Posted on 11/13/2014 7:59:26 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Why so many conservatives have nostalgia for an era that wasn't all that golden.
Next January, just in time for a potential presidential bid, Marco Rubio will publish a book. It’s called American Dreams: Restoring Economic Opportunity for Everyone.
Call me a killjoy, but I don’t think Senator Rubio can make good on his subtitle. Creating “economic opportunity for everyone” is hard enough in a country of 316 million. Restoring it is a metaphysical impossibility. To restore something, it must have existed before. And never in its history has America offered “economic opportunity for everyone,” not even in the Edenic days of President Reagan.
Why would Rubio make such an absurd promise? Because conservatives love the word “restore.” In 2007, when he was planning his own presidential bid, Mike Huckabee wrote a book subtitled 12 Steps to Restoring America’s Greatness. (It’s available for one cent on Amazon.) In 2010, Glenn Beck organized a rally on the National Mall entitled “Restoring Honor.” In 2012, Mitt Romney’s supporters established a Super PAC called, paradoxically, “Restore Our Future.” Later that year, the Republican platform promised the “Restoring of the American Dream” and the “Restoration of Constitutional Government.” This June, Ted Cruz pledged to “Restore the Great Confident Roar of America.”
Progressive politicians sometimes use the word too. But as believers in progress, they’re more willing to acknowledge that the bright future they’re promising never existed before. When President Obama invokes America’s past, for instance, he’s less apt to celebrate previous eras than to celebrate the people in those eras who struggled to overcome its injustices. That’s why he talks so much about the civil-rights, women’s-rights, and labor movements....
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
And who here thinks that Marco Rubio or Mike Huckabee, either one, of all the people in this country, will be the Republican standard-bearer in 2016?
We need a return to normalcy.
What an idiot Beinart is....
Certainly I do not!
Some easily confuse opportunity with outcomes...
And when Ted Kennedy ran for president in 1980 he spoke of a “restoration”. A restoration of what? Restoration of the Kennedy dynasty, I assume. That sort of restoration is ok with liberals.
When Hillary talks of how wonderful things were when Bill and she were in the White House before, that is also ok.
It’s only if a Republican talks of restoring values or conditions which no longer exist, that somehow this writer is offended.
What’d anyone expect from the Atlantic ?
Money and material wealth isn’t the only yardstick of our country’s decline. The young people today never lived in the happier times that we knew. They have little clue what their life could have been, should have been. Dictators rely on brainwashing the young. Damn the commie educators.
What a wacko.
"Restoring" means that something is not normal and needs to be fixed.
So, the author thinks that what Ronald Reagan was and represented was not good, but what the progressive wants for our country is good?
Give me a flipping break!
What can one expect from a so-called “liberal Zionist” who is against Israeli “settlements”?
The Atlantic is a piece of crap, a leftist rag masquerading as a sophisticated journal.
That old- “If it’s not fair for EVERYBODY, it’s not fair for ANYBODY” meme is just tiring & fallacious.
Progressive politicians sometimes use the word too. But as believers in progress, they’reIn reality “Progressives” favor progress of, by, and for themselves, in positions of the government.more willing to acknowledgeeager to boast that the bright future they’re promising never existed before . . . and that they will be able to achieve this “progress” without side effects.
today’s Republicans are generally shrewd enough to avoid identifying exactly which previous age they wish to restore. But for African Americans, Latinos, women, and gays and lesbians, idealizing any previous age means idealizing one in which they enjoyed fewer rights and opportunities than they do today. Pledging to “restore” America appeals to many older, straight, Anglo, white, and male voters, because it’s a subtle way of saying Republicans will bring back the good old days. The GOP’s problem is that to win back the White House, it must make inroads among Americans who know the good old days weren’t all that good.What we want to restore is actual progress. Progress of, by, and for the people. As Jack Kemp used to put it, “hope, growth, and opportunity.” What we want is process, and we will trust to the results. “Liberals” demand results of others, and credit for good intentions for themselves. But it is painfully obvious that their intentions actually are not good.
This liberal elitist was born and bred into the bubble of East Coast academia, and he has never left.
He doesn’t challenge what he has learned there, he merely reflects it.
He’s in his comfort zone.
In the words of Rep. Gowdy, “he needs to put down the cognac and the lost writings of J.D. Salinger” and start to critically examine the liberal ideas of his youth.
Conservatives aren’t trying to restore an era. They are trying to restore an idea, one that never had anything to do with injustice, and everything to do with the best of liberty, individualism, greatness and prosperity.
Who has a clue about what Republicans are trying to restore? Certainly it isn’t the days when Democrats fought like rabid dogs to preserve racial injustice, and regrettably it isn’t the sanity of Reagan.
Democrats want misery, chaos and failure. That is easy to see.
What an idiot Beinart is....
What a communist Beinart is.....
How can the present not be the normal?
Liberals HATE “normal” because it inerrantly comes down to Christian values.
My expression came from the 1920 presidential campaign when GOP candidate Warren Harding called for a return to normalcy after 16 years of progressive rule under TR and WW.
I agree. Once socialism is baked in the cake you can't get rid of it. Look at the Soviet Union, they went through the big meltdown of Communism and many thought when the people were essentially free a they would jump at the chance to have a democratic capitalist society but it never took off. Why? The reason is the people don't know anything but Communism, they have no concept of freedom. They are like domesticated animals that can no longer survive in the wild on their own, they must have masters as they know no other way.
Sadly most of America's wild and free animals are old and dying off. Like the Soviet Union, most of America's younger generation have no concept of freedom. All they know is government control and micromanagement of their lives. They will never know the lives they should have had and thus will never resist the bondage in which they will live.
It's our fault. We've "tolerated" and "compromised" far too long. We chose to reach out and work together with the deceivers and the deceived. We thought we could convince people with bad intentions and their loyal followers to come over to the good side. We were wrong.
Rant off
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