Why America’s hard left, hard right turns are so misguided

The divisions increasingly at the heart of American politics were on full display this weekend. Events in California’s capital illustrated Democrats’ continuing civil war over whether the party should adopt the socialist policies advocated by former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. And events in the nation’s capital showed the deep rift between the Republican establishment and radicals who want to inflict pain on large parts of the public, whose fate they regard with indifference.

The discord was evident for all to see at the state Democratic Party convention in Sacramento, where Sanders’ backers heckled national Democratic Party chairman Tom Perez and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon and expressed contempt for moderate Democrats such as Gov. Jerry Brown and Sen. Dianne Feinstein. When Democrats narrowly elected veteran party insider Eric Bauman as state party chair instead of a newcomer — Berniecrat Kimberly Ellis — it triggered angry boos.

What united establishment Democrats and Sanders fans? Hostility toward the president. Outgoing state Democratic Party chair John Burton led convention delegates in a chant of “F--- Trump” — a loud public declaration of antagonism toward a sitting president that would have seemed unthinkable for most of America’s history, but not in 2017.

Meanwhile, across the country, a different sort of intraparty fight is playing out in the nation’s capital. In March, when Trump administration officials proposed huge cuts in domestic spending — including programs that help millions of poor Americans get health care, that bring food to disabled people and that help poor families pay energy bills — many Republican lawmakers flinched. But as The Washington Post reported Sunday, this reaction hasn’t changed President Trump’s determination to sharply cut spending on safety-net programs that protect Americans against hardship and adversity. On Tuesday, the Trump administration is expected to introduce a proposed 2017-18 federal budget that would cut Medicaid spending by $800 billion over 10 years. The plan would allow states to limit and cap benefits to able-bodied Americans.

The latter idea isn’t necessarily a bad one. The 1996 welfare reform law with similar provisions led to a major decline in welfare caseloads and inspired millions to join the work force. But in states run by conservative ideologues, Trump’s proposal could lead to a mean-spirited crusade driven by the Darwinian notion that the poor and sickly deserve their fate. The notion is especially cruel in a nation in which nearly one in five American adults suffer significant bouts of mental illness every year.

Many Californians likely welcome the hard left’s desire to turn Golden State into a supersized version of Denmark. Many Americans likely share the hard right’s lack of empathy for people with difficult lives. But let’s hope that pragmatism and compassion win out. California can’t more than double state spending without raising taxes so ridiculously high that businesses would flee for friendlier locales. Washington shouldn’t encourage states to ignore the suffering of many millions of people.

These observations would seem utterly banal for most of America’s history — but not in 2017.

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