Much has been made of the precipitous decline and near death of political discourse in the United States.  Many attribute this to the coarsening of the language.  However, this factor is a symptom of a current underlying and foundational dilemma: the inability of not only the general public but nearly all of the so-called societal leaders and opinion makers to generate an original thought,  as well as a stubborn refusal, because of a rapidly evolving totalitarian mindset on the Left and their total domination of the Democratic Party, to use reason and logic when confronted with irrefutable facts and arguments.

These traits can be explained, insofar as the general public is concerned, as the consequence of their subjection for the past forty years to a woeful and deliberately incomplete education bordering on indoctrination.  However, this factor does not fully explain many of the so-called best and brightest falling into the same abyss and being unable to coherently expound on an original thought or concept while mindlessly espousing a failed statist ideology.

Those who publically espouse the statist philosophy do so in age-old and threadbare platitudes.  The depth of thought rarely exceeds three basic tenets: 1) capitalism and individual wealth accumulation is evil; 2) only an economy and society dominated and controlled by a powerful central government, controlled by the left, can guarantee fairness of outcome and absence of any moral absolutes and 3) anyone who disagrees with 1 and 2 is dangerous, ignorant and not only greedy but tyrannical and thus must be relegated to the ash heap of society by any means possible.

Not wanting to understand that these tenets have been in existence since the late 1840’s, the current proponents act as if they have discovered some new and overwhelmingly successful concept.  The failure of those nations that chose to go down this road is conveniently ignored or mired in blissful ignorance.  Mindlessly defending American Progressivism, regardless of it irrefutable failures, is all that matters.

This is most evident when the advocates of this errant viewpoint appear on television or the radio to debate or discuss the issues of the day.  Whenever conveniently among their fellow-travelers, nearly every conversation immediately degenerates into either childish name-calling directed at conservatives or a competition to determine who can fabricate the most outrageous and false accusation aimed at any and all on the Right who disagree with the Left and their stewardship of the country.

Whenever these same proponents appear with the conservative opposition, a pre-programmed recording is switched on.  It consists of: 1) Barack Obama and the Democrats are doing a great job considering how much the Republicans and Conservatives have done in the past to foster inequality, destroy the environment and oppose any and all lifestyle choices; 2) the nation needs to spend more money to solve all problems while raising taxes on the evil rich as punishment for exploiting the masses;  3) conservatives are callous, avaricious and care little for minorities, women and children; and 4) any overt criticism of President Obama and the good intentions of the Democratic Party is a not so subtle expression of racism. When called out on these points and confronted with irrefutable facts, the recording is switched on again and repeated as often as necessary.

These true-believers never offer any new ideas or concepts on how to improve the lot of the people except to expand government.  How or why government bureaucracies coercing additional trillions of dollars from the marketplace and spending it as they see fit would make life better when it has not worked in other countries is not discussed, as that question cannot be answered and is thus ignored.   What is not ignored is the unwritten marching order to regurgitate a well-worn script to undermine, demean and destroy those who actively oppose the progressive agenda. 

All this infantile babbling is a manifestation not only of mind-numbed robotic incompetence but, more importantly, the necessity for the vast majority of those who traffic in these banalities to be part of what they perceive to be the in-crowd and the absolute necessity to stay in the good graces of the majority of the Ruling Class, which is predominantly left-wing, thus maintaining access not only to government largess but ego gratifying mainstream news and entertainment media attention.  This subservience requires no independence of thought -- being a mindless foot-soldier for the cause maintains an emotional attachment to the elites regardless of the long term consequences of promoting a failed ideology and the authoritarian mindset that accompanies it.

For the past 100 years the primary trait of the leaders of the socialist/Marxist movements throughout the world has not been an unabashed belief in ideology, but an overweening narcissism.  This ideology has been the perfect vehicle to subjugate the masses and control the levers of power.  Thus it has been a complement to the addled thought process of these despots, who have believed that their superiority to the unwashed masses was unquestioned and their ability to govern was beyond dispute.  The current leadership of the American Left, as personified by Barack Obama, are also motivated by this same narcissism and power lust.

The majority of the American people, asleep during the past sixty years of overwhelming peace and prosperity, are gradually waking up to the massive deception that has been perpetrated by the Left and their inability to solve the almost insolvable problems they, in large part, have created.   Thus the tone and nature of political discourse has become more strident as the Left, in an effort to protect their gains, status and self-image, will do or say anything regardless of the damage it may inflict on the country including demanding the de facto repeal of the First Amendment.  As Kevin D. Williamson points out at the National Review:

They have sought to use the FCC to revoke the broadcast licenses of Rupert Murdoch and other political hate totems, and have long dreamt of using federal regulation to shut down talk radio.  They have gone to the Supreme Court to argue that they should be empowered to ban books, films, magazines, and newspapers when they desire to do so for political reasons.  They are energetic suppressors of free speech.

While the American Left and their mind-numbed robotic followers may bristle at any comparison to the totalitarian regimes of the past, including those of Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin and Mao, their mindset is the same insofar as abridging freedom of speech and, through intimidation and the coercive power of government, permanently shutting down their opposition.  This totalitarian mindset is in full flower on the college campuses of today and openly visible for all to see.

The two major candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, are full throated adherents of this brown shirt mentality.  Hillary has referred to Republicans as the “enemy” that must be defeated while never saying the same about radical Islam; she has unabashedly supported the Black Lives Matter movement and promoted the ongoing chaos on American college campuses as well as lobbied for government control of talk radio, the internet and all political funding and speech.  Bernie Sanders has called for a “revolution” that would, in essence, crush the economic and political rights of the opposition in order to relegate them to subservience.

The United States is indeed a nation of immigrants and for those of us who came to America from failed totalitarian states or from countries destroyed through wars fomented by the adherents of socialist/Marxist ideology we see clearly that the long shadow of political oppression is rapidly descending upon this land.  As the 2016 presidential election approaches there is no issue of more importance if America is to remain the land of the free.