Kos/Firedoglake/MSNBC Being Swept Into The Dustbin Of History

I wrote the post below a few days ago in response to the Daily Telegraph article (linked) which sets out the end of "the flirtation with socialism" in the USA. The stock market tanking today is, surely, one more nail in the "progressive" coffin.

Apart from the barrenness of the left's social agenda, as witness e.g. Detroit for example, and the housing subsidy riots, the empty cupboard of the progressive economic agenda is now exposed for all to see.

The Krugmanite prescription of massive, endless, government spending and economic direction, is a complete bust. The market, and only the market, allied to a safety net, is "the end of history." 


For the left to stand in its way is like standing in front of a bulldozer which will sweep the likes of Daily Kos, Firedoglake, and MSNBC into the dustbin of history.

They had their last fling of spewing hate, vitriol and misguided social and economic nostrums during the last Bush term. It is time for them to quietly, (if that were possible) close up shop, and let the grown-ups commence the recovery. Unfortunately that will have to wait until 2012-but it is coming and they are going.

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Things are very much out of equilibrium for the "progressives' and the left is all at sea. After eight years of vociferous activism battling the Bush administration the left is all out of sorts.

Pursuing the activist blogs like Firedoglake and Daily Kos there is a plethora of hand wringing, wailing and gnashing of teeth. Of "I'll never vote for Obama again, we need a third party-a real progressive party." There is the mea culpa's of the "I admit I was taken in by Obama" and the rear view mirror "we should have supported Hillary-she would have stood up to the Republicans" and such like.

They are not happy campers, and there is only one cure for this head hanging sadness-a long stint back in vocal opposition. There they can happily rant and rave, prescribe and proscribe, attack and defend.

They can pursue all sorts of liberal nostrums, spend endless amounts of fantasy money, go on riotous demonstrations (e.g. like the violence against the World Bank meetings) where they can wreak real wreckage (unlike the fantasy wreckage and violence they ascribe to the harmless tea party supporters in flyover country).

If they are really lucky, and all their dreams come true, someone like Sarah Palin will pull a Reagan vs Carter and win in 2012. They could then spend (hopefully) the subsequent eight years spewing bile, being sarcastic and condescending, superior and aloof, all the while being safely penned in their echo chambers.

Recent analysis of the voting for the bill lifting the debt ceiling showed that the "progressive" caucus is a small minority, and represents a vocal but minute percentage of the American population who are, always have been, and probably always will be, right of center. In fact, that appears to be a given, now that the public have had enough years of big spending "hope and change" to last them for the foreseeable future. 

According to the Daily Telegraph, the public is in fact well cured of its flirtation with socialist government and, judging by President Obama's tanking poll numbers, with him and his administration altogether.

The progressive liberal radicals and their media enablers do of course serve a purpose. No government should be allowed free rein, and even conservative governments, e.g. the later Bush years for example, can lose their way, so it is vital to have voices pointing out their defects. 

However to go as far as to let the Democrat's, who clearly are not able to make the transition from opposition to governance, back into control of any of the houses of Congress, or the presidency, after 2012 is a retrograde step which can only end in tears,as it has now, both for the public and for the left.