Wall Street Journal Opinion
The constant mischief of the progressive
left is hurting the nation's morale. There are few areas of national
life left in which they are not busy, and few in which they're not
making it worse. There are always more regulations, fees and fiats,
always more cultural pressure and insistence.
The
president brags he has a pen and a phone. He uses the former to sign
executive orders. It is not clear why he mentioned the latter since he
rarely attempts to bring legislators over to his side. Who exactly is he
calling? The most hopeful thing he's done is signal this week what
he'll be up to after he leaves. He will work with young minority men.
Good. He is a figure of inspiration to them, and they need and deserve
encouragement. This also leaves us understanding for the first time the
true purpose of his so far unsuccessful presidency: to launch a
meaningful postpresidency. I'm glad that's clear.
But
to American morale. Here one refers to recent polling data. Gallup in
December had 72% of those polled saying big government is a bigger
threat to the future than big business and big labor—a record high. This
may be connected to ObamaCare,
an analyst ventured.
Rasmussen
this week had only 32% of those polled saying the country is
headed in the right direction, with 61% saying we're on the wrong track.
Both numbers fluctuate, but the right track is down two points since
this time last year and the wrong track up three. Gallup also had only
39% of respondents saying they saw America in a positive position, with
less than half thinking it will be better in five years.
None
of these numbers are new, exactly, as they reflect long-term trends.
But they never lose their power to startle. The persistent blues, the
lack of faith, the bet that things won't get better—it just doesn't
sound like America.
We are suffering in great part from
the politicization of everything and the spread of government not in a
useful way but a destructive one. Everyone wants to help the poor, the
old and the sick; the safety net exists because we want it. But voters
and taxpayers feel bullied, burdened and jerked around, which again is
not new but feels more intense every day. Common sense and native wit
tell them America is losing the most vital part of itself in the
continuing shift of power from private to public. Rules, regulations,
many of them stupid, from all the agencies—local, state, federal—on the
building of a house, or the starting of a business. You can only employ
so many before the new insurance rules kick in so don't employ too many,
don't take a chance! Which means: Don't grow. It takes the utmost
commitment to start a school or improve an existing one because you'll
come up against the unions, which own the politicians.
It's
all part of the malaise, the sclerosis. So is the eroding end of the
idea that religious scruples and beliefs have a high place that must
culturally and politically be respected. The political-media complex is
bravely coming down on florists with unfashionable views. On
Twitter
TWTR +1.60%
Thursday the freedom-fighter who tweets as @FriedrichHayek asked:
"Can the government compel a Jewish baker to deliver a wedding cake on a
Saturday? If not why not." Why not indeed. Because the truly tolerant
give each other a little space? On an optimistic note, the Little
Sisters of the Poor haven't been put out of business and patiently await
their day in court.
I think a lot of
people right now, certainly Republicans and conservatives, feel like a
guy in a batting cage taking ball after ball from an automatic pitching
machine. He's hitting the ball and keeping up and suddenly the machine
starts going berserk. It's firing five balls a second, then 10. At first
he tries to hit a few. Then he's just trying to duck, trying not to get
hurt.
That's how people feel about the
demands and dictates. The balls keep coming at them politically,
locally, culturally. Republicans and conservatives comprise at least
half the country. That's a lot of people.
***
In the dark screwball comedy that is ObamaCare, the Congressional Budget Office revealed last month the law will provide disincentives to work. Don't worry, said
Nancy Pelosi,
people can take that time and go become poets and painters. At
first you think: Huh, I can do that, I've got a beret. Then you think:
No, I have to earn a living. Then you think, poor hardworking rube that
you are: Wait a second, I'm subsidizing all this. I've been cast in the
role of
Catherine de Medici,
patroness of the arts. She at least had a castle, I just get a
bill!
The IRS is coming up with new
rules making it harder for independent groups to organize and resist the
constant messages and claims of government. Meanwhile it warns
taxpayers they must be able to prove they have insurance coverage when
they file their 2014 taxes or they'll face a fine (or tax, or fee),
which the government has decided to call a "shared responsibility
payment." It is $95 per adult and $47.50 per child to a maximum of $285,
or 1% of your household income, whichever is higher. People already
enraged by canceled coverage, higher premiums, huge deductibles, lost
doctors and limited networks, fume. And the highest-ranking Democrat on
Capitol Hill, Majority Leader
Harry Reid,
goes to the floor of the Senate to say of the ObamaCare horror
stories that "all of them are untrue." They're "stories made up out of
whole cloth" spread by "the multibillionaire
Koch
brothers."
Imagine that—you have
real problems caused by a bad law, and Mr. Reid tells you that what you
are experiencing in your own life is a lie made up by propagandists. He
sounded like
Lenin.
There is no cholera in the new Russia.
The
NSA is a real and present threat to your privacy, HHS actually never
has to come up with a true number on ObamaCare enrollments or costs, and
at the EPA no one talks anymore about why
Al Armendariz,
a top regional administrator, felt free to brag in a 2010 speech
that his "philosophy of enforcement" could be compared with the practice
by ancient Roman soldiers of crucifying random victims. When it
surfaced, he left the agency. Did his mind-set?
People
feel beset because they are. All these things are pieces of a larger,
bullying ineptitude. And people know, they are aware.
Conservatives
sometimes feel exhausted from trying to fight back on a million fronts.
A leftist might say: "Yes, that's the plan."
But
the left too is damaged. They look hollowed out and incoherent. Their
victories, removed of meaning, are only the triumphs of small
aggressions. They win the day but not the era. The result is not
progress but more national division, more of a grinding sense of
dislike. At first it will be aimed at the progressive left, but in time
it will likely be aimed at America itself, or rather America as It Is
Now. When the progressive left wins, they will win, year by year, less
of a country.
