For those of you not up on your revolutionary history, that is the date of the Thermidorian Reaction. In radical circles, it has a different meaning. It is the inflection point in radical politics where the movement veers off into madness. The otherwise sensible people who were pushing the movement along begin to have doubts and question the people they have been following. The revolution, at this point, begins to eat itself, as radicals seek out doubters and the sober minded react to the craziness of the radicals.

For more than 200 years radicals have been replaying the French Revolution hoping for a different result. In every case, the radicals never see that they are following the same path as those who came before them. It suggest there is something about radicalism, maybe a biological quality to the radicals themselves, that results in this pattern. For some reason, they can never see that they are following the same story arc as prior radical movements, even when they are led by people who are students of prior radical movements.

Anyway, I first heard it is used when reading about the Berkeley Citizens Action struggles in the 1980’s. The New Left settled into the city and went about building a a radical organization. They used a document called The City’s Wealth to map out a strategy to gain control of Berkeley, which they eventually did in the 1980’s. That’s when Berkeley got into declaring itself a nuclear free zone and campaigning for various communist causes in South America. It is also when the city’s schools and quality of life began to collapse.

The radicals were so concerned about polishing their radical credentials and debating their radical theories with one another, they failed to figure out how to run a practical organization. They also started succumbed to the normal human temptations, like getting their money mixed up with the city’s money. Eventually the city’s less crazy liberal population revolted and started to throw out the radicals. Left-wing observers on the West coast called it America’s Thermidorian Reaction.

That may be what’s happening with the Affordable Care Act. It was the crowning achievement of the Left’s capturing of the national government in 2008. Five years on it is an unfolding disaster that is threatening the revolution. On the one hand, the old school types like Bernie Sanders are unhappy about the bill not going far enough. They were never happy about this, but hoped it was a first step. The liberals who are more concerned with practical politics are in a full blown panic as their poll numbers collapse.

On the other hand, this may signal the collapse of the more pragmatic wing of the Left, the wing led by people like the Clintons. They may be crooks, but they come out of the moderate strain of 60’s radicalism, that thought this government could be re-purposed to Progressive ends. The other wing, the anti-white wing, is not all that interested in reforming the system. They wish to sack it and then attack their white oppressors. They may see this failure as the failure of pragmatism and then demand more radical action.