A sign of the times

Ruy Teixera is the author (with John Judis) of 2002’s The Emerging Democratic Majority. The book foresaw the rise of the multiethnic Democratic coalition that elected Barack Obama in 2008. Both Teixera and Judis are well-known men of the left, but Teixera has resisted the cultural mania that has overtaken the Democratic Party and imposed a stifling orthodoxy.

Now Teixera has not only taken to the free-speech platform provided by Substack at the Liberal Patriot. He has departed the Center for American Progress for the American Enterprise Institute. Politico’s Michael Schaeffer reported his move in “‘A Real Chilling Effect’: A Lefty Scholar is Dumping CAP — For AEI.”

Referring to the internal dynamics at CAP, Teixera comments: “It’s just cloud cuckoo land.” I think that is a widely applicable judgment to the totalizing leftist madness that now stares us in the teeth every day. Teixera had the nerve to say it out loud from inside the asylum.

Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal editorial draws on Schaeffer’s account. The Journal frames Teixera’s move this way:

At age 70, he hasn’t changed his views on the importance of economic class. Yet he said CAP is being warped by a junior staff for whom identity politics is everything. “It’s become very hard to have a conversation about race and gender and trans issues, even crime and immigration,” Mr. Teixeira said. “You know, ‘How should the left handle these?’ There’s a default assumption about how you’re supposed to talk about these things, even the language. There’s a real chilling effect on all of these organizations.”

He’s exhausted by internal staff politicking. “It’s just cloud cuckoo land,” Mr. Teixeira said. “The fact that nobody is willing to call b—, it just freaks me out.” He’s also frustrated by the lack of support he received for a project that aimed to unite the black and white working classes. “Nobody wanted to touch it,” he said. “You could tell. People were leery of talking about the white working class, as if it was de facto racist.”

Wow, and you thought your office had issues. Last month the Intercept ran a story about similar woke meltdowns inside groups like the Sierra Club and the Guttmacher Institute.

“A lot of staff that work for me, they expect the organization to be all the things: a movement, OK, get out the vote, OK, healing, OK, take care of you when you’re sick, OK,” complained an anonymous executive director. “Can you get your love and healing at home, please? But I can’t say that, they would crucify me.”

These are signs of political and cultural sickness….

And they are a sign of the times, as is the revolt of a sane man against the new orthodoxy. The Journal editors deem it “a sign of conservative vigor that AEI is granting Mr. Teixeira political asylum.” I don’t necessarily disagree, but first and foremost it is a sign of the madness that has overtaken the left and just about every major institution in American life.