As Louisiana’s political left fights to halt a retreat that has accelerated over the past year with the election of Republican Gov. Jeff Landry and the most conservative Legislature ever, its tactics have begun to rely more heavily on subterfuge and “useful idiots.”
Although thought to have originated from Soviet strongman Vladimir Lenin to describe non-communist sympathizers to communism, the term seems to have come from Western European communists referring to other leftist political parties. It has evolved these days into a term more closely associated with economist Ludwig von Mises’ “useful innocents,” or people generally unaware or uncaring of the implications of a radical political agenda but who agree with its propagation for their own reasons unrelated to the underlying ideology.
Where the left understands it cannot control majoritarian political institutions or public opinion, it seeks out indirect ways, using nondemocratic agents if necessary, to try to advance its policy agenda. Some recent examples in Louisiana demonstrate the left’s willingness to find more ways to skin a cat to force its unloved agenda into policy.
