Yesterday, I wrote about progressive despair after the debt ceiling deal. Here’s a bit more from FDL’s David Dayen:

It’s true that the public does not believe in a competent, activist government. That’s because government in America has revealed itself to be a total failure over two successive Administrations. Government gets us into wars we never get out of. Government allows Wall Street to destroy the economy and then bails them out for the privilege. Government stands mute in the face of rampant unemployment for going on half a decade.

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We can elegantly construct a vision of government that is attractive and desirable. But when it’s undermined by real-world results, the vision is fatally compromised. Not only is the Washington Democratic rhetorical bias toward the deficit over jobs deeply problematic; so is their performance.

See also the reliably hacktastic Greg Sargent. But the reason I noted these views were only partially correct was to head off the sort of giddy triumphalism from people like AmSpec’s Jeffrey Lord:

[I]t must be said after that 269-161 vote in the House last night: America has reached a new Tipping Point.

An epidemic of conservatism is sweeping America. And thanks to the Tea Party, yesterday disgracefully accused of terrorism by Vice President Biden (he the vice president in an administration terrified of calling real terrorists terrorists — seriously!), the country will never be the same again.

With all due respect, it really must not be said that America has reached a tipping point, or that an epidemic of conservatism is sweeping the land. As I noted (and linked) yesterday, neither Democrats nor Republicans are much interested in cutting government spending on anything except space exploration and foreign aid. Entitlements, if not quite the untouchable third rail of American politics they once were, remain quite popular — and are likely to remain so until events force the public to rationalize their actual societal costs. The Tea Party, for all of its many positive qualities, is not all that popular, and became less so during the debt ceiling debate in about the same measure as Pres. Obama. The president remains within striking distance of re-election and will have the backing of the establishment media that is more likely to reach the casual, low-information voter.

To be sure, many of the milestones Lord lists in his article may have created preference cascades (the term popularized by Instapundit Glenn Reynolds). The emergence of Rush Limbaugh, Fox News Channel, and the blogosphere did let many people know they were not alone in their beliefs, and gave them not only an outlet, but methods of banding together. But in a democratic republic, the death of 19th-20th century progressivism is unlikely to happen overnight (absent a true debt crisis), precisely because there progressive institutions and programs were installed democratically (if not always with popular support).

America is not at a Tipping Point. Not yet. Rather than invoking the Instapundit’s preference cascades, remember his invocations of Han Solo: “Great, kid… don’t get cocky.”

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