In a hilarious, and profoundly obtuse, op-ed in Wednesday's The New York Times, Peter Wehner, a "senior fellow" at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, asks "Have Democrats Pulled Too Far Left?" And, as with most headlines that end in a question mark, the answer is No, they have not. What has moved to the left is the American people.
Wehner, who "served in the last three Republican administrations,” immediately shows just how out of touch he and the right are by comparing 1992 to 2015. He tries desperately to show that Barack Obama is so much further to the left of -- get this -- Bill Clinton. Alternatively, the GOP "hasn't moved very much from where it was during the Gingrich era in the mid-1990s"; as if that's a good thing.
For Wehner, this is a big problem for the Democrats because they lost BIG in the 2014 elections, which had the lowest voter turnout since WWII. He doesn't mention that. He also doesn’t mention GOP gerrymandering, or gutted voter ID laws.
What he does mention are a lot of scary things — if you haven't had a new idea since the 1990s.
"Mr. Obama is more liberal than Mr. Clinton was on gay rights, religious liberties, abortion rights, drug legalization, and climate change," explains Wehner, apparently not realizing that is a new millennium.
I can’t believe I have to explain this but, American thinking on every single one of those things have shifted.
He even claims that at one point that the nation is “more conservative today than it was in the mid-1990s.” This idea is inferred from a “recent Pew poll’ (that I could not find) that says the country agrees with Republicans on foreign policy and taxes. On Taxes, here’s a Pew poll disagreeing with Wehner and the GOP.
"[Obama] has focused far more attention on income inequality than did Mr. Clinton, who stressed opportunity and mobility," he continues, not caring that wages have stayed flat for the last 30 years, which include the 23 years he is comparing, siphoning wealth upwards. Way harsh, Tai.
For effect, the bitter, pointless screed goes on to name other lefties like Holder, Hillary, FDR, de Blasio, and Warren, and Ed Miliband for some reason.
But, if you listen to the folks that Wehner does not call out — any of GOP presidential candidates — they are all promoting the same slogan: "Still The Same After 25 Years.” That isn’t what the country wants and that’s why the Right is trying to fix things, one-person-one-vote at a time.
Posts
