“The new right in America emerged as a reaction to the social welfare state created by the New Deal. It became a political force after World War II.” (NOTES: Paul Gottfried and Thomas Fleming, The Conservative Movement (Boston, Mass.: Twayne Publishers, 1988). A critical account of the rise of American conservatism written from the point of view of a traditional or classical conservative as opposed to a neoconservative.)
– Shadia Drury
Leo Strauss and the American Right
p. 26
AN ARGUMENT FOR A NEW LIBERALISM is Peter Beinart’s requisite contribution to the DLC’s campaign to toss Michael Moore, MoveON, and other “soft” liberals from the Democratic Party. Beinart points to the expansion of the Union for Democratic Action (UDA) into the Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), a defining moment of dischord championed by party celebrities including Eleanor Roosevelt and Arthur Schelsinger, Jr., whose objective was to reshape the Democratic party by ousting not only avowed communists from party particulars but also the non-communists who refused to condemn the real article whenever the opposition or these ADA neoliberals might detect and label them. Beinart wants readers to believe that Michael Moore is a modern-day Henry Wallace and the purging should commence immediately.
What is missing from these reactions to Beinart’s article?
Gingrich’s Contract with America wasn’t an indictment of “soft” liberals. It was a declaration of war on the Democratic party itself for being the harbingers of the social contract that to this day is regarded as evidence of the communist/socialist bent of the anti-communist heroes that Beinart extols.
If the DLC wants liberal support for progressive internationalism then why not explain what difference there is between a neoliberal and a neoconservative? Hearts and minds policies? What a sick joke. It is this heavy-handed “knowing” what’s best for societies at large and abandonment of causes they claim to champion that renders their efforts so repulsive, not only to the FOX cultists, but to “soft” liberals as well.
Moore and MoveON were complaint whores for the DLC. I hope they’ve learned their lesson!