Posted by
Disgruntled in NY on Thursday, September 24, 2009 2:46:17 PM
Writing in yesterday's WSJ, Thomas Frank said that Democrats should, like Republicans, welcome a debate about
ideas. "Instead," he says, "they pine for civility, pretending that the argument comes down to the scary rhetoric issuing from the right."
Frank looks at the current state of affairs and says "there has been no better time for a vindication of activist, Rooseveltian government since the 1930s." However, many of those who disagree with him (in good faith, I would add) see the same "Rooseveltian" activism that gave rise to the "malaise" of the '60s and '70s. We now have 30+ years of research that show, in a variety of ways, that social planning model now being taken for a spin by Obama, Pelosi et al just does not work. Instead of trying to come up with a new model for delivery of social goods that he so achingly yearns to see implemented, he instead continues to advocate the same tired old solutions that we know do not work. At least Bill Clinton was a "new" Democrat (and, as I remember, even Mike Dukakis claimed to have learned something from liberalism's failures). Frank would not even acknowledge any such failure.
One reason for Obama's plumetting poll numbers is that an increasing percentage of the people in the country have come to a conclusion that is increasingly at odds with Frank's policy choices. In
What's the Matter With Kansas?, Frank espoused his belief that people in Kansas (and other "Red States") had reached such a conclustion because they had been duped (to over-simplify his argument). Frank's latest column betrays the same conceit. Unless and until Frank can come to grips with the valid reasoning of those with whom he disagrees, he will continue to wonder why we don't live in his version of utopia.