Perhaps the most common conservative reaction to progressive ideas is one of bewilderment. They’re from a different planet, inhabit an alternate universe; they’re insane! Even moderates employ these phrases to express their inability to understand the progressive mentality. And this is so even in regard to problems like crime that traditionally have provided common ground for partisan factions. Thus, the 1994 Crime Bill – also known as the Clinton Crime Bill and the Biden Crime Bill, was passed by an overwhelming bi-partisan majority in Congress.[1] Yet today it is anathema to progressives, who see violent criminals as “victims” of an unjust criminal justice system, and theft as a form of “reparations.” Extreme reversals like this have prompted liberal dissenters like Joe Manchin, Bill Maher and former congressman Harold Ford to express support for conservative concerns that progressives are “out of touch with reality,” and their views “lack common sense.”
