A striking, and perhaps increasingly common, feature of Progressive political rhetoric is how Progressive ideas only ever exist in two stages:
As long as the idea appears to be politically unpopular, any mention of it by a non-Progressive is easily dismissed by the Great and the Good. It is just a fringe phenomenon which cannot be associated with the decent, mainstream, common-sense progressive politician! Even talking about it is just cheap reactionary rhetoric to stir up the hatreds and fears their slavering hordes are so inclined to. Any effort to forestall such ideas from becoming fact, when that is so ludicrously unlikely, is just a distraction from the
real issues.
No honest journalist should fall for such an obvious con game by ever mentioning the idea.As soon as the idea appears to be politically viable, it instantly becomes so obviously a good and right thing that anybody who does not support it reveals himself to be a hateful bigot. Such bigots must not be heard and their hate must not be allowed to poison the lives and threaten the security of so many innocent victims.
Notably, there is never an intermediate stage at which it is conceded that the idea might be worthy of discussion between decent, reasonable individuals with differing views. The transition from red-herring to holy-truth status is instantaneous. Debate is never appropriate.
One recent striking example of this phenomenon is of course the issue of a Constitutional right to same-sex marriage.Which the author has for decades favored as a policy. It is easy to forget that as recently as a decade ago, there were serious Congressional efforts to pass a federal traditional-marriage amendment.
The opposition to these efforts was not led by those who publicly favored a Constitutional right to same-sex marriage. Such leaders were very rare then and all prominent Democrats then as fervently denounced this idea as they today fervently denounce any who disagree with it (which must include themselves from a few years earlier).
Rather the successful opposition to the traditional-marriage amendment was led by those who claimed to oppose same-sex marriage, but dismissed efforts at a traditional-marriage amendment as a pointless waste of time because it was entirely inconceivableYou keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
that the right-wing Supreme Court
would ever recognize such a right.
Yet now, only a few years later, the Supreme Court (over the dissent of only a handful bigots) has done just that. Highly accomplished engineers are pushed out as CEOs positions of companies they co-founded and were born to lead, because it was revealed that years earlier they had supported—along with a majority of Californians—a state traditional-marriage amendment. Popular news organizations declare that there are no two sides to the same-sex marriage issue. Anybody under the mistaken impression that there were two sides is not the sort of person with which these organizations would wish to be associated.
That many of the political leaders most adored by Progressives, such as President Obama, only recently expressed the very same opinions which they now contend merit banishment from polite society is a memory which needs to be suppressed. It is uncouth and divisive to even mention such facts.Hence, the author’s recommended response for Republican presidential candidates asked by reporters whether they believe that President Obama is a Christian. Of course he is! As the President has stated on more than one occasion, it is his Christian faith which forms the solid rock on which his unshakable opposition to same-sex marriage is based.
What progressive idea will be the next to make the jump? One has to guess because Progressives, while still in stage 1, will of course deny that they would ever consider endorsing anything so outrageous.
Two subjects which much agitate the Progressive mind these days are sex change (yay!) and male-dominated corporations (boo!). But these can be combined into one progressive solution: Mandatory sex changes for male CEOs and board members of public corporations until the board room and the C-suite are as gender-balanced and diverse as the country!
Outrageous! We would never contemplate anything that radical,
will say Progressives. Perhaps so. But then that is just what they said about a Constitutional right to same-sex marriage only a few years ago.
