I couldn't make it all the way through the latest column from that oracle of both paranoid progressivism and progressive triumphalism, the Washington Post's Katrina vanden Heuvel, without chortling.
In "The Democratic establishment is right to panic," the columnist demonstrates that while she herself stands second to no man in acquiring the clinical jitters, she also misreads the establishment's cause for worry, and in the process,
advocates a blinkered path to losing the 2020 presidential election against the most damaged Republican since Herbert Hoover.
"The Democratic donor class is panicking," writes vanden Heuvel, because "Joe Biden [is] burning through cash yet unable to put away his rivals." Therefore "the chances of a progressive left nominee" — Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren — "leading the ticket in 2020 are on the rise." Both progressive candidates "are outpacing Biden in fundraising and running circles around him on the debate stage."
It's this rapturous March of the left's Toy Soldiers that has vanden Heuvel taking seriously the late entry of a Hillary Clinton or Mike Bloomberg or John Kerry at the urging of Democratic establishment members, who, she says, "are seemingly desperate for someone to swoop in and save them."
She then mildly contradicts herself by noting that with his recent acceptance of super PAC assistance, Biden soon will have little or no money problems. That takes care of at least half of the establishment's "panic."
On another befuddled note, vanden Heuvel insists, in a whopper of neurotic suspicion, that Pete Buttigieg has forsaken his Medicare-for-all support for a public option "in an apparent effort to elevate his standing among the party elite" — rather than simply positioning himself for a general-election race.
These party elites, observes the columnist, protest that centrist ideology plays no part in perhaps wanting a nominee alternative to the weaknesses of Sanders, Warren, and Biden (who, by the way, former U.N. Ambassador Nicholas Burns said yesterday is by far the most competent in matters of national security).
Vanden Heuvel quotes former Obama adviser David Axelrod as being a part of this elitist, non-ideological ruse:
"There is genuine concern that the horse many have bet on [Biden] may be pulling up lame and the horse who has sprinted out front [presumably Warren, though she hasn't] may not be able to win."
Ah-ha! counters the columnist. "The truth is that establishment angst is being driven, above all, by power" — my emphasis, although one can almost hear vanden Heuvel shrieking — "and moneyed Democrats who can feel their grasp on power in the party slipping."
But wait. Won't those "moneyed Democrats" now be giving to Biden and Buttigieg, essentially ensuring a moderate nominee? No matter. "Big donors," she continues, "may be willing to pay more in taxes under a Democratic president, but they seem unwilling to abide the loss of access or influence over the party’s direction that a Sanders or Warren presidency would bring" — the prospect of which, again, vanden Heuvel takes seriously.
It's true that a Sanders or Warren presidency would bring a mammoth change in the party's direction. It's also true that a Sanders or Warren presidency is as likely as Pee Wee Herman's.
Just as far too many progressives are wont to do, vanden Heuvel makes the characteristic right-wing mistake of eyeing dark, complex conspiracies where there is none, while overlooking what would be William Occam's simplest, most straightforward explanation, rather than one requiring further assumptions:
The Democratic establishment principally wants Donald Trump gone; it knows a political moderate could make that happen, while Sanders and Warren's Medicare-for-All proposal alone would send them packing.
Why is political reality so hard for so many progressives to grasp?