Daniel Greenfield On How The Left Destroys Itself

People know the result:

It was 2004. The poncho was the hottest fashion trend, there were 5 million new cases of AIDS and a former Nazi collaborator had bought the Democrat Party using the spare change in his sofa cushions…

“It is the central focus of my life,” George Soros declared. It was “a matter of life and death.” He vowed that he would become poor if it meant defeating the President of the United States.

Instead of going to the poorhouse, he threw in at least $15 million, all the spare change in the billionaire’s sofa cushions, dedicated to beating President Bush.

In his best lisping James Bond villain accent, Soros strode into the National Press Club and declared that he had “an important message to deliver to the American Public before the election” that was contained in a pamphlet and a book that he waved in front of the camera. Despite his “I expect you to die, Mr. Bond” voice, the international villain’s delivery was underwhelming. He couldn’t have sold brownies to potheads at four in the morning. He couldn’t even sell Bush-bashing to a roomful of left-wing reporters.

But he could certainly fund those who would. And that’s exactly what he did.

Money poured into the fringe organizations of the left like MoveOn, which had moved on from a petition site to a PAC. In 2004, Soros was its biggest donor. He didn’t manage to bring down Bush, but he helped buy the Democratic Party as a toy for his yowling dorm room of left-wing activists to play with.

Soros hasn’t had a great track record at buying presidential elections. The official $25 million he poured into this one bought him his worst defeat since 2004. But his money did transform the Democrat Party.

And killed it.

They fail to see the most important mechanism, however. r-strategist’s consume resources. Fuel r and you consume the available resources, creating K-psychologies. Fuel r in the midst of an economic downturn, and you have the makings of a real K-shift.

If someone had developed cold fusion at the right moment, and it created a massive economic bubble, and another wave of new dopamine-producing technologies like full virtual reality followed on its heels, the result would have been another wave of r-selection in our societies, and Soros’ actions would have been followed by a resurgence of liberalism.

Instead, Soros put his money in as the economic conditions were progressing toward a period of economic re-balancing, involving a probable economic collapse.

Greenfield makes a compelling case that Soros destroyed the leftist movement all by himself, but I think he merely gave an insignificant acceleration to a process which is far bigger than anyone. If r/K Theory were better known, I suspect Greenfield might agree.

r/K Selection Theory will change the world, because even Daniel Greenfield would see something new if he knew it