Eating their Own

Peggy Noonan writes an open plea to Joe Biden, suggesting that he abandon his run for the Democratic presidential nomination. Noonan argues that the early attacks on Biden by unnamed operatives within the Democratic party are a harbinger of much worse things to come. Joe should just walk away. Maybe she's right, the Democratic party has changed—and absolutely not in a good way.

Noonan writes:

In the old party of classic 20th-century Democratic liberalism, they wanted everyone to rise. Those who suffered impediments—minorities, women, working people trying to unionize—would be given a boost. There’s plenty to go around, America’s a rich country, let the government get in and help.

The direction, or at least the aspiration, was upward, for everybody.

The mood of the rising quadrants of the new party is more pinched—more abstractedly aggrieved, more theoretical. Less human. Now there’s a mood not of Everyone Can Rise but of Some Must Be Taken Down. White people in general, and white males in particular, are guilty of intractable privilege. It’s bitter, resentful, divisive.

For the new leftists who have taken over the Democratic party, everything is a zero-sum game. They hunt for "victims" and "oppressors," claiming the "privilege" is behind all of society's ills. They are offended when there has been no actual offense. They have taken political correctness to insane extremes and consider themselves "woke" for doing so. They have jettisoned free speech and due process and substituted a warped sense of social justice instead. They worship at the alter of identity politics. They demand "safe spaces" for their fellow ideologues, but grant no such privilege for those with whom they disagree. They use ad hominem attacks freely and viciously to stifle debate. They have become the very bullies that they claim to fight. They are dangerous because they are true believers. To paraphrase Richard Fernandez, "Never has so much naked ambition and a quest for power disguised itself as virtue."

And ... they eat their own.

Noonan is right. Biden, an old school liberal, is fair game, and he will be attacked because of it.

But maybe, just maybe, the new left's propensity for eating its own may be its downfall. One can only hope.