Tuesday, July 10, 2018

The left stands at the brink of a return to 1960s-era extremism

We’re living through an interesting moment in modern politics. The left has not reacted well to the election of Donald Trump and has been decrying his violation of norms while also testing the waters for some norm violations of their own. But if the left is attracted to the idea of tossing norms aside to defeat Trump, they are also hesitant about what that might mean.
For instance, you have Rep. Maxine Waters calling for the harassment of everyone who works for Trump in private life. But you also have Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Nancy Pelosi criticizing Waters for crossing a line. You have one far left activist throwing Press Secretary Sarah Sanders out of her restaurant but you also have some people who think that’s going too far. The radicals are behaving badly, but they haven’t quite convinced the leaders to join them yet, at least not in public.
There have been two pieces published by Politico Magazine in the past two days that hover on this question of just how far the left should take this. Yesterday, the site offered an endorsement of crossing the line by a political science professor named Rob Goodman. Goodman discusses a book by another political scientist who has argued the left should do whatever it takes to win and lock Republicans out of power, including packing the Supreme Court and creating several new states. The only caveat Goodman adds to this argument is that the left, or the part of it that is pushing for violating norms to win, should only cross this line if it’s sure it can follow through: --->
Read the rest from John Sexton HERE.

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