posted December 23, 2016 08:16 AM            

Now that Donald Trump has been elected, hope is gone. That's more or less what Michelle Obama told Oprah Winfrey in a recent interview. "We are feeling what not having hope feels like," she said.

There are millions of liberals feeling hopeless these days. The left's fear of a Trump administration is like nothing seen since the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, which reversed 50 years of liberal politics. Not only are they bawling in public, threatening to relocate to Canada, and cuddling up with therapy dogs, but they've tried every undemocratic trick in the book to deny Trump the election.

Trump obviously threatens something of crucial importance to the left, but what is it? What are they afraid of?

They are afraid of Trump's policies, of course – and there will be plenty of changes on day one. Most of what Obama "accomplished" by executive order stands to be reversed. Other reversals may take months or years. All of this threatens the left on business regulation, taxes, health care, energy, welfare, labor law, the environment, and more.

Trump's policies will make America a business-friendly, prosperous, and free nation once again. The importance of these changes cannot be overestimated. But since Hillary never argued the case for progressive policies in her campaign – she focused on demonizing her opponent – it's probably not policy that's the real cause of progressive paroxysms.

It's something more troubling – the suspicion that, in some deep and lasting way, America doesn't want them.

That was the unspoken implication behind Michelle's "hope is dead" routine. It's one thing to pine over the loss of an election – it's another to say it's Armageddon because they lost. It's suddenly dawned on the first lady, and on millions of others, that Americans do not share her progressive fantasies. And like all the others, she has too much invested in progressivism to go away quietly.

That much is obvious, too, in Obama's tentative performance in his final press conference. With China having seized a U.S. underwater drone, Obama needed to look tough. He didn't. He looked bewildered, like the man he is – an overbearing potentate who never listened to the American people and who now finds his "legacy" in shambles. After claiming "success" on every front, he evaded answering a question from Mark Landler of the New York Times about China's seizure of a U.S. research drone. This time it's not "leading from behind"; it's not showing up. Like, China won't bother us if we leave them alone. And when they do, just pretend it didn't happen.

What's causing all the frenzy on the left is just this: the realization that after eight years of weak and undemocratic governance, democracy has reasserted itself. The American heartland is disgusted with what they've done, from Obamacare to Black Lives Matter to transgendered bathrooms to a feeble foreign policy that emboldens our enemies.

The truth is that most Americans are not progressives and never will be. They are conservative by nature. They believe in small business, family, God, and the right to self-defense. For eight years progressives have ridden roughshod over the values of the heartland, and voters have been seething.

What will they do, now that they've been so soundly defeated? There was supposed to be a mass exodus to Canada. Not a single Hollywood celebrity has left. Maybe, what with Toronto facing a wind chill of minus 39 not long ago, they've decided that Brentwood isn't so bad.

What they will do, unfortunately, is stay here and continue to carp for the next four, and hopefully eight, years and more. Nothing can change the fact that the America is conservative and getting more so. For the first time in 32 years, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania voted for a Republican presidential candidate. That's not just because of the Trump mystique or a distaste for Hillary Clinton. Wisconsin and Michigan also have Republican governors, as does Ohio. And in Wisconsin and Ohio, the GOP holds overwhelming control of the state legislatures.

The verdict is in. The heartland is solidly conservative. The Blue Wall has turned red and threatens to stay red for a long time.

That is one more reason progressives are crybabies. It's not just the loss of one election. It's the realization that, having given Obama eight years to prove their case, Americans have made up their minds. Trump's victory was not an anomaly – it was the inescapable result of eight years of indignation.

Progressives are throwing tantrums because they realize that the party is over, for a long, long time, if not forever. What do you do now?

The American left finds itself in the same position as those aging True Believers who populated Russia and Eastern Europe when communism fell apart. Those who had lived under communism for fifty years or more, some of whom were my acquaintances in Macedonia and Bulgaria, were forced to question their very identity. The change was not easy, and many, especially those who had lived under communism for a half-century and knew nothing else, found it impossible to change.

I visited one such Central Committee member in her apartment in Sofia in 1994. She had lost her post at the university, lost her political influence, lost many of her friends. She was surviving on a trifling pension, making do with canned goods, bread, and homemade brandy, and still in shock over the fall of communism.

Maybe Michelle was right. Hope is gone, for progressives, at least. Like my acquaintance in Sofia, they've lost their power and influence, and it's too late to change. So far as I know, Nancy and Harry (the latter retiring in January) have never recognized the greatness of American capitalism or brilliant business leaders like Rex Tillerson. These aging radicals are about to find themselves outcasts with no power or influence. No wonder they're distressed.

It isn't too late for the young. Those millions who voted for Bernie did so out of a desire for change. Trump offers that change. Even before entering office, he's saving jobs and restoring confidence to investors and business leaders, who are already planning increased capital outlays to expand business. He's restoring hope to the Appalachian coal region and the oil fields of Oklahoma and Texas and Pennsylvania and Alaska. He's beginning to change the thinking of Millennials, who now believe they have a future.

All of this is driving the left nuts. They're afraid of finding themselves on the wrong side of history, as in fact they are. They ran on "four more years" of failure without realizing that the American people don't want more failure. Our president-elect was smart enough to realize that they want to win for a change.

It's one thing to lose an election. It's another to lose your identity. After two Trump terms, even the True Believers will realize that progressivism is a lost cause. That thought is just beginning to percolate, and progressives are freaking out. Soon it will sink in: America really is a conservative nation. She gave progressivism a chance, and progressivism failed.

posted December 24, 2016 11:35 AM            

I could tell democrats why they're doomed to become only a footnote in history books but damned if I'm going to. Just keep doing what you've been doing democrats...and I mean office holding democrats...and watch your numbers of elected democrats dwindle even further in 2018.

posted December 24, 2016 12:27 PM            

But if Republicans screw this up and fail to live up to the expectations of those of us who have empowered them (as they have been so good at doing in the past), the tables will quickly turn and we will instead be talking about the collapse of the Republicans and the inevitable Democrat take-over.

posted December 24, 2016 12:30 PM            

It's all stupid.

United we stand, divided we fall. Why do people insist on staying divided?

It serves no one's interests.

There is NO SUCH THING as left or right.

posted December 24, 2016 12:34 PM            

"It's all over for the Left...."

Grow up.

posted December 24, 2016 03:03 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by Randall:
It's the left who is throwing hissy fits.

---

Ohhhhh so that excuses threads like this?

They do it first, so the Right must echo it back?

Brilliant

That'll make America great, I'm sure.

Sorry

posted December 24, 2016 05:08 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by Randall:
I don't see you criticizing all the left has been saying and doing

---

I usually don't think of people as "Left" and "Right."

posted December 27, 2016 11:20 AM            

It's far too late to attempt putting distance between themselves and infantile, narcissistic, juvenile thumb sucking, whining, screeching, howling, shrieking leftists who spend their lives in the bubble world of unreality.

They're so easy to spot. Their first move is always to shut those up with whom they disagree. This is the first marker separating the ranks of leftists and Liberals.

When their every word is in support of leftist lunatics or leftist lunatic ideas, of which there is an endless supply, denial is futile.

I apologize to all Liberals who may read this article. While this writer has it exactly right as to mental pathologies and behaviors, he fails to note the vast chasm between true Liberals and those whom I call leftists.

December 27, 2016
Infantile Rage on the Left
James Lewis

It was Anna Freud, Sigmund Freud's daughter, who first described the most common ego defenses in detail. Later, scientists and clinical psychiatrists expanded the list of accepted defense mechanisms and did much improved research, like Harvard's George Vaillant. There is good agreement on a basic set of ego defenses, like denial, displacement (blaming), and rationalization.

Ego defenses distort reality in some way, from very mild defenses like rationalization to "primitive" defenses like massive denial of reality and fantasy-driven thinking. These defenses are fairly easy to spot when people can't cope or feel very anxious or overwhelmingly confused. Ego defenses protect us from excessive fear, uncontrollable rage, shame, guilt, and other painful emotions. Some adults retreat into the safety of childhood and even infancy, feeling protected by an all-powerful mother or father substitute.

This brings me to modern liberals. This country used to have mainstream liberals who faced reality, like Harry Truman, Hubert Humphrey, JFK, and more recently Joe Lieberman and a few others. But today, the radical left controls the Democrats, which is why I believe they lost the election. And they can't cope with losing.

Donald Trump used hints and half-sentences that might have come from Rush Limbaugh to signal the voters that he was on their side. Because liberals have filtered out conservative thinkers like Limbaugh for all these years, they simply did not get what Trumps was plainly saying to most Americans. Trump's rhetoric became a kind of secret code, not because conservatism is a conspiracy, but rather because ordinary liberals simply need to escape from ordinary conservative ideas. They created their own cult of silence when it came to sensible conservative ideas, which they experience as intolerably scary. It's a kind of normal-phobia.

Normal Americans never wanted to crush the coal industry or squeeze our domestic oil supply to please fantasy-driven greens, constantly screaming that the world is coming to an end. Obama's idea that he would personally "stop the rising of the oceans" makes our eyes roll. The fantasy left has taken over the Democratic Party, and a lot of American voters see that. But we can't speak out because the nearest commissar of the left will jump on our sensitive parts. We've all had that experience.

It's not surprising that in the Fear Society produced by P.C., people quietly come to their own conclusions. They are not going to tell some anonymous pollster on the phone. The left has made truth-telling unsafe. Conservative college students are not going to expose themselves to ridicule from professors and student fanatics.

The mass cult of P.C. has turned our universities into dangerous territory for ordinary people, and there are no "safe spaces" left for conservatives on campus. This is a terrible and corrupt state of affairs.

I believe that the deepest reason for liberal goofiness is their primitive ego defenses. George Vaillant of Harvard Medical School has worked to place the most common ego defenses in an ordered list, going from infantile or primitive defenses to healthy adult defenses. You can Google all kinds of examples of primitive defenses openly proclaimed by liberals traumatized by political reality.

Fantasies are normal for infants and other children. They are valuable in the process of growing up. But for adults, some of those wilder fantasies signal a serious neurosis, or even a "walking psychosis," like paranoid personality disorder. Paranoids can sound normal most of the time, but then you'll suddenly hear their persecution or grandiose fantasies popping out. The next moment, they can sound normal again.

Obama has some of these features, although I don't think his consistent pattern of denials and openly expressed feelings of persecution are extreme enough to qualify. Still, a quick search of his public statements will show a pattern of constantly blaming others (even when he is personally responsible for some mess), immense grandiosity, a lush fantasy life, great vulnerability to any perceived slights, and frequent use of denial as an ego defense. In a politician who tells lies as a matter of course and who is surrounded by a small cult that protects his delicate ego, it is often impossible to tell where Obama begins and his inner cohort ends.

It is obvious that Valerie Jarrett, described as his alter ego, supports Obama's grandiose beliefs. This used to be normal for hereditary kings and secular tyrants, who surrounded themselves with a constant flow of flattery. As a direct result, they often begin to drift out of touch with reality. T.S. Eliot wrote that "humankind cannot bear too much reality," and that point certainly applies to small, self-reinforcing liberal cults. Realism is an adult capacity, and if we work at it, we become more and more realistic over our lives. But some people flee into a comfortable cave of self-protective beliefs.

One striking thing about liberals is their need for echo chambers. Conservatives can thrive as individuals, but liberals need to hear their favorite beliefs echoed and supported by others.

Climate catastrophism is common in tribal groups, as reported by anthropologists. Human beings conduct rain dances in times of drought and pray for the monsoon to end in countries bedeviled by that constant downpour. Weather magic is a cultural universal, and claiming to calm the rising oceans is a very common superstition.

"Superstition" is the right word for liberal campaigns against (non-existent) global freezing and global warming, against phony claims about the oceans overflowing, against the great benefits of coal and oil (the lifeblood of human prosperity), against nuclear power, against GMO foods, and much more.

Modern liberals have caught a kind of hypochondria, a fear of perceived but nonexistent dangers. Psychologically, this is a kind of conversion hysteria. (Freud's famous first case of Anna O was a spectacular example of conversion hysteria in a young, recently traumatized woman. Anna O had a "museum" of illness symptoms, including a pseudo-pregnancy, which usually lasted only for a short time, only to be followed by yet another dramatic symptom.)

Modern liberals have projected that kind of search for scary disasters onto the whole world, so that increasingly there is nothing good and healthy in prosperous societies. Only the fabled Noble Savages are healthy, and anything "natural" is good for you.

Well, our forbears knew about toxic mushrooms, rotten meat, violent hobos, Indian genocides, and infected wounds. Those are all natural, too.

In this season of despair for the left, liberals are not just going through a hissy fit after Hillary lost. They are showing us a bunch of primitive, infantile defenses.

This tells us everything we need to know about them, from Obama and Hillary to Al Gore and John Kerry. These are classical infantile personalities.

Primitive defenses are normal in early childhood, and if a child grows up well, eventually mature defenses take their place. Infants cry in rage when they are deprived of a beloved toy. Liberals have been telling us about their own fits of rage and crying after Hillary lost.

Children easily retreat into fantasies and daytime dreams. When little ones start to talk, around age three, they still express infantile defenses, including denial, displacement (blaming others for their own perceived weaknesses), retreat into fantasy, projection ("you're a poopie kid!" to a young sib when they just learned bowel control themselves), infantile narcissism (also called healthy narcissism because it shows up in normal child development; the same ego-centered beliefs are considered a personality disorder in adults), "rage fits" when they are angry, dependency on Mom or a favorite blanket, and bitter crying when another sib tells them there is no Santa Claus.

Infantile defenses are completely normal, but over time, they should disappear as children grow up.

There is a word for adults with infantile defenses. They are called neurotic, or people with personality disorders.

It seems increasingly that such pathologies can actually be taught in a cult-like setting. Leftist power over the schools has resulted in an infantile generation of snowflakes, young adults acting out narcissistic rage against nonexistent enemies, living in Santa Claus fantasies, clinging to a magical cult of the left to make themselves feel powerful and competent. They suffer from irrational rage and substitute name-calling for reason ("racist! sexist! evil!" "bitter clingers with their God and their guns"). We are seeing primitive mob rage, a widespread inability to face reality, a lot of wishful and phobic thinking in a harsh world, "splitting" the world into absolute Good and absolute Evil, failing to see shades of gray. We are seeing mental fixations on super-heroes (like Obama) who are always fighting demons – Nixon, Bush 41, and soon Trump.

Disturbed liberals typically present a false self to the world for self-glorification.

Talk to a liberal, and you soon see primitive, infantile defenses popping out – especially if you are a calm, adult conservative. They don't get adulthood; adulthood, responsibility, and reality are what they are forever trying to escape.
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/12/infantile_rage_on_the_left.html

posted December 27, 2016 11:34 PM            

Drexel University professor:
"All I want for Christmas is "white genocide"

Among lunatic leftists, there's more nuts per square foot than found in a pecan grove.

The Far-Left Ideas that Motivate ‘White Genocide’ Professor
Lee Stranahan
26 Dec 2016

The phrase “white genocide” was a tending topic on Twitter Monday morning after news broke Sunday that Dr. George Ciccorioello-Maher, a professor at Philadelphia’s Drexel University, tweeted out a wish for “white genocide” on Christmas Day.

The shocking thing about Ciccorioello-Maher’s tweet “All I Want for Christmas is White Genocide.” is that based on his ideology and his choice of influences, Professor Ciccorioello-Maher appears to mean it. It’s a shocking lesson about what is being taught at America’s universities today and who is teaching.

In another Christmas Day Tweet, Ciccorioello-Maher called the massacre of whites a “good thing.”

posted December 28, 2016 10:55 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by jwhop:
Gee, where have we heard this codswallop that they're neither right or left before?

---

posted December 31, 2016 05:53 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by jwhop:
[b]December 23, 2016
What Are They Afraid Of?
Jeffrey Folks

Now that Donald Trump has been elected, hope is gone. That's more or less what Michelle Obama told Oprah Winfrey in a recent interview. "We are feeling what not having hope feels like," she said.

There are millions of liberals feeling hopeless these days. The left's fear of a Trump administration is like nothing seen since the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, which reversed 50 years of liberal politics. Not only are they bawling in public, threatening to relocate to Canada, and cuddling up with therapy dogs, but they've tried every undemocratic trick in the book to deny Trump the election.

Trump obviously threatens something of crucial importance to the left, but what is it? What are they afraid of?

They are afraid of Trump's policies, of course – and there will be plenty of changes on day one. Most of what Obama "accomplished" by executive order stands to be reversed. Other reversals may take months or years. All of this threatens the left on business regulation, taxes, health care, energy, welfare, labor law, the environment, and more.

Trump's policies will make America a business-friendly, prosperous, and free nation once again. The importance of these changes cannot be overestimated. But since Hillary never argued the case for progressive policies in her campaign – she focused on demonizing her opponent – it's probably not policy that's the real cause of progressive paroxysms.

It's something more troubling – the suspicion that, in some deep and lasting way, America doesn't want them.

That was the unspoken implication behind Michelle's "hope is dead" routine. It's one thing to pine over the loss of an election – it's another to say it's Armageddon because they lost. It's suddenly dawned on the first lady, and on millions of others, that Americans do not share her progressive fantasies. And like all the others, she has too much invested in progressivism to go away quietly.

That much is obvious, too, in Obama's tentative performance in his final press conference. With China having seized a U.S. underwater drone, Obama needed to look tough. He didn't. He looked bewildered, like the man he is – an overbearing potentate who never listened to the American people and who now finds his "legacy" in shambles. After claiming "success" on every front, he evaded answering a question from Mark Landler of the New York Times about China's seizure of a U.S. research drone. This time it's not "leading from behind"; it's not showing up. Like, China won't bother us if we leave them alone. And when they do, just pretend it didn't happen.

What's causing all the frenzy on the left is just this: the realization that after eight years of weak and undemocratic governance, democracy has reasserted itself. The American heartland is disgusted with what they've done, from Obamacare to Black Lives Matter to transgendered bathrooms to a feeble foreign policy that emboldens our enemies.

The truth is that most Americans are not progressives and never will be. They are conservative by nature. They believe in small business, family, God, and the right to self-defense. For eight years progressives have ridden roughshod over the values of the heartland, and voters have been seething.

What will they do, now that they've been so soundly defeated? There was supposed to be a mass exodus to Canada. Not a single Hollywood celebrity has left. Maybe, what with Toronto facing a wind chill of minus 39 not long ago, they've decided that Brentwood isn't so bad.

What they will do, unfortunately, is stay here and continue to carp for the next four, and hopefully eight, years and more. Nothing can change the fact that the America is conservative and getting more so. For the first time in 32 years, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania voted for a Republican presidential candidate. That's not just because of the Trump mystique or a distaste for Hillary Clinton. Wisconsin and Michigan also have Republican governors, as does Ohio. And in Wisconsin and Ohio, the GOP holds overwhelming control of the state legislatures.

The verdict is in. The heartland is solidly conservative. The Blue Wall has turned red and threatens to stay red for a long time.

That is one more reason progressives are crybabies. It's not just the loss of one election. It's the realization that, having given Obama eight years to prove their case, Americans have made up their minds. Trump's victory was not an anomaly – it was the inescapable result of eight years of indignation.

Progressives are throwing tantrums because they realize that the party is over, for a long, long time, if not forever. What do you do now?

The American left finds itself in the same position as those aging True Believers who populated Russia and Eastern Europe when communism fell apart. Those who had lived under communism for fifty years or more, some of whom were my acquaintances in Macedonia and Bulgaria, were forced to question their very identity. The change was not easy, and many, especially those who had lived under communism for a half-century and knew nothing else, found it impossible to change.

I visited one such Central Committee member in her apartment in Sofia in 1994. She had lost her post at the university, lost her political influence, lost many of her friends. She was surviving on a trifling pension, making do with canned goods, bread, and homemade brandy, and still in shock over the fall of communism.

Maybe Michelle was right. Hope is gone, for progressives, at least. Like my acquaintance in Sofia, they've lost their power and influence, and it's too late to change. So far as I know, Nancy and Harry (the latter retiring in January) have never recognized the greatness of American capitalism or brilliant business leaders like Rex Tillerson. These aging radicals are about to find themselves outcasts with no power or influence. No wonder they're distressed.

It isn't too late for the young. Those millions who voted for Bernie did so out of a desire for change. Trump offers that change. Even before entering office, he's saving jobs and restoring confidence to investors and business leaders, who are already planning increased capital outlays to expand business. He's restoring hope to the Appalachian coal region and the oil fields of Oklahoma and Texas and Pennsylvania and Alaska. He's beginning to change the thinking of Millennials, who now believe they have a future.

All of this is driving the left nuts. They're afraid of finding themselves on the wrong side of history, as in fact they are. They ran on "four more years" of failure without realizing that the American people don't want more failure. Our president-elect was smart enough to realize that they want to win for a change.

It's one thing to lose an election. It's another to lose your identity. After two Trump terms, even the True Believers will realize that progressivism is a lost cause. That thought is just beginning to percolate, and progressives are freaking out. Soon it will sink in: America really is a conservative nation. She gave progressivism a chance, and progressivism failed.

It's over for the left in America. That's why they are so distraught.
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/12/what_are_they_afraid_of.html [/B]

---

People were saying this about the GOP in 2008 (and I was never gung-ho about Obama then like you are with Trump, as I knew he was a politician even though he was the better option than McCain)... if Trump turns out to be a bad president (and if he turns out to be good and work for the people instead of the elite, he could be impeached or assassinated, and the secret would be out of the bag), the Dems will likely gain momentum in the 2020s, or maybe a completely different party, knowing that both the Dems and the GOP are in it for themselves and not the people. These predictions for the next few years kinda point to that (most of her 2016 predictions were right):

https://www.jeannemayell.com/psychic-predictions-for-2016-2017-and-beyond-updated-often/

posted January 11, 2017 09:33 AM            

Goodbye and good riddance.

January 11, 2017
Donald Trump and the Death of Utopianism
Daniel L. Mallock

The aftermath of this extraordinary election, likely the most important in American history, has been fraught with controversy and confusion.

The collapse of the fourth estate, for example, is a signal and unfortunate consequence. Weeping "journalists," misguided and error-embracing "analysts," bias, fraud, malfeasance, and falsehoods mark the end of a once proud profession.

In the political and popular culture of the American left, there is a widespread and disturbing hatred and intolerance for those in the opposition that overwhelmingly eclipses a similar reaction to the election of George W. Bush.

The political culture now is so sour and the response of many who favored the losing party so extreme, so partisan, unforgiving, and unpleasant, that it seems clear that something much more than a presidential election defeat is the cause.

The absence of a unified theory of the collapse of the American progressive neo-Jacobin utopian left could be of some value in addressing these important questions.

Among the many reasons that explain the Democratic candidate's defeat is the fact that the constituency of the left is the totality of all living and future humanity. Their agenda is global and humanity-wide in scope; their countrymen are not the highest in the order of value, but merely take their place among the family of mankind. A rebellion against this view was at the core of the election result.

The problems of the world are common to every country – poverty, weather extremes, war, tolerance and intolerance, poor health and health care, inequity of wealth distribution, and economic opportunity, among many others. Millions of American progressive neo-Jacobin utopian true believers support the idea that these problems are solvable everywhere and that the sacrifices made by their fellow citizens will provide the solutions. The challenges faced by the world would all be resolved by the sweat, suffering, and financial and humanitarian sacrifices of them and their fellow Americans – a small price to pay for the greater good.

Because their motives, as they see them, are so amiable, humanitarian, and globally applicable, anyone opposed to their viewpoint must therefore be opposed to the advancement and benefit of humanity. Those who do not agree with this program must be evil.

Only in this way can the vitriol, overreaction, intolerance, and hatred from the left toward the new president and his supporters – that is, those who do not agree with their utopian ideology, be explained. Railing in public and private against absolutism and intolerance, they themselves have become the greatest practitioners of what they say they despise.

Having convinced themselves that their champion, the person who would continue the utopian program, could not lose the election – the shock of her defeat was particularly painful for many on the utopian progressive neo-Jacobin left. Their frustration and cognitive dissonance after the election were (and continue to be) seen around the world, reiterating the global nature of this utopian dream.

In a non-utopianized political culture, 2016 would simply have been another presidential election cycle. It was clearly not that at all.

The collapse of the American progressive utopian neo-Jacobin left is one of the most significant events in American political history. Even greater than the election of 1800, the closest comparable scenario, when Thomas Jefferson moved the country from Washington-Adams Federalism to a more de-centralized and aggressively experimental approach to government and foreign policy, this election marks a far more significant political and cultural shift.

Utopians believe that the ends (i.e., their goals) are so critically important to all of humanity that any means are acceptable. This very same belief brought guillotines to the streets of France during the French Revolution. Convinced that their motives were beyond reproach, necessary and beneficial to France and to the world – and that anyone in opposition (even the ambivalent) was an enemy of the state – the 1789 revolution in France that had started with such high hopes for real and positive change finally imploded, the victim of its own savage absolutism and intolerance.

In the aftermath of this election, with so many broken friendships, so much vitriol, anger, rigidity, and fear-mongering on the left (and little if any considered and reasoned public political discourse and analysis that might explain the outcome), the consequence of the 2016 election for American leftist neo-Jacobin utopians was about much more than their candidate's defeat.

American progressive leftist neo-Jacobin utopianism has become something of a cult. The idea that honest, decent, thoughtful, patriotic people could oppose them is not one easily comprehended or accepted. Those not in agreement with the self-identified idealism and humanitarianism of the left are then beyond the pale, illegitimate, and motivated by ignorance and malignance.

The election of Donald Trump, Brexit, and the growing anti-EU and anti-globalist mood sweeping Europe and the world show that rejection of the progressive utopian neo-Jacobin liberal program is not an American phenomenon alone.

"Journalists'" tears, hateful rhetoric from utopian friends and relatives, weeping and wailing in the towers of academia and the studios of Hollywood, gnashing of teeth and recriminations in faculty lounges are less about the defeat of the Democratic candidate than about a deep sorrow, confusion, anger, cognitive dissonance, and regret that the utopian program itself was defeated.

In the '70s and '80s, when young people joined a cult, sometimes they were found by friends and family. To be saved, the cult member was separated from the cultists and "deprogrammed." This was often successful, though not always. Most difficult and painful were those cultists who were unaware that they were in a cult at all.

The election of 2016, perhaps the most significant in American history, was about more than another peaceful transfer of American political power. An ideology has been defeated, not just a candidate.

The bubble of utopian fantasies has burst. A lesson learned from the horrors of history has re-emerged at the most advantageous time: there is no utopia.

Daniel L. Mallock is a historian, an analyst, and an author. His book Agony and Eloquence: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and a World of Revolution was published in February 2016.

posted January 11, 2017 06:18 PM            

It's legal to insert a link. Copying the entire article (more than a sentence or two) is not, even if you do give credit to the author.

posted January 12, 2017 09:14 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by Randall:
If the subject matter of the article is related to what the site is about (or in this case, the Forum), then it's okay to reproduce the entire article, so say the courts.

---

Can you provide the case citation for that? I'm no lawyer, but that is totally contrary to everything I've ever been taught in my professional field about U.S. copyright.

Regardless of the legality, if people who copy an entire article are actually interested in my reading the article, they would be well-advised to provide a link and their personal commentary only.

posted January 18, 2017 09:32 AM            

January 18, 2017
Trump Gores a Sacred Cow, and Liberals Lament
Daniel L. Mallock

The great Broom of Time recently swept away another failed ideology and political movement.

On the 20th of January, the dustbin of history will slam shut on the Utopian American Progressive Left. Followers, leaders, and philosophers of this dangerous and failed global movement will not go quietly, however; ideas die hard, and ideologies, movements, and political theories do not simply disappear overnight.

Inauguration Day 2016 will mark perhaps the greatest political and cultural shift in American history as the Utopians of the Progressive Left kick and scream, wail and whine as they shuffle off into forced retirement and irrelevance. Perhaps not since Lincoln's trip to Washington in early 1861 to begin his first term has so much vitriol, so many official and unofficial attempts to derail and delegitimize the president-elect, been seen.

Many have commented on the astounding and disturbing reaction of those now out of political power in the United States. The gross irony of Mrs. Clinton's admonishments during the election that Mr. Trump must promise to accept the election results (her victory was assured, remember?) in light of her supporters' post-election unwillingness to do the same is lost on the majority of them.

That the reaction of the Utopian Progressive Left is based upon anger, resentment, hatred, intolerance, and pique rather than logic is not important to them; it is a point that remains always unaddressed. Every political "dirty trick" that seems obviously a sham is accepted at face value, and bitter attacks built upon these false accusations immediately begin. The dizzying speed of the reactions, the overwhelmingly standardized nature of the talking points and commonly invoked yet faulty arguments, suggests a uniformity of thought more typical of an ideological movement or cult than of reasoned, cogent advocacy for a political candidate within a democratic open society.

This appears to be the essential complaint of the Utopian Progressive Left in the aftermath of the defeat of their champion, the shoe-in "first female president": If the Russians hadn't hacked the chairman of the campaign's email account and exposed what appears to be massive legal, ethical, and moral breaches, then our candidate would have won!

Whichever five-year-old boy in Russia, Italy, Sweden, the United States, Canada, or North Korea may have sent that phishing email to Mr. Podesta by which he himself then exposed his account to public scrutiny via WikiLeaks – which then blew the election discussion wide open to matters of great import not previously known – should not be so viciously berated, but rather applauded for his service to the country. For those on the left, the "hack" is critically important, but the revelations exposed are not worthy of discussion. Consider: how difficult can it really be to "hack" an email account that has "password" for a password?

We Americans once were obsessed with the truth, honesty, etc. We say these things to our children – tell the truth! Be honest! Do the right thing! Then, in this case, when we get the truth, one large segment of the voting public attacks the messenger and ignores the truth revealed. This is upside-down thinking. That the "hack" was unethical and criminal is agreed upon by all, but its importance in comparison to the information consequently made public is entirely overblown.

The reaction of the Utopian Progressive Left is so extreme, excessive, intolerant, and often cruel because this election is not about the fall of the Democratic candidate for president. Rather, it is about the collapse of an ideology at least 50 years in the making.

Imagine coming of age in a world in which the prevailing institutions of culture and government speak a similar political and ideological language ("the narrative") that is singular, slanted, biased, rigid, self-deceiving, and pervasive. If the Utopian Progressive Left narrative is trumpeted in the media by fellow traveler "journalists" and in the halls of early education and the universities by teachers and professors; trotted out in film, music, and the general popular entertainment culture by most "artists"; and supported and espoused in the rhetoric of political leaders at the highest levels and in the policies of the government (until now) itself, the imprint of this pervasive worldview becomes impossible to avoid. It became for many the default viewpoint and one not to be challenged. For decades, this has been extraordinarily effective with millions and millions of converts and true believers.

How could the response from the followers of this self-congratulatory and insular viewpoint to the destroyer of it be anything other than the disturbing reaction that we now see? For those who live in the world of Progressive Utopian globalism, a world of self-delusion, false narratives, and fantasies, these are the darkest of times, rife with existential angst.

One of the first seemingly introspective responses from the leadership of the Democratic Party after the election was that Democrats had failed to "own the narrative" and were unsuccessful in communicating their "vision." This suggests a failure of marketing rather than a flawed message. But the key point is missed: if the narrative is a message of a failed political ideology, the narrative and the ideology must fall. This is how our system is supposed to self-correct.

Ours is not a direct democracy. The president is not elected by a direct vote of the people. The Electoral College stands between the people and the president because most of the Founders feared the masses and wanted an institution in place as a balance against their numbers. Our "checks and balances" system includes this check against the people themselves. Essentially, it is the first and final check to protect us – from ourselves.

posted January 18, 2017 02:37 PM            

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I seem to have loved you in numberless forms...