not-in-my-name Democrats

It’s all about them.

If you have opinions and beliefs contrary to theirs, your presence on “their” stage offends them:

Beginning by singing a wistful folk tune calling for world peace, [graduating senior] Rohe announced she had thrown out her prepared remarks to address the McCain controversy directly.

“The senator does not reflect the ideals upon which this university was founded,” Rohe proclaimed to loud cheers, with McCain sitting just a few feet away.

Whatever it is you’re selling, they’re against it.

“He will tell us we are young and too naive to have valid opinions,” Rohe said. “I am young and though I don’t possess the wisdom that time affords us, I do know that pre-emptive war is dangerous.”

Because the policies you endorse don’t reflect well on them [emphasis mine]:

And I know that despite all the havoc that my country has wrought overseas in my name, Osama bin Laden still has not been found, nor have those weapons of mass destruction.”

For the record, Ms. Rohe, the ideals upon which your university was founded were Enlightenment ideals, and you fail to understand them. From your university’s website:

In the aftermath of the First World War, much of America was playing it safe. Social criticism and modern arts were restricted or banished from many of the nation’s cultural institutions, including universities. In response, a small band of unconventional thinkers…imagined an educational venue where they could freely present and discuss their ideas without censure, and where dialogue could take place between intellectuals and the general public. In 1919, they… opened The New School to all “intelligent men and women.”

Trying to shut down the argument, Ms. Rohe, is not the act of an intelligent woman. It is certainly not the act of a democrat. That’s my issue—that closing your mind to ideas you don’t like (and encouraging others to close their minds too)—it betrays a totalitarian impulse.

We should all be worried about such tactics, whether they come from the left or the right, from Democrats or Republicans, from Muslims or Christians or Jews or Hindus or non-believers. Shutting down the argument—stifling speech—does not solve problems. It creates worse problems.

Professional Democrats are worried about a deeper problem. Paul Begala, who’s in a position to know, says they’re only bringing knives to a gunfight:

I am deeply frustrated with a party establishment that does everything except tell people what we stand for. They spend millions on voter files, field work, phone banks, staff, consultants, etc…and yet people don’t know what we stand for. I am not opposed to hiring organizers. I’m opposed to pretending that hiring organizers is in any way a substitute for having a message.