Kerby Anderson
Victor Davis Hanson recently wrote about the “Leftist Mind,” and that got my attention since I have recently written a booklet on the “The Liberal Mind.” My goal was to describe the foundational assumptions of a liberal mindset. Hanson instead reminded us of how leftists supported the Electoral College and every decision from the Supreme Court until recently.
A decade ago, Democrats loved the Electoral College. The “blue wall” states made the election and reelection of Barack Obama possible. Then the wall crumbled in 2016 to Trump, and now they condemn the Electoral College as a “relic of our anti-democratic founders.”
Leftists loved the Supreme Court decisions on abortion, school prayer, same-sex marriage, pornography, and Miranda rights. The “Left cheered the Court as it made the law and ignored legislatures and presidents.” They welcomed Justices appointed by Republican presidents who drifted leftward and provided the needed votes on “affirmative action to Roe v. Wade, to Obamacare.”
What was the response? “Was there any serious right-wing talk of packing the court with six additional justices to slow down its overreaching left-wing majority – or of a mob massing at the home of a left-wing justice? Certainly not.”
But now that there is a narrow majority of originalist justices on the Court, “the once-beloved Court is being slandered by leftist insurrectionists as illegitimate. Every sort of once-unthinkable attack on the courts is now permissible.”
If you are looking for any consistency, you will not find it. Each of these examples illustrates the “end justifies the means” perspective of the Leftist Mind. And that’s why it is difficult to take many of these current arguments seriously.