About the Democrats and “History”

As I’ve already noted in this blog, the Left’s obsession with history doesn’t go as far as considering whether it’s good history or bad history.  In a superb article, Abe Greenwald makes precisely the same point:

For amid the symbolic fanfare of giant gavels and the tactical gravitas of deployed Lincoln quotes, one important fact is being swept aside: the state’s co-opting of the private sector never ends well. Every learned lesson about free markets and central planning, incentives, the allocation of scarce resources under competing systems, government incompetence, overall quality of life and freedom in socialist vs. capitalist states — in short, the reality of the Cold War — has been unlearned. Sunday night brought us the most ahistoric bit of history-making we’re likely to see in our lifetimes.

Middle East history has also gone out the window. Whenever Israel has acceded to Palestinian demands, the result has been increased Arab violence. The Palestinians, for their part, have yet to do what Israel and America ask: crack down on terrorism and recognize the Jewish state’s right to exist.

But Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Nancy Pelosi can outsmart history. They also know best what’s good for the public, which is opposed to their campus-hatched schemes. Never mind what the people themselves want. The Democrats dismiss, along with history and majority opinion, the very system used to enact policy. The president told Bret Baier, “I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about what the procedural rules are in the House or the Senate.” Of course not, too much history to make.

Read the rest here.