evolution

My buddy sent me the following message today, with a reference to this article. His message is in italics:

To: j.d.
Subject: Scary, but not surprising

I responded at length, which I usually don’t do because I don’t like yammering, and in a tone far more combative than I usually display on this site — most times, I really am interested in comity, and even though I write a lot of jokes in poor taste I really do want to get along with most¹ people, even those with political views other than mine, more than a few of whom have been regular readers and/or site boosters for a long time.

I only decided to post this because I haven’t done a whole lot of real content lately, and — well — I guess that since I wrote this in a message to my best friend, it represents what I really feel. I’m sure some jackoff will be along to psychoanalyze it, which is fine with me.

My response follows the line:

To: (j.d.’s buddy)
Subject: RE: Scary, but not surprising

Yes. Ever heard me talk about the “populist delusion” and the “will to power”?

This is what I’m talking about. Barack Obama, as I have said from the beginning, both is and is not really one of these people, despite the fact that he attended a radical church, palled around with one of the Weathermen (who, for reasons passing understanding, is not mouldering away in prison), and racked up this voting record. These attributes can all be explained by politics: he needed the church for black “authenticity” to get elected State Senator in his neighborhood (and his wife is one of these people). The same could be said of his association with William Ayers. I say at least on some level he is not one of these people, because he has been forthright about deficiencies in his past, and he generally comes off as a human being whose priority is good governance rather than “beat the wingnuts” (cf. his pushing of the Obama-Coburn sunshine bill, for example; Coburn of OK being one of the most right-wing Senators). So we see that, except for a plain-spoken streak, he is not all that much different from other politicians, and thus no more worthy of derision then they are.

These people? The “netroots” and “progressives”? They are these people. To a T. They can and will do and attempt to justify absolutely anything to implement their agenda. This is the “will to power”. They believe that there are hordes more like them “demanding” all sorts of things, like federalized health care, tax hikes for “the rich”, etc. Most people don’t understand what these things mean, much less all their ramifications. This is the “populist delusion”.

One other thing - as the article you sent me notes, Barack Obama says he wants to explode identity politics, and in this I believe him. Progressives will not allow this to happen, however. Identity politics provides them with their most intimidating tools of compliance enforcement. Rare is the public figure that survives one of its attacks.

The “progressives” are what you get when you combine the populist delusion with the will to power, as I’ve said before. They have not returned to the word “liberal” because they know they are not, by any reasonable definition of the word. Not even they can explain that one away.

I’ll tell you this - the current “progressive” era (that’s right — “current” — as my fellow blogger El Borak notes, “compassionate conservative” is just a longer and clumsier way of saying “progressive” — firm believers that government is the primary motive force in society and economics) will end much the same way as the last one did, with parts of the actual motive force of the society and of the economy jumping out the window.

Barack Obama, while not a candidate I’d support, is a decent person. Watch for what slipstreams behind him.

1. Most people. [↩]