Transformation of the Democratic Party.

Talk to a liberal today and you'll hear arguments on the irrelevance of the nation state, the irrelevance of borders, the common humanity of all peoples, the sick depravities of Christian history, the inequities inherent in the American system, the unique ineradicable racism of white America, the illegitimacy of America's founding, the subjugation of women in America, the profession of Christian faith in America as proof of a yearning after all manner of obscure and obscurantist doctrines, the hostility of the Establishment to honest debate of "real" issues (a debate always much improved by vulgarity), the crazed financing of all manner of military hardware when pressing social needs have not been met, etc., etc. Hip ennui is classy and military service is for dolts.

Absent is any sense that the liberal has a visceral wish to defend America. Never is there the immediate, dominant, wholehearted affirmation of his own country and its basic interest in simple continuity while all its egregious abuses and insults to tender sensibilities are ameliorated.

Mr. Barone discusses American "exceptionalism" but it is not necessary to go that far. Of course, only someone without the sense to pour water out of his boots can fail to see the exceptional aspects of America. But it is sufficient if a citizen has a sense simply of "us." As a starting point. With liberals, however, these defensive reactions are absent and "us" is no less than "all the world's poor." This latter concept, by itself, is not a starting place for debate; it's an end point. Never is there a sense of a "them" that lives and breathes to undermine the U.S. and take it over. JFK knew that domestic policy mistakes were reparable while mistakes in foreign policy are fatal. Democrats today think all problems can be worked out if one is but sufficiently committed to negotiations and compromise. If there is a foreign policy initiative that fails, then we simply try to find another initiative that is more sincere and try again.

Here is Mr. Barone on how far the Democrats have strayed from an appreciation of the need for a strong and aggressive defense of transnational interests:

[Sen. Joe Lieberman] has been an American exceptionalist -- a believer in the idea that this is a special and specially good country -- while his party's base is increasingly made up of people with attitudes that are, in professor Samuel Huntington's term, transnational. In their view, our country is no better than any other, and in many ways it's a whole lot worse.

Through most of the 20th century, American exceptionalism has been the creed of both of our major parties. . . .

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The Connecticut primary reveals that the center of gravity in the Democratic Party has moved, from the lunch-bucket working class that was the dominant constituency up through the 1960s to the secular transnational professional class that was the dominant constituency in the 2004 presidential cycle. . . .

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The working class Democrats of the mid-20th century voted their interests, and knew that one of their interests was protecting the nation in which they were proud to live. The professional class Democrats of today vote their ideology and, living a life in which they are insulated from adversity, feel free to imagine that America cannot be threatened by implacable enemies. . . .

In the mid-20th century the core constituencies of both the Democratic and the Republican Parties stood foursquare for America's prosecution of World War II and the Cold War. Today, as the Connecticut results suggest, it's different. The core constituency of the Republican Party stands foursquare for America's prosecution of the global struggle against Islamofascist terrorism -- and solidly on the side of Israel in its struggle against the same forces. The core constituency of the Democratic Party wants to stand aside from the global struggle -- and, as the presence of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton at Mr. Lamont's side on election night suggests, is not necessarily on the side of Israel. It's not your father's Democratic Party.

"Primary Colors." By Michael Barone, Wall Street Journal Online, 8/10/06 (emphasis added; subscription).

ADDENDUM:

Ogre has an insightful thought on this:

Many liberals believe that terrorists are nice people. They honestly believe that all people are good and if we'd just be nice, they'd be nice in return. They believe that since people are good, only society is evil, and therefore incorrect society is what causes evil in people. Therefore, fix society and everyone will be happy.

Transnationalism refers to something that is ethereal. There is no "there" there.

The United Nations has proved over and over again to be anything but a panacea, let alone a way to deal with mundane things like Muslim depredations in Somalia, human trafficking, mass killings in Rwanda, nuclear proliferation, Cuban prisons, Chinese concentration camps, psychopathic government in Zimbabwe, and the like.

The important aspect of transnationalism is that there is no "here."

The here is confused, ambiguous, and stressful, and it offers up evidence of the nasty side of human nature. The liberal yearns to be set free from the mundane facts of life and, by magical thinking, transforms into an unshakeable ideology this wish to escape. Challenges to this ideology threaten to awake the powerful fear of personal vulnerability in the face of life's unpleasant facts. Hence the "Angry Left." And liberals, with their hyperfocus on individualism, cannot conceive of effective group action to deal with those unpleasant facts.

The Khmer Rouge hated parts of the "here" and literally moved people away from it into the countryside, and every bad thing of modern Cambodian urban life was indeed extirpated -- along with every good thing. That's an important characteristic of transnationalism. An ideal, untried "good thing" trumps preserving any alternative, and the issue of what good things might actually be lost by pursuing the ideal need never be addressed. (Read what we've written elsewhere about Pol Pot's desire to institute the "perfect democracy": Candy Cane Boats and Lemonade Seas.)

Tradition implicitly says, "What we have now is the best we can come up with so far." When that "best" is not perfect it is the fault of tradition. The problem is that our ancestors failed to choose the obvious good, whose bedrock virtue is compassion. Violence and criminality would not be necessary had not our ancestors and the capitalistic and paternalistic systems they chose lacked compassion as the organizing principle. "They Chose Greed" can be the next series on the History Channel.

The inherent difficulty of creating a just and rational society can neverbe acknowledged. The Founders' compromises on slavery at the outset fouled the whole enterprise from the beginning, never mind the huge benefit to their descendants and the world from their having crafted something "not bad" or even "quite good."

A sensible person not emotionally driven to escape mentally from reality knows that self defense is a necessary precondition to any attempt to institute a just government among men -- even if that attempt will fall short in many respects. A liberal can think of nothing from which we need to be defended. Nothing except our rotten post.

"Hezbullah and Peace." Ogre's Politics and Views, 8/10/06.