The Left's 'Smoldering Wreckage' Leads to Smothering Agenda

I simply can't absorb all the information on the left's historic drubbing on Tuesday. I'm most fascinated by the progressive response to the conservative victory in Wisconsin. This really has forced a total appraisal of progressivism's raison d'être.

I suppose I'll just keep blogging the meltdown as it unfolds, but again, the epic angst is utterly phenomenal.

Take some time with Matt Stoller's piece, for example, "Wisconsin Recap: Thanks to Obama, American Left Lies in Smoldering Wreckage." Stoller is a long-time far-left blogger/activist who is steeped in progressive credibility. I used to read his old blog Open Left once in a while, before he turned from blogger to congressional staffer and Democrat political consultant.

Here's the introduction to his "Smoldering Wreckage" piece, via Memeorandum:

On Tuesday, Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker humiliated his Democratic opponent, Tom Barrett, by easily turning back a popular recall attempt sponsored by unions and liberal activists.  The numbers in the election, which were supposed to be close, were ugly, in favor of the Republican.  But this wasn’t just any Republican, Scott Walker is THE Republican, the politician who made his governorship a referendum on a hard right agenda, in a blue state.  Walker waged a direct and very public attack on the major constituencies of the Democratic Party, rolling back rights for women, the working class, and the young with measures such as ending collective bargaining for state employees, privatizing state assets, and repealing Wisconson’s equal pay provisions for women. His agenda provoked a fierce reaction – – Wisconsin citizens occupied the Statehouse for months -  and then a recall.

Yesterday, Walker’s agenda was ratified by the voters of Wisconsin, the state where public sector unions were born.  It’s hard to overstate how bad this is – Wisconsin is now on the road to becoming a right-to-work state, in what is likely to become a right-to-work country.  Right-to-work laws are provisions that allow individual employees to withdraw from unions, and they make it much harder for unions to organize.

And the deeper you look into the race, the worse it looks.   By calling for a recall instead of a general strike after Walker stripped collective bargaining rights and cut benefits for workers, labor and Democratic leadership in the state diverted and then subverted populist energy, channeling it into an electoral process (at least one union, one very active in the occupation of the Capitol, stood apart from the electoral stupidity).  Then, Barrett, an anti-labor centrist, won the Democratic primary by crushing his labor-backed opponent, Kathleen Falk.  Finally, Barrett himself was destroyed by Scott Walker, who outspent Barrett 7-1 with corporate money.  In other words, first, liberals lost a policy battle, then they failed to strike, then they lost a primary election, then they lost a general election to the most high-profile effective reactionary policy-maker in the country.  The conservative beat the moderate who beat the liberal.  And had Barrett won, he wouldn’t even have rolled back Walker’s agenda.  Somehow, in a no-win electoral situation, Democrats and labor managed to lose as badly as they possibly could.

What happened?

Continue reading at the link.

And bear in mind, Stoller's is a criticism from the left. If you read the whole thing you'll see that it's not just Obama, but the entire left-"liberal" institutional apparatus. And while Stoller genuinely believes he's offering up an alternative, his piece is really nothing more than a desperate call to double-down on failure (the giveaway is the attack on corporate "neoliberalism" and the rousing huzzahs to Greece's socialists now raging desperately against the EU).

But Stoller is not alone.

Focusing more narrowly on unions, Richard Yeselson raises points parallel to Stoller, at the New Republic, "Not With a Bang, But a Whimper: The Long, Slow Death Spiral of America’s Labor Movement." And see also Doug Henwood, "Walker’s victory, un-sugar-coated."

But pay special attention to the concluding passage from Ezra Klein at the Washington Post, "Wisconsin recall shows labor isn't coming back. So what's next?":

Republicans have had great success arguing that organized labor has too much political power. So much success, in fact, that it seems clear that labor will soon have too little. But last night showed that Democrats aren't going to get very far simply disputing Republican claims on this point. Rather, they should argue that all interest groups have too much political power, and unite behind legislation that would weaken them.

You have to ponder the implications of that for a second, for Klein's bottom line is simply astounding. It's an admission that the left is losing the political battle in the marketplace of ideas, and its only hope of revival lies down the road of ever increasing authoritarianism. Seriously. Klein offers the Fair Elections Now Act and the DISCLOSE Act as the magic bullets to the progressive resurrection. But make no mistake. Such proposed legislation is just the tip of the iceberg for the left's ultimate goal, which is repeal of the First Amendment to the Constitution. Seems unfathomable, I know. But Klein himself argues that legislation is needed to weaken all interest groups. Not just conservative and business groups, but all interest groups. Of course anyone with even a glancing familiarity with constitutional theory knows that interest groups are to liberty as air is to fire. You can't have democracy in America without interest groups. And that's not all. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, the chief congressional advocate for the DISCLOSE Act, is on record as advocating a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United, and by implication the right of individuals and groups to spend as a matter of First Amendment rights. On MSNBC last night, Rachel Maddow broadcast portions of her Wednesday interview with Minority Leader Pelosi. The whole segment is entitiled, "Is there a Democratic 'Plan B' to defeat dark money?" But the key passages come after the 10 minute mark. Pelosi again announced the goal of a constitutional amendment to limit speech:

It's essential to note that the left's "dark money" meme is ridiculously false. There was no "10-to-1" Republican spending advantage in Wisconsin, as Ben Sharpiro reports: "Spending Gap? Media Ignores $21. Million Unions Spent in WI." And as always, the left is never actually concerned about its assploding political hypocrisy. See Jammie Wearing Fools, "Democrats Lament Too Much Money in Politics as Obama Heads to California for Five More Fundraisers."

So there you have it.

Progressives were crushed decisively on Tuesday, and up from the "smoldering wreckage" is an emboldened agenda to clamp down on conservative speech. This "smothering agenda" has been building for some time. But all the talk about big "dark money" will work as an even greater smokescreen as progressive seek to disguise their historical failures. So keep your eyes peeled. Free speech issues are looking to be up front among the key ideological battles of 2012. It's going to be a nasty fight.

RELATED: From Phil Kerpen, "ALEC Bullying Shows What DISCLOSE Act Is About."