In November, 2021, all kinds of negatative cultura/political “stuff” was coursing through our nation’s bloodstream with blinding speed, rivaling the ravages being inflicted on us by the pandemic. It was about the same time Arizona Senator Krysten Sinema was under prolonged attack by fellow Democrats for holding out on key tax, health and climate legislation.
In that November period, the reliably insightful Kevin D. Williamson of the National Review suggested that the countercultural Left, like the Marxist-Leninist Left before it, was Dionysian in character, given to public theater like Occupy Wall Street and even following their political enemies into the toilet, as they had recently done to Senator Sinema.
“The essence of totalitarianism,” wrote Williamson, “is the abolition of private life and privacy. “
Now, Senator Sinema is an Indpendent. And I understand a third of voters in once-reliably Republican Arizona are registered as Indpendent.
But Elvia Diaz, writing for the Arizona Republic, levied a decidedly negative and cynical assessment of Sinema’s Party shift a year after Williamson noted her persecution at the hands of the Leftists. Diaz wrote in December, 2022, “She’s ditching the Democratic Party because she either figured she can’t win a primary or she no longer needs the party’s money and infrastructure for her next move – or both.
“Her trajectory suggests she’s adept at ditching anyone or anything no longer useful to her. She began her public life as a Green Party activist. That went nowhere so she became an independent, which didn’t work, either. Her big break came after she conveniently became a Democrat.”
Maybe so.
Sinema wouldn’t be the first politician to shed seeminglyi bedrock ideological affiliation and drift among Parties looking for a softer resting place for their self-centered political aspirations. Consider Joe Biden, the “moderate.” Don’t make me laugh. Donald Trump, loyal Republican. Yeah, right.
But can we deny Sinema’s assessment that “pressures in both parties pull leaders to the edges – allowing the loudest, most extreme voices to determine their respective parties’ priorities, and expecting the rest of us to fall in line.”
Isn’t that where we find ourselves in August, 2023?
Ain’t it a shame?
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