Last week I danced (probably prematurely) on the career grave of Ibram X. Kendi. A demagogue not unlike Joe McCarthy, Kendi’s intolerance for any ideas not his own has resulted in the cancelling of speakers, the ending of careers, the trashing of reputations and an intellectual terror in the academy, the media and corporations that has stifled debate. Now he can’t account for $55 million that was donated to his institute. His credibility is under fire for keeping bad books, not for the bad books he’s written, but we’ll take anything that takes him down.
The hard-left took another self-induced body blow after Hamas terrorists brutalized innocent Israeli civilians and took hostages on October 7th. It was the biggest single-day murder of Jews since the Holocaust. The reaction from the hard-left was predictable. A coalition of 34 leftist student groups at Harvard issued a statement within 24 hours after these atrocities blaming Israel for them and for any more violence that might come of it. And a group of Yale students said, “Breaking out of a prison requires force, not desperate appeals to the colonizer.” Here at the UW, a pro-Palestinian rally on Library Mall included chants of, “Glory to the martyrs.”
Leftist unions also got in on the act. Here’s a passage from a Wall Street Journal article on union reaction:
“The apartheid state of Israel is continuing to break international law & wage horrific crimes against humanity. We unwaveringly stand with the families & children of Palestine,” an SEIU Starbucks Workers United affiliate in Chicago tweeted. A union affiliate in upstate New York added: “The labor movement must support liberation for all and fight all forms of oppression.”
“Freeing Palestine was never going to be flowers and baby animals. What the [expletive] did you expect?” another Starbucks Workers United activist tweeted, blaming the U.S. for being “complicit in oncoming destruction and ethnic cleansing” of Gazans by Israel.
“Our bosses, our government want us to think [Hamas] are enemies of working class people, but they are not,” Kooper Caraway, executive director of the SEIU Connecticut State Council, exclaimed at an anti-Israel rally in New Haven, Conn. “Our enemies are the CEOs,” and “our comrades are in Gaza,” he added before denouncing capitalism, “colonialism” and “occupation.”
As New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg pointed out in an insightful piece last week, all of this has led to a fracturing of the left. She writes: “It’s too early to know how the left’s widespread failure of solidarity will change our politics, but I suspect some sort of fracture is coming. Part of me thinks this could be a moment like after the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary, which, coupled with revelations about the evils of Stalinism, led many left intellectuals to break with communism.”
What also has become clear, as if it hasn’t been forever, is that, given a chance to actually govern, the left would decline. “Perhaps such hideous dogmatism shouldn’t be surprising,” Goldberg wrote. “The left has always attracted certain people who relish the struggle against oppression primarily for the way it licenses their own cruelty; they are one reason movements on the left so reliably produce embittered apostates. Plenty of leftists have long fetishized revolutionary violence in poor countries, perhaps as a way of coping with their own ineffectuality. Che Guevara didn’t become a dorm room icon only for his motorcycle and rakish beret.
“By valorizing terrorism, these voices on the left are effectively choosing to stop contending for power in a serious way — a slow and grinding process rife with setbacks — and indulge instead in messianic projection. There was a time not long ago when the D.S.A. seemed to be emerging as a political force, with several of its members, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman, ascending to Congress. Now it has made itself an embarrassment to most politicians associated with it.”
The left can’t govern because actual governing would require them to listen to opposing viewpoints, to build coalitions, to compromise, to find the votes, to accept a half a loaf now and then. This runs counter to the left’s DNA. They must be 100% right. Any compromise is treason. And, most importantly, accepting the role of leader means that, by definition, they are no longer the victim. And victimhood is the most cherished part of the left’s identity. Plus, it’s so much more fun, more dramatic and more romantic to march around in the streets, carrying signs and chanting. Responsible governing is a slog. It comes with no great songs.
Some sensible people on the left are starting to see their hard-left comrades for what they are: unreasonable, intolerant, anti-liberal and just plain wrong. We can only hope that this will further weaken the hard-left (further “marginalize” them, to use one of their favorite words) and move liberal Democratic politics back toward the center.
Postscript.. The horrible bombing of a hospital in Gaza could revive the left if, in fact, in turns out that the Israeli military is responsible for it. But they claim it was an errant missile fired by another radical group and aimed at Israel. One would think that there might be bomb fragments on the scene that could help identify the source.
Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos 