I tend to take the long view about American politics, rather than just focusing on one immediate election. McCain may just recover and fend off Obama in this election. And that may save the nation and the world some long term harm of a kind far worse than what Jimmy Carter left in his wake. Because I’ve studied the history of ideas, I tend more towards Wretchard’s take on what is happening: some fundamental shift has been occurring in the country for decades now. The Reagan years interrupted the trajectory of that, simply because enough Baby Boomers and their parents and grandparents had had enough of statism and soft socialism. They saw where the country was heading, and they knew the truth about socialist countries overseas. But, the Red Diaper Babies and their Trotskyist and less-than-intellectual heirs – the products of the Gramscian “long march through the institutions” – have been chipping away doggedly for a long time. And I see it all coming to fruition now. Even if Obama loses, the forward momentum of socialist thinking in the United States will continue to inch higher.

I understand this and I know it because I am a refugee from the Left. If you’ve seen the inside of it you appreciate what it is doing and how it is doing it.

Let me restate what I’ve posted here and elsewhere: there is really only one country on the planet now where socialism has not been significantly discredited for the failure it is. It’s right here in our country. For me, even back during my Leftist days I took a hard look at what people like Michael Novak and William Buckley, Jr. were saying. I took their arguments seriously, as I strove to find a way to disprove their arguments. But I took them seriously. I wanted to find a way to see if human nature was indeed maleable enough to change and incorporate socialist values. Eventually I discovered it could not be done, and so as any rational human being ought to do I changed my mind and made a break with Marxist thought. I also determined that there were appreciable intellectual resources within Catholic social thought to make room for social justice concerns within Christian soteriology.

However, across our culture this kind of disillusionment with Leftist thought has not occurred yet. And it has not happened because our people have not experienced the failure, chaos, and moral/intellectual disintegration that attends the integration of Marxist ideas into policy. You won’t find much enthusiasm in Eastern Europe for the kind of worldview espoused by Obama and the supporters and puppet masters in the Democratic Party now.

If the mind refuses to wrap itself around a problem honestly, experience is going to be a bitch of a teacher. I think we have a date and a showdown with socialism. One way or another we are going to have this fight within our country – and we’d better hope it remains only a fight at the level of electoral politics and that the people are wise enough to change their minds as experience compels.