Leftist “progressives” love to view themselves as the way of the future, the inevitable popular uprising against the establishment and “oppression.”
Voters rarely agree.
Nina Turner, a former aide to leftist sweetheart Bernie Sanders, was the odds-on favorite to win the special election for Ohio’s 11th congressional district. She had the endorsement of her old boss Bernie as well as the support of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and other members of “the Squad.”
Her opponent in the Democratic primary, Shontel Brown, received endorsements from Hillary Clinton and House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn — exemplars of the Democratic establishment.
Ohio’s 11th district is entirely urban, encompassing a large part of Cleveland, and is mostly made up of minorities, very similar to several of the Squad members’ districts. So, there was ample reason to believe Turner would carry the district. But when election night came around, Brown beat Turner by almost six points.
Turner isn’t the only “progressive” to lose out to a moderate this year. Special elections in Louisiana and New Mexico earlier this year also saw moderate Democrats triumph over left-wing opponents.
Even in deep blue New York City, the relatively moderate Eric Adams seems almost certain to become the city’s next mayor.
Yet, even as leftists suffer electoral defeat time after time, their vision for the country seems to come closer and closer to fruition at a steady pace.
Leftists have a distinct advantage over their opponents because they have an almost complete stranglehold on America’s institutions and its bureaucracy, making electoral success a secondary consideration to their overall strategy.
Private companies hold sessions for white employees to confront their “privilege,” public school teachers instruct students about racial hierarchies based on notions of “oppressors” and the “oppressed” and even the U.S. Navy recommends CRT literature like Ibram X. Kendi’s “How To Be Antiracist” to sailors as part of a new initiative. The legacy media and the entertainment industry are pushing these narratives as well.
The CDC, an organization ostensibly dedicated to public health, can impose an eviction moratorium that has had a significant impact on the economy and the housing market. The EPA can create environmental regulations that stifle businesses and dictate what a citizen can or cannot do on his or her own property.
These changes didn’t come from legislation — they came from edicts issued by executives, bureaucrats and an army of diversity and inclusion officers.
Leftists have held an iron grip on the country’s universities, and therefore the minds of the country’s future leaders, for some time. Many graduates indoctrinated by leftist ideology move on to the white collar sectors of the economy, where they are able to assume positions of authority and implement a leftist agenda. This strategy of controlling America’s elites and the institutions that create and hire them allows leftists to dictate huge swathes of public policy without having to worry about a mandate from the public.
Moderates still make up a major portion of the workforce at theses places, but they simply roll over for fear of losing their jobs, or worse (to them), being called racist.
Meanwhile, even if conservatives manage to win a popular mandate in an election cycle, such as in 2016, they are faced with so many bureaucratic hurdles that they can’t achieve anything of lasting importance before they’re voted out in the next midterms for not doing enough.
Far from representing the poor and marginalized in society, leftists almost entirely derive their power from controlling America’s elites and bureaucratic institutions. Controlling the legislature isn’t as important for them as it is for Republicans or even moderate Democrats because they don’t need it to win. They’ve cornered the market on bases of power that are far easier to defend, and perhaps more potent, than the houses of Congress or the presidency.
The unelected and largely unaccountable people who rule over large parts of our lives often have a radically different vision for the country than the average American, and there’s not much that can be done about it at the ballot box.
Hayden Daniel is the opinion editor at the Daily Caller.