March 11, 2023

MATT TAIBII: The Democrats Have Lost the Plot.

A longtime editor once cracked that the Democrats have been stuck since the mid-sixties trying to run Kennedy clones in elections, cranking out one toothy, tallish facsimile after another, from Gary Hart to John Kerry to Beto O’Rourke. Goldman is one of the latest, a literal handsome Dan who’s an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, worth over $250 million, and who opposed Medicare for All and the Green New Deal while marketing himself as “tough on crime.” All of these qualities make him the kind of quintessential born-on-third-base triangulator the party loves.

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This made the end of Goldman’s foray in this direction all the more confusing:

GOLDMAN: Because you said earlier, I believe that you did not see Russia— you could not confirm that Russia interfered in our election in 2016, that you don’t believe that. Is that your testimony here today? You don’t believe that they did?

TAIBBI: I think it’s possible that they may have on a small scale, but certainly not to what’s been reported.

GOLDMAN: What’s been reported or what’s been included in the indictments?

TAIBBI: Well, again, indictments are allegations. They’re not proof.

GOLDMAN: I understand. It’s pretty detailed allegations…

TAIBBI: And the Mueller indictment, by the way —

GOLDMAN: You should go back and read the indictments, and tell us if you think there’s no proof of it.

Here I was going to point out that the second of the cases Goldman cited had been dropped by prosecutors because Concord showed up in court, but Goldman stepped on that quickly:

TAIBBI: Some of those defendants, by the way…

GOLDMAN: Let me move on. Please, let me move on. That’s how this works. You should know this by now.

The irony is that what Goldman was doing, confusing accusations with proof — as Thomas Jefferson said, the phenomenon of people whose “suspicions may be evidence” — was the entire reason for the hearing. Michael and I were trying to describe a system that wants to bypass proof and proceed to punishment, a radical idea that this new breed of Democrat embraces. I think they justify this using the Sam Harris argument, that in pursuit of suppressing Trump, anything is justified. But by removing or disrespecting the rights to which Americans are accustomed, you make opposition movements like Trump’s, you don’t stop them.

Yesterday was memorable for other reasons, but a depressing eye-opener as well, forcing me to see up close the intellectual desert that’s spread all the way to the edges within the party I once supported. There are no more pockets of Wellstones and Kuciniches who were once tolerated and whose job it is to uphold a constitutionalist position within the larger whole. That crucial little pocket of principle is gone, and I don’t think it’s coming back.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: And speaking of losing the plot:

Related: Twitter hearing uncovers Democrats’ chilling message to journalists.

(Updated and bumped.)

Posted at 1:45 pm by Ed Driscoll