The Death of the Left

Michael Ledeen has a good article about the death of the Left, and how this is visible in their actions during the election campaign, and after Bush's re-election.

When their ideas were in vogue, leftist advocates took electoral defeat in stride, as they were confident that their vision was far more popular - because far more accurate - than their opponents' view of the world. History and logic were on their side. But no more. Incoherent rage and unbridled personal attacks on the winners are sure signs of a failed vision.

Ironically, the Left's view of history provides us with part of the explanation for its death. Marx and Hegel both understood that the world constantly changes, and ideas change along with it. The world they knew - and successfully transformed - was a class-bound society dominated by royalty and aristocracy. They hurled themselves into class struggle, believing it to be the engine of human history, and they fought for liberty for all. Successive generations of leftists preached and organized democratic revolution at home and abroad, from the overthrow of tyrants to the abolition of class privileges and the redistribution of both political power and material wealth.

In true dialectical fashion, they were doomed by their own success...