Charles Blow's Saturday column on the conservative resurgence is headlined "Liberals in Limbo [1]" but leaves the left with this rallying cry: "Great Recessions don't last. Great ideas do." (He's talking about liberal ideas, in case that's not obvious.)
Is "Left" becoming a four-letter word?
You'd think so lately with each day bringing more news of unconscionable conservative tilts in the electorate, while the drumbeat of the Democrats' supposed death march to November gets ever louder.
Not shying away from the bad tidings, Blow summarized several recent poll-blows to liberalism, like a one showing that most Americans favored "Arizona's hostile new immigration law", another showing more wanted a Supreme Court nominee who would "make the court more conservative" than liberal, and yet another poll showing a plurality still favor increasing drilling for oil and gas off the coasts" even in the wake of the BP oil spill. Blow summarized that last finding: "Environment be damned."
But Blow rationalized the conservative comeback with a self-satisfied liberal cliche, that it was merely irrational "fear of the future."
Better to acknowledge that the anger and frustration felt across the country, however fanatical and freighted, must find release, and it will do so in November. Then you can accept it for what it is: not a failure of philosophy, but a fear of the future. That future can be deferred, but it will not be denied.
I am convinced that the right may win the day, but the left will win the age. That's because the right is running an intellectually bereft campaign of desperation and disenchantment, amplified by a recession.
Great Recessions don't last. Great ideas do.
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