There is a very group of very angry liberals out there, that have little use for President Obama and the Democratic Congress. While polls show the majority of liberals at least approving of President Obama, one couldn't tell that by surfing the liberal websites in cyberspace. In this diary I explain why this group of angry liberals who are frequently lashing out and tearing down the President and Democratic Congress could best be referred to as Quixote Liberals.
Press Sec. Robert Gibbs frustratingly refereed to them as the "Professional Left". He went on to define them as, “I hear these people saying he’s like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested,” Gibbs said. “I mean, it’s crazy.” Juan Cole laments the attitude of this group of angry disgruntled liberals thus:
Juan Cole wrote last month:
If George Bush had had the kind of legislative session Obama and the Democrats just had, the EPA would have been abolished, it would be illegal to not drill for oil everywhere it was located, capital gains and the “death tax” would be completely abolished, social security would have been privatized, medicare and medicaid would be abolished and we would all have personal health savings accounts, and the department of education would be simply in business to hand out vouchers to white kids in urban areas. The base of the GOP wouldn’t be whining and moaning that they hadn’t gotten around to outlawing homosexuality and that abortion is still legal in some cases so Bush is just a miserable failure and they are just too damned depressed to manage to whip up any enthusiasm to go to the polls.
Rachael Maddow, one of the media's most intelligent progressives, tried valiantly to enlighten this group by providing an impressive list of liberal accomplishments
Unfortunately her effort and the effort of others has not helped the situation or made this group of angry liberals any less disruptive. I believe there is little that can be done with the group I call the Quixote liberals and here is why I say that:
Anyone familiar with the story of Don Quixote knows it's a tale of a sad man living a sad life who escapes it all by entering a fantasy world of knight, chivalry and monsters. While he is engaging in these flights of fancy he creates no end of havoc. Worse, no amount of fact or reality can shake him from his delusions. When he tilts at windmills, he believes to be giants, he smacks head first into the unyielding windmill. Instead of being shaken to his senses he immediately declares that a wizard had turned the giants into windmills and vows his revenge. He also has this strong sense of honor that he is constantly attacking others to defend as he hears almost every other word as an personal affront to his honor in some way.
I think that describes those that are supposedly on the left who constantly try to take down the Democrats and the President. They are not happy with the less than perfect real world where politicians have to play politics and compromise and few bills are rarely perfect. Instead of facing the harsh realities of the word and helping make it a better place, they escape into a fantasy world where they are noble knights fighting the evil monsters of corporatism and defending their honor from the imaginary slights of the Obama administration and others.
Like Don Quixote though they are immune to the realities of the real world. The refuse to accept any facts or observations that don't fit into their fantasy world. When the President and Congress create a historic list of impressive progressive accomplishments, they dismiss them as being imperfect or they ignore them and focus only on what hasn't been done yet. Their belief that the President would fail to turn around the economy only made them insist there would be a double dip. Sadly as you can see it's nearly impossible to reason with them and while they enjoy their pleasurable fantasy world of being the noble knights righting all the world's wrongs, they create untold havoc on the real world. The right has certainly noticed it and has no doubt put posers into the cyber world to only encourage their delusions.
I am not sure how one goes about snapping the Quixote Liberals out of their their make believe world, but maybe this description will better help Democrats figure out how.