New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, despite his best efforts, has succumbed to a infrequent outburst of at least partial honesty. His June 15, 2024 column “What have we liberals done to the West Coast?“” contains several undoubtedly embarrassing moments of clear thinking, correct perception, and acceptance of truth that will inevitably land Kristof in boiling warm water among his colleagues as they feverishly churn out story after story, proclaiming “it’s true because I say so” moments like Joe Biden being perfectly robust and razor piercing, or something along those lines.
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Kristof points out some inconvenient truths about the state of West Coast cities, a state best described in language unsuitable for a family publication.
One challenge Democrats present to voters across the country this fall is that chaos reigns in some of the most conservative parts of the country – the cities on the West Coast.
Centrist voters may rightly ask: Why put the Liberals in power nationally when the areas where they have the most control are plagued by homelessness, crime and grievances?
Don’t worry; far from assigning blame for the failed policies, platforms, and practices that make progressivism a cultural, artistic, and collective cesspool, Kristof is all about how those damned refugees from Haight-Ashbury implement it.
(M)y response to the Republican criticism is that yes, governance is penniless in some Democratic-dominated parts of America, but overall liberal areas have faster economic growth and higher standards of living than conservative areas. That doesn’t look like failure.
Tell that to the people of Chicago.
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So the problem is not with liberalism, but with West Coast liberalism.
But of course. I for one am amazed that Kristof does not blame the utter failure of progressivism, whenever and wherever it is implemented in California, Oregon and Washington, on the radiation emanating from the Pacific Ocean and from that damn Godzilla.
Kristof continues to tie himself in the Gordian knot by admitting blame… without actually admitting where the blame lies.
Sometimes I wonder if the West takes its politics less seriously than the East and relies less on the strictest evidence. There is some evidence for this.
In my view, the main problem of the West Coast is not so much its lack of seriousness, but rather that it is infected by an ideological purity that focuses more on intentions than on control and results.
Let’s look at this in more detail. If you have an ideology that doesn’t produce the desired results when implemented, you have a… oh, what’s it called again… wait, I get it! Failed ideology. Now let us assume that the government had to change the ideology beyond recognition or abandon it altogether in order to achieve the desired effects. In this case, you have a – again with feeling, folks – failed ideologyNo, Mr. Kristof, the fault does not lie with the West Coast version of your precious progressivism. The fault lies with progressivism itself.
Writing this next part must have been brutal for Kristof.
I ran for governor in Oregon two years ago (the then-Oregon Secretary of State disqualified me from the ballot because I didn’t meet residency requirements). During my campaign, I met groups of liberal donors in Portland, as the city’s problems cast a shadow over all of us. We all nervously wondered if our catalysts were being stolen. The undertone at such a liberal gathering was the failings of Republicans — but Portland was a mess that we couldn’t blame Republicans for, because there just aren’t many Republicans there. This was our liberal mess.
So maybe less liberalism is the solution, Nicholas?
We need to pull ourselves together. Less purity and more pragmatism would bring us a lot. But perhaps the first step must be the humility to admit our mistakes.
Translation: The left will never get its act together.
In my youth, I read JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings over and over again. One of the elements that struck me was Tolkien’s ability to write himself out of situations so convoluted that they would throw most writers off track. One example is the character Tom Bombadil, who Tolkien established early on as being immune to the destructive effect of Sauron’s One Ring on the one who wears it. This led to the question, why not send Bombadil to destroy the Ring instead of Frodo and his companions? When Gandalf explained:
[I]If the Ring were given to him, he would soon forget it, or most likely throw it away. Such things have no influence on his mind. He would be a most unsafe guardian; and that alone is answer enough.
No one is in danger of confusing Nicholas Kristof with JRR Tolkien. Tolkien is one of the giants of literature; Kristof, not so much. Tolkien, for example, could and did work his way out of plot possibilities that would have rendered his narrative illogical. Kristof, unfortunately, has no such gift. Which is not surprising when your basic argument is fundamentally flawed.
