As I recall, Julian Epstein was Bill Clinton’s most intellectually potent defender against impeachment when he served as chief counsel of the House Judiciary Committee. Now he is a lucid voice of sanity on a few cable news outlets and in the New York Post. Today he writes in the New York Post column “How Trump became Washington’s unlikeliest centrist”:
* * * * *
Democrats are moralizing themselves into oblivion. They have become captive of a pagan religion of sorts, a messianic delusion whose meta-narrative is that Democrats are liberators of “oppressive” Western traditions.
The problem is that few agree with this anti-Western dystopic worldview. Most think of the West, for all its faults, as having done more than any civilization ever to lift humanity out of poverty and usher in individual rights and liberties.
So the messianism not only places Democrats in an intellectual space out of touch with voters, it drives a culture of reflexive obstructionism, extremism, and internal contradictions that are making the party weaker, smaller, and more regional.
De-nuclearize Iran? “Violation of War Powers Act!” Democrats claim, ignoring that Obama dropped 26,000 bombs in seven countries in his last year in office. Secure borders and deport violent illegal migrants at a pace slower than Obama’s 3 million deportations?
Our affiliated left-wing street activists will riot in the streets. During the desegregation battles of the 1960s and 1970s, the left insisted on the critical role of federal law enforcement. Now the nihilists on the left take the opposite position. Sanctuary cities and attacking/obstructing ICE agents are fundamentally secessionist.
Beyond this nihilism, Democrats also have to grapple with profound internal contradictions as the party attempts to coddle the “intersectional” omni-cause.
For example, with Iran as its benefactor, Hamas is the world’s most oppressive, racist, genocidal movement today on the planet Earth.
But Democratic mayoralty candidates like Zohran Mamdani in New York embrace organizations that drape themselves in the rhetoric and goals of the Nazi-like terror group — a group that today is executing Palestinians in Gaza who help feed starving civilians.
Obstructionism. Cultural extremism to the point of self-contradiction. Voters used to know Democrats as a party that “builds bridges” to our future economic challenges.
But now voters know Democrats as a party that defends an ever-growing socialist welfare state headed for bankruptcy within the decade, extreme cultural leftism, Nazi terror groups abroad, failed educational institutions at home, and angry-mob street protests….
Whole thing here.
