The One Lesson Democrats Never Learn

Wynton Hall
Monday, August 17, 2009

It never fails: Democrat elitism always boomerangs back on itself.

If, as is being reported, President Barack Obama is prepared to pull the plug on his previously vigorous support for a government-run public healthcare option, the president’s stinging policy defeat will have come as the result of his Administration’s mendacious policy rhetoric marked by its snobbish dismissal of critiques from concerned townhall participants and, most notably, former Governor Sarah Palin.

What Democrats seem unwilling to grasp is that there is an inverse relationship between how harshly Democrats demonize their opponents and how devastatingly silly they subsequently appear when those same conservative “simpletons” triumph over them in the policy arena.

Take, for example, the unrelenting personal attacks from Democrats on Gov. Palin’s intellectual and political heft. In an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, former Clinton strategist Paul Begala called Sarah Palin a “half a whack job” who is “flaky” and an “intellectual lightweight.” Joining Mr. Begala in the verbal tirade is the always interminable Maureen Dowd of the New York Times who, continuing with her increasingly eerie fixation with all-things Sarah Palin, dubbed the Governor “dizzy” and, previously, “batty” and “one nutty puppy.”

And yet. Saturday, lamenting the unraveling of Mr. Obama’s healthcare message, Maureen Dowd made a startling if unintended concession about the influence and power of a conservative “dim-wit” like Sarah Palin. “She [Palin] took a forum, Facebook, more commonly used by kids hooking up and cyberstalking, and with one catchy phrase, several footnotes and a zesty disregard for facts, managed to hijack the health care debate from Mr. Obama.”

Now ask yourself this question: If conservatives like Gov. Sarah Palin are such vaporous fools, then how can they “hijack” a national debate from the most powerful man on the planet…and all with a simple Facebook posting no less?

Indeed, if Sarah Palin is the “whack job” and “intellectual lightweight” Mr. Begala claims her to be, then what does that make Mr. Obama who, according to Ms. Dowd, just got his clock cleaned by a Facebook message written by the unserious likes of a “nutty puppy” like Ms. Palin?

And therein lies the rub: Democratic elitism never ceases to backfire. The worse liberals trash Sarah Palin and all those insurance company shills (a.k.a. everyday Americans) showing up at townhall meetings across America, the more devastating Mr. Obama’s defeat will be if and when he officially reneges on his much-touted support for a government takeover of healthcare.

Still, none of this should come as a surprise. After all, the history of imploding liberal snobbery is long and telling.

Ike was a dumb war general. Two terms later…well, not so much.

Ronald Reagan was an “amiable dunce,” as Clark Clifford infamously called him. After the two biggest presidential landslides in the modern era, liberals were left drowning in the wake of the Reagan Revolution. Yet still, even today, they haven’t given up on trying to raze the Reagan legacy.

George W. Bush was a half-witted frat boy. And, just as before, the Left’s elitist sneering produced yet another two-term Republican presidency.

Time and again, liberal snobbery only serves to further accelerate and exacerbate Leftist defeats. It’s a good thing Sarah Palin isn’t the Vice President. After all, as even liberals like Maureen Dowd concede, at this point the White House would have been a demotion for Ms. Palin. Besides, being a “nutty puppy” who can “hijack” presidential health care designs armed with nothing but a Facebook account must be far more fun.

Whether liberals will ever learn their lesson and stop making themselves look worse by disparaging as stupid the very people whom they later credit as victorious remains to be seen.

Until then, the same time-tested truth will remain: liberal elitism remains a boomerang for the Left and a boon for conservatives.