I really doubt a "hard left" liberal could get elected, by which I mean its almost impossible, because it seems to me our society has changed drastically from the days of the old, traditional Roosevelt to Johnson great society liberalism.When I say "hard left," that is what I mean, someone who would support progressive taxation for the purpose of redistributing wealth, support unions, support strict anti-trust laws, strong regulations to protect consumers and investors, and social programs to help the poor. Essentially, its about protecting the weak from the powerful, levelling the playing field, and keeping the markets open and honest. Civil rights and equality and openness and honesty in government go without saying. Thats not really hard left by my definition, these principles were all generally accepted 60 years ago, and I think these are the fundamental purposes of government.
But it seems our society itself no longer accepts these basic premises. Even here we have some who defend Microsoft's "right" to have a monoply, who question income redistribution, who accept the conservative dogma that free markets can solve problems on their own.
I think that this is evidence that our entire society has become much more conservative than it was. Some guesses as to why:
We are too spoiled, there has been no shared sacrifice or common hardship since the depression and WWII. As a result we have less of a sense of community, and we are less understanding of tragedy and failure. When everyone suffers, when you see good people you know lose their job and become poor through no fault of their own, you understand that the poor are poor mostly for reasons beyond their control, not because they are lazy. Shared hardship promotes community and compassion (even the Marines know that, hence bootcamp). We are too rich and it is making us more judgmental and mean and stingy.
We are too materialistic, we have elevated material success above all other factors, we literally worship wealth and thus feel that the end justifies the means when it comes to money. You get that attitude when you try to argue about Gates, for example, people say "sure, he was ruthless, but you have to be, he succeeded" as if the mere fact that he attained great wealth is all the proof needed that the means by which he attained it were okay. This is why for some odd reason even poor people gare sympathetic to millionaires and oppose taxation and regulation. Its almost a religion, money equals virtue and worth, in the mind of way too many.
Journalistic "profssionalism." Beginning about 60 years ago, jurnalism changed, journalists were taught that they had to be "profesional" and "objective." Before that, everyone knew every paper had a bias and interpreted accordingly, now we just accept this myth that the news is fair and unbiased, which is crap. But even worse is the way this affects coverage of issues; journalists today seem to thin that "objectivity" requires them to give equal respect to "both sides" on an issue. I think thats way wrong, because frankly, there is only one right side to many issues. The Bush tax cut favors the rich, thats objective reality. But watch the news, you will seee they give equal time to the person who says it favors the rich, nd to the republican whore who says it will create jobs and help the poor. By trying to appear objective, the news creates the false impression that its up in the air and either side might be right, as a result, some viewers beleive one side or the other (thats us and them, the voters) while most viewer beleive neither (a perfectly valid approach) and they write the whole thing off and they don't vote.
Greed.
Ignorance. Our schools really do suck in some ways, kids are amazingly uninformed on so much that is important, there is a superficial understanding of many things and deep understanding of little, it seems.
Violence. We are a very violent culture, driven by ultra-violent entertainments, action hero movies in which literally hundreds are killed by the "hero" in an hour. Deliberate cruelty is glorified (hasta la vista, baby) and weakness is derided. We are a cruel and volent people and we are way too ready, for example, to "nuke em", fuck them, kill them, lock them up and throw away the key.
Essentially, we have as a society rejected the traditional virtues, charity, mercy, forgiveness. Charity is not just for the "deserving," if they were deserving it would be "wages." Mercy is not for the innocent, its only mercy if they are guilty, sme with forgiveness, we are supposed to forgive those who hurt us, who commit crimes against us, its not something you only do when its no skin off your teeth. Our society has completely rejected these virtues in practice, now paying only lip-service to them. They are all now regared as weaknesses by a society that worships aggression and success above all and has no pity for "losers."
Since most of the ideals of the old fashioned left involve these virtues, charity, mercy, protecting the poor and helpless, making sure the game is fair, our society as a whole equates "liberal" with "weak, namby pamby,loser." Its sad.
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