Liberalism has returned in force, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on Tuesday, reviewing the president’s Inaugural Address…. “One thing is clear from the president’s speech: The era of liberalism is back. His unabashedly far-left-of-center inaugural speech certainly brings back memories of the Democratic Party in ages past,” he said. “If the president pursued that kind of agenda, obviously it’s not designed to bring us together, and certainly not designed to deal with the transcendent issue of our era, which is deficits and debt.”…. Sen. John Thune, a member of GOP leadership, seconded McConnell. “We were reminded yesterday that this is a liberal president with a liberal agenda,” he said.
I don’t know about you, but I’m finding the frustrated bleatings of Conservatives in the wake of the President’s inaugural speech to be rather satisfying. I’m tired of the fact that “Liberal” has been turned into a pejorative by the Right, as if we’re too clueless and irresponsible to be trusted with the reigns of government. It’s a ridiculous assertion I’ve long rejected, but too many have for too long assumed that by calling someone a Liberal, it damns them to the point where having a convincing, supportable argument against them is seen as superfluous. What it’s really done is reveal the Right to be an unserious aggregation of ideologues too arrogant and lazy to defend their positions.
Watching Mitch McConnell’s impotent whining about the President’s “unabashedly far-left-of-center” inaugural speech brought a smile to my face. His invoking the memory of “the Democratic Party in ages past” as if it was some sort of too-horrific-to-recall memory was nothing if not comical. It was deseperate, silly, and it made him look positively bereft of anything resembling power or even credibility. Besides McConnell’s comical rant, at least one inhabitant of the Radical Religious Right accused the President of blasphemy. Desperate times call for desperate people, eh?
I’ve loved EVERY. SECOND. OF. IT. If that makes me a bad person, I’ll wear the opprobrium with pride.
Here’s a refresher for those of you who for too long have laughed at Liberals, smug in the certainty that the mere fact of ridiculing Liberals renders them unworthy of consideration. You have Liberals to thank for the 40-hour work week, workplace safety laws, Social Security, Medicare…well, I could go on, but you can see where I’m heading. Much of the social progress that’s been made in this country has come because Liberals made it happen. Very often throughout our history, Liberals have stood for progress while Conservatives have argued for the status quo, resisting change because they felt it would benefit those who they felt were undeserving. That tradition continues today.
Conservatives love to paint themselves as responsible adults while portraying Liberals as immature and irresponsible. I’ll just end this with one thought that should put that to bed once and for all. A Liberal President (Bill Clinton) left office having balanced the federal budget. His successor, George W. Bush, left office having bequeathed to America the largest deficit in this nation’s history. Draw your own conclusions.
Responsible? Serious? Capable? Honest? Sorry, Conservatives, but you don’t get to wear those labels, not when you fall back on dealing in fear-mongering, character assassination, propaganda, and obstruction. Who are the responsible adults? I don’t think I need to belabor the obvious.
