Future historians
seeking to discover why America so easily surrendered its democratic
traditions and constitutional government in 2001 will find plenty
to study in the rise of a liberal aristocracy that became increasingly
disinterested in such values. Like all aristocracies, it existed
primarily to protect itself, had an impermeable faith in its
own virtue, and held in contempt those who did not share its
values or accept its hegemony.
For many years,
20th century liberalism was saved from becoming an aristocracy
because of the dominance of such constituencies as labor, recent
immigrants, and ethnic minorities. By the 1960s, however, these
constituencies - thanks in part to successful liberal policies
- had advanced socially and economically to the point that they
no longer functioned as a massive reminder of what liberalism
was meant to be about.
With the end of
the Great Society, liberal Democrats began a steady retreat from
liberalism climaxing in the Clinton's administration's systematic
dismantling of liberal programs and paradigms.
The two greatest
victims of this retreat were social democracy and civil liberties.
It was not that the new liberal aristocrats actually opposed
either; it just didn't matter much to them. Liberalism was no
longer a matter of masses yearning to breathe free, but of boomers
yearning for an SUV.
While there were
still repeated expressions of faith in a declining number of
icons such as diversity, abortion, and the environment, the fact
was that the liberal elite had become far more characterized
by its capacity for self-defense than by its concern for others.
After all, although seldom mentioned, the stereotypical boomer
or yuppie was, in fact, were liberals. So were the rising elites
of entertainment and journalism.
Most striking among
these elites was the disappearing concern for those at the bottom.
Liberal city councils went after the homeless and engaged in
other forms of socio-economic cleansing; the Clinton administration
attacked welfare in a manner once limited to the Republican right;
prison populations soared without a murmur from the liberals;
Democrats supported without question a cruel and unconstitutional
war on drugs; the liberal media aristocrats prided themselves
in faux realpolitik and patronizing prescriptions for the masses.
And if you went to church or carried a gun you were a fool or
worse.
The trend produced
remarkable betrayals of liberal values. Members of the Congressional
Black Caucus backed the war on drugs; the leaders of NOW repeatedly
defended a serial sexual predator in the White House. And liberal
academia provided all purpose justification through the magic
of postmodern rationalization.
Meanwhile, for all
the talk of diversity, the percentage of blacks in colleges actually
peaked in the late 1970s. The gap between the percentage of young
whites and blacks in college likewise actually grew over the
past thirty years. And meanwhile, the prison population - disproportionately
minority - soared from under 400,000 in 1970 to about two million
today.
Through it all,
the liberal aristocracy was the dog that didn't bark. Just as
Sherlock Holmes' creature failed to warn of an intruder, so America's
liberal leadership failed repeatedly to warn of infringements
of civil liberties, of unconstitutional acts and legislation,
or to rise to the defense of people beyond its own class.
When the liberal
aristocracy backed the war on drugs, happily sacrificed national
and local sovereignty to multinational corporations, yawned as
the Clintons disassembled their own purported cause and became
incensed when Ralph Nader dared to stand up for it, it was clear
that this atrophied elite would not handle a real crisis.
And now it has happened
- and only one liberal Democrat in the Senate opposes vast new
police powers and hardly a liberal voice on TV or the op ed pages
speaks for sanity. The irony is that the public will not reward
the liberal aristocracy for its cowardice but will listen even
more devotedly to those before whom the liberals have cowered.
In the end, the liberal elite will not only have betrayed its
own constituency, it won't even have saved itself.
-2001