Once again, participatory democrat Katrina vanden Heuvel extols more democracy as a cure for the unpleasantness of democracy, while also recommending the singular brutality of an imperial presidency to deliver blunt-force trauma to the contentious democracy we have:
We need a transformational presidency, able to smash the failed, entrenched and corrupt politics of the center.... And what this nation desperately needs isn’t partisan unity, but a fierce and growing movement that will challenge not just the wing nuts of the right, but an establishment in both parties that has failed the country.
In unrealistic brief, a putsch, a revolutionary cadre, a proletarian dictatorship led by anyone but the complacent proletariat -- and all of it topped by a somewhat violent though resplendently virtuous Man of Steel.
You know, cookie-cutter idealism, freshman-year progressivism, an MGM-musical kind of splashy boosterism which, in vanden Heuvel's cool and precise 1,000 words, manages to advance absolutely nothing.
What, exactly, does Ms. vanden Heuvel oppose? "Failed, entrenched and corrupt politics." What does she propose? "Challenging" those who have "failed the country."
Sort of takes your breath away, does it not? A new kind of politics, a new age of enlightenment; one in which we soundly reject failure and corruption, while embracing, well ... success and clean living.
How do we get there? I haven't the vaguest fucking idea. Nor does Katrina vandel Heuvel.