Liberals have a reputation for ruining everything, because they do.
You do realize, don’t you, that they could avoid this reputation — even with their awful ideas — if they agreed to the implementation of those ideas with some kind of back-out plan if things don’t go the way they should. That’s the way you roll out a patch or a new application in a large-scale enterprise network. But they won’t. They want it to be like dumping an additive into the village water well; once it’s done, it’s done. You can put it in but you can’t suck it back out again. They want it like that every time.
They could avoid this reputation if they provided for some kind of opt-out, so that whoever doesn’t want their local well spiked can be given the option to say no thanks. But they won’t. Their ideas are so “good” they have to be forced.
They could avoid this reputation if they agreed to a sunset option, with option to renew after some term. They almost never do this. They want that ratchet locked in place.
They could avoid this reputation if they didn’t work so hard to exert control over who’s allowed to vote, at what age, with what criminal record — if they could just accept the voting body for however they find it, and make their best pitch to it, like any reasonable sales or marketing professional. But they won’t. They have to do their “ballot harvesting,” their Motor-Voter, and they have to fight any voter ID requirements so we’re not allowed to know who’s voting.
They could avoid this reputation by firming up their list of ecological/cultural lists of offenses, so that it could remain static for a little while. But no. Every year there’s a new offense that’s supposed to make all liberals in good standing angry and “triggered.” For any year that doesn’t see the arrival of a new offense, there is a new expensive social program, some new nanny-state assurance, and we don’t have an adequate level of government until and unless it’s provided. It’s a constant influx. So we never know how many dollars per nose it takes to run a proper government.
They could avoid this reputation by setting up a “sandbox” and checking their new rules within that isolated enclave, leaving everything outside the perimeter unaffected. But they won’t.
They could avoid this reputation by going first. They could say “I want you to pay this higher tax, as I have been paying for the last two years” or “I want you to order drinks without straws, as I have been doing for the last two years.” But they won’t.
They have the reputation of ruining everything, because they want to implement something they haven’t tried themselves…everywhere, from sea to shining sea…forever…with no opt-out plan…no back-out plan…no sunset. And not even so much as a hint that it’s the right way to go.
Notice we’re not even deliberating here whether it’s good to ban drinking straws, to impose unrealistic demands on utilities to use “green” energy, to put Lara Croft in long pants, to expel college students for wearing pro-Trump hats, to tell us how many cartridges our weapons should be able to hold or what days we can water our lawns, to increase the minimum wage or marginal tax rates. It’s got to do with how the rules are imposed, not what they are. Liberals don’t like this reputation they have. I wouldn’t like it either. But I don’t feel one bit sorry for them.