Everyone agrees that America has moves steadily to the Left over the last century or so. America in the 1950’s was not that much more liberal than it was in the 1920’s, but it was clearly heading Left. Today’s America is much further Left than it was in the middle of the last century. In other words, the direction has remained the same, but the pace has quickened. As the nation’s rulers have dropped Christianity as their organizing morality, they have embraced the various fads on the Left as a secular religion.

It has not been a steadily increasing shift. It has been in fits and starts, with spasms of radicalism, followed by quiet periods. The period from the assassination of JFK through the Nixon administration was spasm that shifted the country way over to the left compared to the America of 1958. We are in the midst of one such spasm now, which can be dated to the 2000 election. That seemed to radicalize or maybe energize the radicals, who have been on the warpath ever since.

An example is in the comments of a post on Marginal Revolution. Tyler Cowen mentioned that Peter Schuck is “largely a Democrat.” That’s a subtle way of saying he is a liberal, but not crazy like most of them. He still retains the ability to criticize the actions of his ideological clan, if not his ethnic tribe. That seemed to upset some of the readers, who went into the full purity spiral. Here is a comment from someone calling himself Matt that captures the fevered mind of the modern leftists.

Schuck is “largely a Democrat” in the same way that Joe Liberman is “largely a Democrat”, which is to say, not really. He’s most famous for arguing that children of unauthorized immigrants born and raised in the US should not be US citizens. He’s not conservative compared to, say, the average state senate member from South Carolina, but he’s pretty far outside of the mainstream of the Democratic party.

Notice how Joe Lieberman, a liberal’s liberal for his entire Senate career is now “outside of the mainstream” for the modern Left.  Matt and his coreligionists are now so far Left that yesterday’s liberal is now a reactionary. Cults always need a Trotsky and Lieberman continues to fill that role for those radicalized in the Bush years. It’s not that his position are really outside the acceptable, it’s that Lieberman was willing to associate with the people the Left still considers the face of evil. It’s guilt by association.

That is a feature with all radicals. Because there is no limiting principle to things like anti-racism or opposition to war, they can always out radical the most radical guy, but adopting an even more extreme position. In this spasms of radicalism, the Left lurches further to the extreme, which drags the center with them. The professional Right, of course, chases after them, which only helps drag the center to the Left. When this spasms burns itself out, the new center will be far to the Left and conservatives will defend it as the new normal.