On the Fox show Outnumbered
Thursday, Newt Gingrich referred to liberals as “the totalitarian Left.” That
same day, on Fox Business’s Varney & Co, political commentator Monica
Crowley remarked that the Democrats of today, seeking a fundamental transformation
of America, are not the classical liberals of the past.
Gingrich’s description
of the Left’s totalitarianism dovetails directly into Crowley’s, since that fundamental
transformation is a total one that necessarily must be coerced. Both their
comments echo what the Horowitz Freedom Center has been declaring for twenty
years: that “Inside every liberal is a totalitarian screaming to get out.”
I reached out to Monica
Crowley for her further thoughts on the matter.
Mark Tapson:
Monica, on Varney & Co you commented that new Speaker of the
House Paul Ryan may be under the illusion that he will be dealing with the Democratic
party of old, but today’s Dems want to fundamentally transform America and
can't be viewed as partners in restoring America. Could you elaborate on that a
bit?
Monica Crowley:
We are in a war. It is a war for America – for the very nature of what America
is and what it should be. It is not a war that we have sought, but like it
or not, it is a war that has been brought to us by the Left. For decades,
the Left has been waging a war for the future of the country. Their war is
waged against the Constitution, free market economics, our social fabric and
values – and they fight 24/7. They never rest. They never
falter. And they rarely fail – and when they do fail, they pick up where
they left off and begin the fight anew.
Their objective is
– as then-candidate Barack Obama called it in 2008 – the "fundamental transformation
of the nation." We now have seven years of evidence as to what he
meant: moving America away from a nation built on individual liberty, fiscal
responsibility, strong national defense and economic freedom, and toward a
European-style socialist state sapped of superpower strength and
influence. Mr. Obama and the Left have largely succeeded in accomplishing
that transition. They are winning the war – and the Republicans aren't even in
the battle. Most of them simply don't get it.
With a few
exceptions, such as Senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee and House members like Louis
Gohmert, most Republicans simply don't understand what they’re up
against. They don't understand – or they don't want to understand – that
the Democrats of today are not the Democrats of the past. Mr. Obama is not
John Kennedy or Bill Clinton or even Jimmy Carter. They were liberals in
the classic sense – and mainstream Democrats. Mr. Obama is not a Democrat
in that traditional sense. He is a leftist revolutionary. A completely
different ball of wax – with a completely different set of objectives for the
country. Objectives that involve uprooting our foundational principles and
replacing them with socialist policies that will be exceedingly difficult if
not impossible to reverse. This is their war. And most Republicans,
certainly the Republican leadership, don't see it. And if they don't see
it, they cannot wage an effective counteroffensive. That's why the Left
continues to win elections and policy battles: because most conservatives and
Republicans are playing the game by the traditional rules, and the Democrats
are playing by a radically different set of rules – and they have their fellow
leftists in the mainstream media serving as their wingmen. The two sides
are aren't even on the same playing field.
MT: What are the
implications for the Republican party, and for this country, if Republicans
don’t grasp this hard truth about their political opponents and instead
continue to compromise and try to work with the Left as partners?
MC: America as we have always
known it will be lost – for good. Not only do Republicans such as Messrs. Bush
and Ryan not see the true objectives and tactics of the Left, they continue to
march forward oblivious, taking the Republican party and the country off the cliff,
per the goal of the Left. They are unwitting collaborators.
Time and again,
the GOP took Mr. Obama at his word that he wanted real fiscal responsibility,
deficit reduction, spending cuts, cost-containing health care reform, job creation,
and economic growth. Time and again, they believed him when he said he was
interested in their ideas. And each time, he used them for photo ops, then
blistered them publicly and returned to waging the Leftist war.
The perfect symbol
of this disconnect between what the Leftists were actually doing and the
Republicans' naive belief that they were to be included in policymaking was Mr.
Ryan's budget presentation in the spring of 2011. Mr. Ryan, all boyish
good looks and earnest demeanor, released the GOP budget and prepared for
serious engagement from the White House. He accepted Mr. Obama's invitation to
attend a major address by the president on spending and the deficit.
Mr. Ryan was
seated front and center, perhaps expecting Mr. Obama to say he was prepared to
meet the GOP halfway to solve the nation's fiscal problems. Instead, Mr.
Ryan and his plan were met by a relentless barrage of partisan insults, policy
attacks, and Mr. Obama's own budget proposal that was so ludicrously
budget-busting that it was later defeated unanimously in the Senate 97-0.
Mr. Ryan had been
humiliated. Outplayed. But it was his own fault for not recognizing
that the Democrats are playing for all the marbles: the transformation of the
nation. And unless and until most of them wake up, America will slip under
the waves of class warfare, radical wealth redistributionism, insolvency,
weakness and irrelevancy – exactly how the Left wants her.
MT: Your perception of today’s
Democrats is just what David Horowitz has been hammering home for many years. How
much of an influence have his writing and the work of the Horowitz Freedom
Center been on you and others in this respect?
MC: I have long been honored
to know David – and to call him a friend. I was first drawn to his work
years ago, when I began to become aware of the Leftist war on America. No
one speaks to that war better than David. Having been a warrior among
their ranks, he knows how they think, how they behave, their tactics and
objectives – and he tirelessly, courageously, relentlessly exposes
them. He is their worst nightmare – which makes him America's greatest
friend.
From FrontPage Mag, 11/1/15
