Gone are the Weathermen. The Black Panthers. The angry mobs of anit-war protestors. Communism has been exposed as a failed economic system and socialism has few adherents.
So what is the left wing that freaks out the Obama Administration? Is it, on the scales of political thought, a balance for the crazy right?
Hardly.
The modern left wing largely consists of people who believe that the United States will be around in 20 years, that its infrastructure is tired and broken and that it makes sense to fix those problems now when money is cheap, bricks and mortar are not flowing into private construction and unemployed labor is plentiful.
The modern lefty believes that having clean air to breathe and clean water to drink is simply a burden that has to be borne.
He or she believes that protecting the diversity of our planet is not only moral but ultimately in our own self interest.
He or she believes that the Statue of Liberty is a symbol that America was a land the world could look to for opportunity. The know that millions of immigrants are not going back, that they breathe the same air we breathe, they clean our plates, fix our food and that leaving them in the shadows may be good politics but is just stupid.
Today's "left" believes that we have to provide for the sick and elderly and the debate should simply be how. What Christian could argue otherwise? Indeed, today's left believes that, since most Western nations somehow figure out a way to take care of those unable to take care of themselves, we can afford to do so also.
Today's left believes that the government has not allowed the free market to work, by puting such a heavy foot on the rich side of the market it has created income disparity that is taking our best and brightest and putting them in meaningless occupations in which they are paid handsomly to help destabilize world financial markets.
Most of today's left believes that the greatness of America was a consequence of rewarding both labor and capital and that taxing work at a far greater rate than capital is a sin that is destroying the middle class of our Nation.
Today's left believes that what was learned about the causes of the Great Depression -- the dangerous combination of banking, insurance and finance coupled with high leverage -- were forgotten for the sake of greed.
In short, today's "liberals" are, in historical terms, anything but. They are the real centrists, able to find comfort in the parting words of Dwight Eisenhower. The consequence of this is, however, substantial.
Barack Obama's political team has built a base on the foundation of Wall Street. They see his role as mediating between left and right. But, since there is no meaningful left, the balance they continue to achieve has taken him increasingly into utterly indefensible positions.
We don't need the crazy left any more than we need the crazy right. But pretending that they are equivilant is leading this country off the cliff.
We don't need a left wing candidate to challenge Obama in the primaries. We need a Democrat to challege Obama in the primaries.
