If you ask Democrats and liberals who are still in shock over the Trump victory about their feelings since November 8th, you’ll find many who cite fear as their biggest emotion. Fear for the future of the country. Fear of losing so many of the gains their side has made in the political sphere. Fear of a reversal of the culture wars. Fear of rampant racism. Fear for LGBT people, immigrants and minorities. Fear for their own futures. In many cases, people have reported fear so great as to be debilitating and even paralyzing.
I suspect their fears are overstated, but that’s a discussion for another day, and only time will tell if their fears prove correct or unfounded. The more germane and irritating part of their often overwrought and at times hysterical fears is that they have rotten roots.
For decades, the people who support the Democratic Party and who reside to its left have insisted that they are the only ones who care about the poor, about minorities, about the LGBT community, and about other oppressed identity groups. Let me stress that: the only ones. How do I conclude this? Because they routinely resort to force against those not of their party or their political leanings. Their basis for this exclusive and exclusionary claim to compassion? The fact that there are bigots on the Right.
Yes, there are bigots on the Right. There are also bigots on the Left, in minority communities and in the various oppressed identity groups. The percentages may be greater on the Right (or they may not), but the existence of some bigots does not make everyone on the Right a bigot. To think so is to either have a child’s mentality or engage in deep self-delusion.
Obviously, not everyone who isn’t a Democrat/liberal is a bigot, but there are countless people who in all seriousness believe that Trump won because there are 62 million bigots in America who voted for him.
Why would people embrace such a preposterous notion? Beyond the obvious virtue signalling aspect, it’s an obvious and blatant play at claiming sole possession of a moral high ground in order to tilt the balance of any future arguments over policy and culture. It’s also a pile of bunk.
The compassion the Left purports for the poor and oppressed is a smokescreen for its desire to impose control. Control over everyone’s money, over everyone’s language, over everyone’s religious beliefs, over everyone’s jobs, homes and home preferences, transportation preferences, mobility and association. How do I conclude this? Because, as before, their policies invariably involve government coercion… AND… because they never abandon failed policies, useless laws and regulations, or bad ideas.
The War on Poverty has done little to reduce the poverty rate and a lot to establish a permanent underclass that is not only dependent on the state to survive, but assumes that its only hope for survival is the state. Public education stinks despite a doubling of per-student spending over the past 40 years, yet the Left resists any change that threatens the monopolistic status quo. Decades of progress in race and LGBT relations are being undermined by an angry and coercive “never good enough” mindset. The problems caused by 75 years of government meddling in health care/health insurance must be addressed by… even more government meddling.
The Left’s culture wars impose demands of conformity of opinion and belief even upon those who it supposedly champions. You can’t be black or gay or Muslim and voice opinions contrary to liberal orthodoxy. In fact, if you do, you get excoriated even more strongly. Ask Clarence Thomas, Milo Yiannopoulos or Ayaan Hirsi Ali how the Left treats them. Why doesn’t the Left’s advocacy for the oppressed extend to those who have different political opinions?
The Left claims to care about the future in its near-religious devotion to decarbonizing energy/society as a counter to anthropogenic global warming that may or may not be an actual threat to the people living a century from today, but it absolutely, positively, unequivocally refuses to address the absolutely, positively, unequivocally underfunded and actuarially unsound Social Security and Medicare programs that will absolutely, positively, unequivocally fail Americans and devastate America well before global warming will have a chance to. Is that genuine “caring” about the future of America or the planet?
History is replete with failed government programs that continue on for decades after their inefficacy has been undeniable. Consider Head Start, as one example, a program that has consumed $180 billion in taxpayer dollars since its inception 50 years ago. The government’s own studies have found it to be an ineffective program, yet funding efforts actually increased after that conclusion. Why? Wouldn’t that money be better used elsewhere, or, even better, left in the hands of the taxpayers who earned it so it might go to productive use? Wouldn’t real caring and compassion involve caring about using other people’s money carefully?
Not if the real motive is power and control. The perpetuation of an established bureaucracy ensures the loyalty of those bureaucrats. The distribution of other people’s money ensures the loyalty of the recipients. A program that purports to “do good” can sucker a lot of people into supporting it even when it fails to achieve its goals. A program “for the children” is an excellent weapon to wield against those who would defund it based on its ineffectiveness by enabling the label “anti-children.” False caring and compassion are used to mask power and control. And, Head Start is by no means a unique example of dismissing failure. There’s nothing in the universe as hard to kill as an on-going government program. Heck, the government still forces us to turn corn into ethanol in order to put it into our cars, despite knowing that it’s bad for the environment. If a program that was initiated for the common good but that everyone now knows is purely a political payoff cannot be killed, how much hope do we have for programs that people still falsely believe are doing good?
We can wave off the self-serving cynics’ professed fears of Trump because they’re about lost power, not genuine compassion for others. Their history gives them no foundation upon which to aver their compassion and decry the opposition’s lack of it, so their professing of fear is risible.
What, though, of the many people who actually feel fear? Who actually believe that doomsday is nigh, sporting an orange hue and a crazy blond coif? We should have some compassion for them, even if their fears are rooted in sand and rot. They’ve been sold a terrible narrative by the people they’ve put their faith in and devoted themselves to, and they’re paying an unfair and unjust price. Compassion, up to a point. They’re adults, they’re responsible for managing their emotions and reactions, the onus is on them to recognize that they’ve been manipulated by partisans and self-serving cynics into feeling this paralyzing fear. We can be good, helpful and, yes, compassionate by not rubbing their noses in it when they figure out they’ve been duped.
Are there legitimate fears of a Trump presidency? Certainly. I discussed some of mine recently. Should rich liberals and “woke” hipsters become catatonic over his election? Of course not. The Republic will survive Trump, just as it survived his 43 predecessors. Will things change? Yes. Will they change for the better or the worse? Yes. No one gets everything right, no one gets everything wrong, and no one can please everybody.
Will unspeakable horrors be perpetrated on the various identity groups the Left champions? Will the civil rights movement suddenly evaporate? Will gays suddenly have to live under Stonewall Inn-era oppression? Will roving hordes of rednecks master the fine art of tying nooses? If you genuinely believe so, you are a ****ing moron. As I noted above, some bad people will do some bad things, and it is up to you and me and every other member of society to denounce them and seek their prosecution for crimes. But, your friends and neighbors did not suddenly turn into the mountain man, Max Cady, Sheriff Buford T. Justice, or Zed.
What now? Real compassion, for a start. Compassion for others as individuals, not as members of identity groups. Compassion at a personal level rather than by voting in some control-minded big government nanny and deciding “my job is done.” Compassion based on results, not intent, and the courage to recognize when good intent has produced bad results. Above all, rejection of the sky-is-falling sensationalism that is being used to scare you into being an unquestioning, loyal soldier who will continue to support the ideas, policies and (above all) mindset that drove your party into the political wasteland.
Loading ...
Great read Peter!