The Left has set several litmus tests for presidential candidates, to help sort the true progressives from the moderate liberals. These include commitments to the Green New Deal, Medicare-for-All, impeachment, and, for some, the abolition of the Electoral College, and expansion of the Supreme Court. The time has come for the moderates to reciprocate by providing the Left with some tests to separate the Hard Left from the rest. The candidates, who are leaning to the left, could be asked a simple question. Do they agree that, although the
United States is deeply flawed, America is not defined by its flaws but is basically a good society, with a robust set of liberal institutions? Or, is America inherently, structurally, a society dominated by
racism, jingoism, chauvinism, and homophobia? Is America society that must be rebuilt, from the ground up, on new foundations? Patriotism, de Gaulle stated, is the love of country. Is the Hard Left patriotic?Another test is which view of
American history the candidate considers the truer one. Does the main arc of U.S. history bend toward justice—is it a narrative of ever-growing rights, first for those whites that did not own property, then for women, then for African Americans, next for gay people? None received their due, but all are in a vastly better place than they were centuries, generations, and even decades ago. Or, are racism, chauvinism, and other forms of prejudice so deeply ingrained in American values and institutions that all we see, over the ages, are changes in window dressings but very little true change? Indeed, racism, for example, has become more insidious, but no less biting.