The progressive movement has led the Democrat party into a political black hole. And just as happens in nature, it’s not clear that it can find its way out.

The contemporary progressive movement arguably began with the cultural revolution of the 1960s. The initial reforms inspired salutary policy initiatives, including the end of Jim Crow laws, the institution of Medicare, and the opening of career opportunities for women.

Unfortunately, the insatiable discontent with any existing social structure, which fuels the progressive left, has led to chaotic outcomes of initially worthy policies. For example:

• The laudable Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s quickly evolved into the institution of affirmative action. Diversity and inclusivity emerged in the ‘90s, leading to the race, gender, anti-merit, “woke” based DEI movement.
• The feminist movement, which promoted career opportunities for women, has culminated in a misanthropic war on “toxic masculinity” and the patriarchy, along with family breakdown and ascendant gender dysphoria. The subsequent “#MeToo” turned Title IX from an engine to give women equal opportunities to a vehicle sanctifying the validity of rape accusations by female students, denying the accused male any defense.
• Carter’s Department of Education, which was ostensibly created to promote educational excellence and to provide federal funding for educational programs and student loans, has culminated in public school indoctrination centers with dismal academic outcomes and exorbitant costs. (Many believe it was just a Carter payoff to the unions.)
• The reverence for the individual immigrant cultures that make up America turned into a war on Americans and their values and an illegal alien invasion.

Progressive leftist activism, characterized by an initial claim that it would end “social injustices,” has led only to the ultimate generation of true social injustice.

The progressive left’s obvious goal is to create a society based on progressive ideology. That necessitates eliminating conservatism and its related “sins”—nationalism, religious tenets, self-reliance over state-reliance, and individualism. The cumulative outcome of such progressive pursuits has been—true to form—to create a society mired in paralyzing, polarizing partisanship.

The left thought this polarization would lead to victory. To its dismay, the conservative base has proven unwilling to admit guilt, self-flagellate, and kneel at the altar of progressive ideology. The left’s divide-and-conquer strategy has led only to intractable division. Any progress realized by the left in its drive for control has been because the right has passively let it happen, akin to indulgent parents allowing their petulant child to whine and kick in a crowded restaurant.

Such accommodation has stopped with the current administration. Trump, emerging as not only a palpable obstacle to the left’s insurgency but also as a retaliatory force against it, is now the full target of the left’s angry, self-righteous frustration. The radical left, driven by unresolved psychic imbalances and incapable of compromise, can only stay the course. A recent Quinnipiac poll reveals that most Democrat voters feel that their elected representatives are not doing enough to neutralize Trump’s actions.

Black holes form when massive stars (i.e., the once mighty Democrat party) collapse, warping the time-space (society) and creating an event horizon (woke DEI) from which there is no return as the singularity (progressive dogma) is entered. The fate of celestial black holes remains unclear, but it seems as if, for now, the Democrat party is a spent force.

Image by Andrea Widburg