Time to throw out the progressive tub
Barack Obama, the godfather of progressivism, continues invisibly to push buttons and pull levers.
By Andrew D. Lappin
JNS
Jul 4, 2024
Show me a city where there have been pro-Hamas (“Death to America”) demonstrations, university encampments and organized violence against Jews and, without exception, these will be cities that have stopped prosecuting shoplifters and chosen to raise the goal posts for prosecuting crimes of all classes.
They will be cities like Chicago that have recklessly ignored federal immigration statutes at the expense of residents who, dependent on government services, have been pushed to the back of the line and left to contend with the blemish of overflowing “migrant centers.”
The stunning surge in antisemitic demonstrations, encampments and mini-pogroms like the one that occurred in Los Angeles on June 23 are part of a grossly un-American panorama that is precipitously unfolding. It could be said that due to its largely unconstrained expression, antisemitism is now on the cusp of becoming “institutionalized.”
The political umbrella under which these historically untraditional American policies reside is the far-left, progressive wing of the Democratic Party. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and the congressional members of the “Squad” may be the face of the progressive agenda but are in reality just the tip of the iceberg.
The real muscle of the progressive infrastructure lies innocuously out of sight. Insidiously executing progressive policy at the cabinet level are the 12 (out of 15) members of the Biden cabinet who are Obama holdovers and share Obama’s vision of fundamentally transforming our nation.
Moderate Democratic legislators, concerned with the substantial electoral downside resulting from negative public reaction to progressive policies, have been left to flail impotently without recourse.
The Oct. 7 massacre, the most gruesome and barbaric of crimes, left a stain on the world unlike anything since the Holocaust.
In that shocking moment, the universal and global value of “civility” required fortification. Such an act of barbarism had to be definitively quarantined and the remorseless perpetrators (Hamas) brought to justice.
But what started out as an iron-clad commitment by the Biden administration to support Israel’s rightful response to the barbarity was derailed in short order.
Obama holdovers within the administration made sure that the lies spun by pro-Hamas agitators that turned the victim (Israel) into the victimizer were well amplified, facilitating the transformation of the president’s initial moral clarity.
Obama, the godfather of progressivism (“We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America”) and author of the greatest existential threat to Israel (the failed Iran nuclear deal) methodically stacked the deck inside the Biden administration.
Absent such a deftly executed stranglehold, how could armaments vital to Israel’s defense and designated by a bipartisan congressional decision remain in shipping crates, ensnared in a maze of byzantine bureaucratic processes?
Who was it, as Israel contemplated a plan for a preemptive strike on Hezbollah in Lebanon, who authorized Joint Chiefs of Staff head Charles Q. Brown to pull the rug out by publicly declaring that the United States, in the event of a full scale war, might be unable to come to Israel’s assistance?
Whether it is the criminal justice system, open borders, the economy, foreign policy, taxation, education, partisan divisiveness or racist antisemitism, the progressive agenda has been bad for Americans. The solution in November 2024 is the flushing of this ideology and its adherents out of the system to the greatest extent possible.
It has been proclaimed by some that Biden’s disastrous debate performance blocks the Democrat’s path to the presidency and he must withdraw from the race.
At any other time in history, such a tactic might have been logical. However, a mere substitution of candidate, while enabling some voters to check a box, only masks the core issue and fails to remedy the future potential damage caused by progressive policy.
Even if John F. Kennedy were brought back from the dead and substituted as a candidate, it would, within the current structure of the Democratic Party, be a mere change of wallpaper and a seamless transition back to the stranglehold of Obama’s underlying political infrastructure.
We are witnessing the divisive and destructive trail of progressive policy at all levels of government. The fundamental task should be to declare and to implement a “declaration of independence” from the insidiously imposed grasp of progressivism. But the temptation will be to try to take the path of least resistance (substituting a presidential candidate).
If so, then who on the Democratic roster has the charisma and the stature truly capable of shifting the power base away from Obama’s meticulously integrated administrative and financial network?
From his secluded beach house on Martha’s Vineyard, the godfather of progressivism continues invisibly to push buttons and pull levers.
While most Americans have come to abhor the impact of progressive policies, it is not clear that those Americans understand that, in cleaning the slate as required, the lifting will be heavy and uncomfortable.
Yes, it is now time to throw out the bath water, but it is also necessary to dispose of the entire progressive tub.
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