The Trunk

The Fun House Mirror

“You want to know why the left has ideas and the right has discipline? Because people who like ideas and dislike authority tend to identify with the Democratic left, while people who feel threatened by new ideas and more comfortable in a disciplined and ordered world tend to identify with the Republican right. Democrats and progressives let a thousand flowers bloom. Republicans and the right issue directives. This has been the yin and yang of American politics and culture. But it means that the Democratic left’s new ideas often fall victim to its own notorious lack of organization and to the right’s highly-organized fear mongering.”

— Robert Reich

It’s annoying whenever anyone, regardless of their political affiliation, feels the need to characterize their allies and their opponents in this way. Essentially: Well, the people who agree with me tend to be intellectuals, while those on the other side chew with their mouths open. It takes a special lack of self-awareness, though, to utter the first bolded sentence above at a time when Reich and his brethren are trying to significantly increase the authority of the federal government, while town hall protestors unquestionably oppose this expansion of authority. (That’s not to say that Republicans are consistently against authority—they seem to like authority just fine when Republicans are in charge, just like the Democrats love authority when Democrats are in charge. The only party that consistently opposes authority in any meaningful way is the libertarian party.)

The second bolded part is even more bizarre. Reich is complaining about Republicans issuing directives at a time when Democrats are seriously considering the imposition of a mandate requiring that everyone purchase insurance.

Finally, the third bolded part—the “new ideas”—Seriously, is anyone talking about new ideas? Or are they just bringing up really old ones yet again?

When he wrote the paragraph above, Reich must have been looking into a fun house mirror.

Source: azspot