Crusader War College

The Root of Leftist Misery

Via John Ray's "Dissecting Leftism", comes this nice little article detailing the reason for misery on the Left., "No Limbaughs on the Left"

In the past months, as the world and I were concentrating on more serious matters, our thousand-eyed media couldn't help noticing, in a desultory way, a certain small sideshow.

Compared to the events sweeping across the center stage of history, it seemed a bit like a lost sea-bird fluttering on the fringe of an armada, but perhaps you noticed it, too. I refer to the liberals' increasingly desperate effort to discover or create a Rush Limbaugh of the Left. Hapless candidates for the job were trotted out, wealthy partisans forked up millions for the cause, and so on—the details fade mercifully with time. But one theme kept bobbing to the surface of the reportage and commentary. It came from friends as well as critics and neutral observers, if I remember, and it was not a deep insight, in itself. But it was suggestive. It caught the mind's eye and invited at least a little more desultory attention.

What kept bobbing up was the observation that it is not much fun listening to liberals. Compared with the real El Rushbo—ever buoyant, larger than life, overflowing with conservative joie de vivre—the lefty pretenders appeared, to friend and foe alike, anemic, wan, somehow depressing. In a word, grim; even the professional comedians. The Left is not a barrel of laughs.

snip.

Here on any given day millions of listeners can hear the world as it sounds through a megaphone of old-fashioned or new-fangled Marxist theory, race theory, feminist theory, queer theory, animal rights theory, hard-core environmentalism, and various brands of multiculturalism. The leitmotif: If you are a person of less than plutocratic means, a person of race, a person of gender, a person of unusual tastes or inclinations, a non-Western culture, an animal, a forest, an ocean, or an innocent stream—America is out to exploit or destroy you. In the world of "Democracy Now!", there is no greater danger, to anything and everything decent democratic people everywhere love and cherish, than the U.S. of A.

Since at the same time America shows disturbing signs of being the most broadly prosperous, free, tolerant, and democratic nation in history, a loyal Lefty would naturally begin to grow a little bitter, somewhat testy, even shrill on a bad day. And the more free, just, prosperous, tolerant, and democratic America proves itself to be, the worse the day and the more desperate must be one's message. Because either one's life and reputation have been staked on ideas that have departed from reality, or the only people who understand the world are you and…the "so-called" terrorists?

Hence, perhaps, the bleak, ascetic zeal of "Democracy Now!" star Goodman (Ms. Goodman is thought of by some, however implausibly, as a budding radical Rushette, but her radio personality is closer to Medea with a migraine). When reality keeps stacking up against you, incorrigible faith is all you have left. And so, as you announce with a sneer America's "so-called" liberation of Iraq, you call the last Saddamite official you can get on the phone in Baghdad and ask him for a true perspective on the war. How upbeat and happy can a progressive be with that?

Here, then, is the root cause of the Left's chronic depression and the irresolvable problem at the core of the Democratic Party: America's success is their failure. And here is the corresponding cause of the good humor and vitality of conservatives: So long as America succeeds, they cannot fail.