-By Warner Todd Huston
TNR’s Chait gets it wrong thinking Americans are all nouveau left-wingers just because Barack Obama won the White House
Jonathan Chait is all upset at the Democratic Party. Hs is damning their eyes for not blindly accepting every extremist, left-wing idea that President Obama would like to implement. Chait is wailing that Congressional Democrats are standing athwart Obama’s radical agenda just when he assumes we are at a “once-in-a-generation chance for the Democratic Party to reshape” the country.
Chait is right, of course, that Congressional Democrats are not bending over blindly for Obama’s agenda and many elected officials are jealously guarding their privilege is true enough. He is also right that Obama has faced some obstacles within his own party — and it is probably coming as a surprise to the president, too. But he is wrong to assume they are doing it for spite, mere power or necessarily for personal aggrandizement. In fact, Chait has a major misunderstanding of the very country that Democrats represent. You see, Chait thinks that just because Obama won a 7 percent majority of the vote the whole country is ready to become a radicalized, socialist, anti-religious, and virulently anti-capitalist nation. Chait makes the major mistake in thinking “the people” of the United States of America are just like him.
Did the U.S. Turn Socialist Just Because Obama Won?”