Progressives destroy their government god, especially with young

The liberal-progressive faith relies on inculcating a belief in an omniscient, benevolent and just government god, so it's heartening to watch progressives systematically destroy that faith in their own deity (particularly among the young), as polling data now show.

Pondering how the IRS scandals (which occurred entirely on Obama's watch) have destroyed public confidence in the government agency, Peggy Noonan writes:

One irony here is that the Obama White House, always keen to increase the reach and power of government, also seems profoundly disinterested in good governing. It is strange. The long-term project of liberalism involves encouraging the idea of faith in government as a bringer or guarantor of greater justice. But who needs more government if government works so very badly, and is in its operations unjust?

Recalling Stein's Law in economics—If something cannot go on forever, it will stop—Charles Krauthammer writes:

Detroit, for example, can no longer go on borrowing, spending, raising taxes and dangerously cutting such essential services as street lighting and police protection. So it stops. It goes bust.

Cause of death? Corruption, both legal and illegal, plus a classic case of reactionary liberalism in which the governing Democrats — there’s been no Republican mayor in half a century — simply refused to adapt to the straitened economic circumstances that followed the post-World War II auto boom.

Dan Mitchell, in Atlas Shrugs in Detroit, argues:

Detroit’s problems are the completely predictable result of excessive government. Just as statism explains the problems of Greece. And the problems of California. And the problems of Cyprus. And the problems of Illinois. …Simply stated, as the size and scope of the public sector increased, that created very destructive economic and political dynamics. More and more people got lured into the wagon of government dependency, which puts an ever-increasing burden on a shrinking pool of producers. Meanwhile, organized interest groups such as government bureaucrats used their political muscle to extract absurdly excessive compensation packages, putting an even larger burden of the dwindling supply of taxpayers.

Recalling how public and private unions so aggressively supported Obamacare, Lee DeCovnick writes in Unions Screwed by Obamacare:

It only took this nation's union leadership 1,223 days to figure out they had been totally bamboozled by Obama and his Byzantine quagmire of over 20,000 pages of Obamacare regulations. ... In 2006 the Cato Institute estimated that, 'that state and local retiree health benefits are underfunded by $1.4 trillion nationwide." That number is probably closer to $2.5 trillion in 2013 inflation adjusted dollars.

And now Chicago has led the way by forcing retirees into Obamacare. Is there any doubt that not only government retirees, but almost all working union members will also be forced to accept Obamacare as their current contracts expires?

In Lying in the Age of Obama, Victor Davis Hanson writes:

Our current scandals are predicated on lies. No one believed the official White House version that the IRS miscreants were rogue agents from a Cincinnati field office. No one believes much of the official version of the Benghazi killings — least of all that the violence was prompted by a single video maker in the fashion that Susan Rice assured the nation.The attorney general of the United States lied about the AP/James Rosen monitoring while under oath before Congress. James Clapper lied about the NSA scandal. All four travesties are still being sorted out. For now the one commonality is that our officials lied about all of them.

Harry Reid knew nothing about Mitt Romney’s tax returns. But lied about them all the same. ... Hillary Clinton lied a lot when she was first lady about documents under subpoena. She lied as a candidate about being under fire in the Balkans. And she lied as secretary of State about the train of events in Benghazi.  [Note: Hanson closes with three reasons not to lie that shouldn't be missed.]

Lies, deception and corruption have eroded the faith of progressive believers, particularly the young. McClatchey, Gallup, and CNN polling all report falling numbers for Obama, the pope of the progressive church. According to the CNN June report, Obama Numbers Plunge Into Generation Gap,

Even more surprising: The overall decline in his approval rating was partially fueled by a plunge in support from younger Americans, a huge base of Obama's support. Last month, nearly two-thirds of those in the 18-29 age group gave the president a thumbs up. His approval rating among that bracket fell 17 points in Monday's poll and now stands at 48%.

This confirms a recent in-depth survey, commissioned by the Young America's Foundation and conducted by thepollingco, asking college-age students what they really think of government and its reach. Below are their responses:


It's not looking good for the progressivism's government god.