Why America Disappoints Liberals

One of the most baffling and frustrating features of American politics is the consistent dissatisfaction of the left with life in America.

Consider racial relations - long a cause celebre with American liberals. Slavery formally ended one hundred and fifty years ago.  Of course, racial equality hardly existed in a de facto sense back then.  Jim Crow legislation in the South was initiated to “keep blacks down”.  Prejudice in the North, though not formal, was just as prevalent. 

But look where matters are now.  The President is black, prominent political leaders across the land share African heritage, and voter turnout in 2012 in the South was higher for blacks than it was for whites.

Such progress, one would have thought, would be cause for jubilation on the American Left.  In fact, one might have hoped that they would, like most other Americans, stop automatically viewing events involving other races through a racial prism.  Wishful thinking.

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court told Congress to revisit the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  Conditions in the South which prompted its passage 50 years ago are no longer present.  It was, therefore, a violation of Constitutional Federalism to keep South-specific restrictions in place.

Oh my!  Did you see prominent liberals donning their Chicken Little outfits to pronounce that the sky was falling?  The Ku Klux Klan, they might as well have announced, was now able to rise again. 

And how about initial reactions to the Zimmerman case in Florida?  Professional race baiters like Rev. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, of course, didn’t miss the opportunity to fling “racism” around.

 

But more telling was the reaction of a mainstream organ of the left – the New York Times.  Its initial editorial on the killing suggested that racial overtones were present and labeled George Zimmerman as a “white Hispanic”.

[The term Hispanic is commonly applied to people of Latin origin.  Using the Times approach, perhaps Barack Obama, who has a mixed racial background, should be termed a “black white man”.]

To the left, it often appears that America can’t do anything right.

 

One would get a similar reaction if the topic pertained to any liberal objective such as eradicating poverty or improved healthcare.

To them, American hasn’t done enough.  But the truth is there will never be “enough” to satisfy the left.

 

Certainly, some of those expressing such views have ulterior motives.   Racial hustlers, such as the aforementioned Al Sharpton, would no longer have a podium if race relations were deemed to be healthy.

But I suspect that the bulk of the left is dissatisfied because of strongly- held philosophical reasons.  Whether they recognize this or not, they are Utopians.

Perfection is not for this world – or America -- conservatives say.  Liberals may superficially acknowledge that truism about human nature.  But deep down they don’t want to accept it.

Liberals are inclined to believe that to acknowledge progress is a mistake.  An appreciation of progress generates satisfaction which, in turn, saps the drive to continue the quest for perfection.

[Do you remember Michelle Obama’s statement after her husband won the Iowa caucus?  “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really proud of my country.”  By the way, Iowa has a miniscule black population.  Had Iowa’s whites been racists the year before?]

Non-liberals, looking around the world, see how fortunate we Americans truly are.  Those on the Left see something different.

They see that the world’s troubles are often our fault (remember President Obama’s early 2009 apology tour of the Middle East?).  Anyway, America, they tell themselves – including those reading the New York Times or watching MSNBC – is so deficient in its possession of virtue that it does not fail to disappoint.  If only America weren’t so flawed, all would be fine.