supporters of these measures in November?
Let's begin with what is a most painful fact for liberals: Conservatism, a doctrine that seemed moribund on election night in 2008, enjoyed a far more rapid comeback than all liberals and even most conservatives anticipated.
Dionne, like so many on the left, can't understand why Americans aren't receptive to the progressive message. Why aren't we clamoring for the free lunch they're peddling. Dionne, a typical progressive, just can't fathom what's wrong with "those people" that they aren't signing on in droves. If there are strings attached, we're not to worry. Progressives insist that America has plenty of rich people who aren't paying their fair share. They're going to foot the bill.
But there's no free lunch. Everybody knows it, or should. The fact of the matter is that the majority of Americans got the progressive message loud and clear and they didn't like it. Millions of Americans opposed the many goals that progressives rammed through in spite of all the protests and town hall confrontations. They were aghast at the legislative bribes and gimmicks that went into passing them. As things stand right now, 60% of likely voters want the biggest of those progressive goals repealed. That would be health care reform.
And the strings, which were never well disguised to begin with, now bind us and future generations as well. In these past two years while progressives have been happily impressing their goals upon us, the federal government under Democratic control has run consecutive deficits that triple the largest of the Bush administration years. The mountain of debt and the mountains of regulation, written in the name of fairness mind you, have turned a recession into a near depression and kept the unemployment rate hovering near 10%.
For Dionne, this is cause for hope.
In 2010, American liberals should have been cured of any overconfidence. Now, they and the president need to rekindle the hope that this year will be most remembered not for the defeats, but for the first steps taken down a more promising road.
This is his idea of a more promising road? Good God! Perhaps a word substitution is in order here. As it applies to American liberalism, we should swap out "rekindle" and go with "incinerate" in its place. Then we might have some cause for hope.
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