Going to Extremes

In the American Prospect, Michelle Goldberg considers why the Right has tolerated, nay, embraced, its radical fringe, while the so-called "left" quickly disposes of people like Van Jones that recently got dumped as Obama's green jobs tzar for a petition that he signed five years ago.

She explains this as a

product of the left's own organizing strategies. While the foot soldiers of the religious right worked to take the Republican Party over from within, activists of the left generally stayed outside party politics, especially the kind of low-level, precinct-by-precinct mobilization necessary to build political power. Democrats don't cater to them because they haven't made themselves a significant force inside the party.

I would assert that the so-called left, the Democrats, don't cater to the left because unlike the relationship of the Right-leaning Republicans to the far Right, the Democrats are no longer a party of the left at all. Center-right, maybe. But Nancy Pelosi, Bill Clinton, the left? I snicker at the mere idea. Which is why the Democrat don't coddle leftist extremists. In fact they rarely even listen to the moderate left.

Perhaps because this mythical Left isn't bolstered by anything approaching a radical left in the United States. There are a few radical lefties. But organized into something as large as a wing? Even a feather? With original thinking going on? Plans for generalized power-grabbing and huge reforms? No. Absolutely not.

What we have are a couple high profile special interest groups: PETA, Green Peace. And a whole lot of losers whose commitment to radicalism is only signaled by the Che face decorating their tee-shirts.

Very few are developing a complex vision for the whole country. If there are leftist think-tanks like the far right has, they're so far underground they're septic.