Op-Ed: How the Left Has Left Sanity Behind

Over time, change is the nature of life. As entire belief systems and default behaviors once considered “normal” inevitably give way to new realities, conduct and notions once accepted often become relics of the distant past.

Once, a single income could support a family, long-term loyalty to one employer was the norm, phones were for calling, and personal data wasn’t a commodity. Not long ago, smoking was common, exercise was a niche activity, marriage in the early 20s was typical, and divorce was stigmatized.

In recent years, there was high trust in government, broadly agreed-upon news was centralized, police were widely respected, political disagreements were less personal, and parties maintained overlapping, moderately focused coalitions.

But much has changed. And one needn’t look further than the left-of-sanity socialist movement within the Democratic Party, which centrists such as Bill Clinton would now almost certainly view as impossible to accept and just as unlikely to promote.

Yet even so, the current version of Jefferson’s party has no shortage of those seeking to push its once-relatively-reasonable mainstream ever further left. And that left-of-sanity polarizing migration is best seen in the recent primary victories of three ultra-progressive New York candidates, now almost certain to win seats in the House of Representatives.

Leading the way as the most rational among those Mamdani sycophants is Brad Lander. Yet with President Donald Trump in mind, Lander has called for the Democratic Party “to fight fascism” and has framed immigration enforcement under the current administration as “authoritarianism” to be resisted.

Additionally, Lander favors using taxpayer money to cover other people’s college bills and, as a political move to diminish the Supreme Court’s current conservatism, supports packing the bench for the first time in 155 years.

More troubling still, as a self-described “liberal Zionist,” Lander described Israel’s conduct in Gaza as “genocide” and spoke at a mosque whose Imam reportedly justified Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre as resistance to “injustice.”

But even so, compared with the other two victorious socialists in the recent New York primaries, Lander could almost pass for a mainstream Democrat.

Case in point is Claire Valdez, who favors taxpayer-funded transgender treatments, supports eliminating private health insurance, and has also labeled Israel’s military action in Gaza as “genocide.” And, as a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, she has called for dismantling the federal immigration enforcement apparatus.

Yet, as a green and unworldly New York assemblymember for less than two years, Valdez more specifically favors abolishing ICE. In effect, this would end all deportations of undocumented migrants.

Moreover, if that shortsighted and extreme position wasn’t enough, her posts from a deleted social media account advocated eliminating police, prisons, and borders. She later alleged she wouldn’t use that language again, but made that claim only after criticism during her primary campaign. One needn’t wonder why.

However, the most hyper-woke among the progressive troika to win their recent New York primaries is Darializa Avila Chevalier. A short list of her “brilliant” ideas includes defunding the police, seizing private property, legalizing prostitution and drug use, abolishing ICE, and enforcing zero deportations, even for murderers.

Her pearls of wisdom, which she absorbed during seven years of graduate-school blather, are even more troubling. Such “scholarly” observations include calls for the “total eradication of Western Civilization” and for “a world without borders — just like a world without prisons or police [as the] only moral way forward.”

And apparently not a fan of the nation protecting her freedom of insipid speech, she also posted online that “I forgot to get napkins, so I just wiped my hand on the flag behind me.” However, if still uncertain about her hatred of our country, the recent Democratic primary winner was forthright in her loathing, describing America as a “f***ing disgrace.”

Even so, there are at least a few, very few, Democrats willing to stem the left-of-sanity tide threatening their party. Most notably, Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania labeled his party’s emerging Marxist wing the “Dirtbag Left.”

What is more, veteran Democrat strategist James Carville went even further, coarsely asserting that “these people are not Democrats,” that “I’m not in that f***ing party,” and that although “we’re a big tent… there’s just some s*** I can’t be in the same tent with.”

Despite such pushback, a growing number of young, poorly informed, and Israel-hating voters continue to fuel the party’s lurch to the left.

Predictably, being part of a movement against perceived injustice has always been intoxicating.

But just as predictably, when such an incentive to believe hateful, damaging, and even absurd nonsense is strong enough, the motivation to critically examine that script drops to almost zero.

And sadly, this ignorant off-Broadway play continues to unfold before our very eyes.

The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either d or endorsed by the owners of this website. If you are interested in contributing an Op-Ed to The Western Journal, you can learn about our submission guidelines and process here.

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