Why Do Liberals Over-Reach?

Richard Nixon was worried about being re-elected president.  He needn’t have been.  His opponent, George McGovern, made a classic liberal error: he over-reached.  Not only did he oppose the Viet Nam War, but he promised to virtually dismantle the American military.

So let’s call this the McGovern effect.  When liberals feel confident that they can win office, they tend to go overboard and reveal their true colors.  McGovern thought that Nixon and the Viet Nam debacle were so disliked that he would prevail in a walk-in; hence the openness of his pacifism.

Jimmy Carter also ran against Ronald Reagan by promising to reduce military spending.  Despite his own military record, this did not go over very well.  Reagan won and went on to dramatically increase the budget for the armed forces, which eventually helped to defeat the Soviet Union.

Bill Clinton got the message.  He therefore ran for office as a moderate, who supported a strong military. His left wing successors turned out to be more tone deaf.  Barack Obama’s popularity, irrespective of his weakening our army and navy, made dismantling the military seem inconsequential; ergo the Democratic emphasis on domestic spending.

Present-day liberals have also been misled by the transient popularity of Bernie Sanders’ socialism, the distaste for Donald Trump’s rhetoric, and the media hype for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  As a result, they let the Genie out of the bottle and raced as far left as they could get.

Liberals have always been socialists.  Ever since they thundered onto the political stage as muckrakers, they have been anti-business and pro-government.  They have always assumed that they were smarter and nicer than ordinary folks and were therefore destined to guide the country toward a collectivist utopia.

Most of the time, they have had to be discrete in pushing this agenda because the American public harbored capitalist inclinations.  The major exception was during the Great Depression when an economic collapse made even the communists seem palatable.

Today the conditions for a leftward tilt might appear to be less propitious.  After all, the economy is booming.  Even so, people are unhappy because a century of liberal policies has not delivered the unremitting happiness they were led to expect.

As a result, the progressives have doubled-down on their promises.  They have been emboldened to submit a Green New Deal for public edification.  On the grounds that we must be protected from an imminent environmental crisis, they propose to destroy our economy and insert government regulators into every corner of our land.

More moderate politicians tell us that this is merely aspirational. They know that it cannot be achieved in a scant decade.  Nonetheless, that the government should be so increased that it can tear airplanes from the skies and hamburgers from our lips ought to be terrifying.

Have the elected officials in congress behaved so valiantly that we should give them control over our personal lives?   Have the bureaucrats who administer our laws demonstrated a brilliance that deserves to be rewarded with greater power?

Liberals and socialists have been peddling rosy scenarios ever since the days of Karl Marx.  They habitually celebrate how wonderful things will be when we all cooperate for our mutual good.  Once those evil business people are removed from the scene, we will be transformed into a band of secular angels.

In fact, nowhere have collectivist dreams been converted into reality.  Everywhere socialism has been tried it produced poverty and bondage.  Be it in Russia or Cuba or now Venezuela, people are less happy and less free.

So what has been the progressive response to this history of misery? On the one hand, socialists make bigger promises.  They tell us that under their tutelage we will become super-rich, with everyone equally prosperous.  They call this social justice and portray it as a moral imperative.

On the other hand, they warn of dire consequences if their program is not adopted.  The sky will fall, the oceans will boil, and human life will be wiped off the face of the earth.  Not long ago, this boogeyman took the form of a nuclear holocaust.  Today, it takes the shape of global warming.

The biggest problem, however, is that liberals believe their propaganda.  When Ocasio-Cortez warns that unless we act the world will come to an end in a mere decade, she means it.  The question is: will the rest of us swallow this canard?  Will we crawl out on the same limb as the over-reaching liberals?

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University