As the Deity be my witness, I have never not even since 1968 (which I am sufficiently old enough to remember, being 14 years of age in that cursed year) seen such a massive and public temper tantrum as that which we have been observing since November, 2015. Let it be said that I am observing all this with appalled and horrified fascination. It used to be that only certain very far-leftish intellectuals and college students were given to briefly melt down in such an over-the-top fashion but over the last month and a bit this appears to have become the chosen reaction to their side losing an election on the part of most Hollywood A- B- and C-Listers, all the social justice warrior front, most of the establishment media, a good chunk of our public intellectuals, a good few businesses (looking at you, Kellogg) a generous selection of our Democrat Party establishment, and a representative sample of leftish freelance political freaks. (As an aside good show; displaying your contempt toward at least half of your prospective audience/consumers/& etc is a sure winner, when it comes to the consumer market. This household will never purchase Kellogg brands again. Or go to a movie with Meryl Streep in it.)
So why the Cat-5 hurricane degree of hysteria, which shows not the slightest degree of diminishing? A number of reasons, I would venture; and for many of the most demonstrative “Never Our President” virtue signalers it may be a combination of several of these.
Inside a bubble, either consciously or inadvertent. The old Pauline Kael trope about not knowing anyone in her social or professional circle who voted for Nixon. The bubble is also geographic someone living in one of the prosperous coastal enclaves would have only the slightest connection to the Rust Belt, the Deep South, practically any place in Texas outside of Austin. Flyover America barely registered in the coastal bubbles. Until now. The national news media establishment does not help in piercing the bubble. Nor does Hollywood, or most popular television programs save a few exceptions. So maximum shock and horror when the bubble is shattered, the reality breaks in, and the frantic denials begin. You mean there are people out there those irredeemable deplorables, clinging to their Bibles and guns who don’t agree with us?
The absolute hatred of would-be modern mandarinate for those stupid, unbiddable serfs who just will not obey their betters. Really, the nerve of those dumb working-class proles, thinking that they can run their own lives better than those well-connected experts who went to a top university and scored a six-figure income at some non-profit, or civil service activity! Codevilla’s Ruling Class vs Country Party, written out in real time.
Baffled fury that the usual political campaign voodoo just didn’t work this election. The political strategists must be over the moon with this; after all, they have made very profitable careers in working that old black magic; Spend a heap of money on political advertising, splashy media appearances, the love and loyalty of the mainstream media giving adoring coverage wall to wall, lots of popular stars going all out for Hillary, polls that consistently favored her, plus pulling a few dirty tricks to smear or embarrass the other candidate all that stuff in the playbook which always worked before, suddenly didn’t. But it must work it simply must work, since it always worked before!
In conclusion, I offer the following thoughts and it’s not an original thought with me, since I have seen the same in comments here and there across the libertarian-conservative quadrant of the blogosphere but perhaps this is the defiant flowering of a political state of mind whose first seed was the Tea Party. Remember them? Their stated devotion to fiscal responsibility, free market, and fidelity to the Constitution? Who for all their care in being civilly-responsible, thoughtful, conscientious good citizens got smeared as illiterate, cousin-humping violent racists by all of the above the bicoastal elite, the mandarinate, the political operators, the news and entertainment elite. The news media lied through their teeth, most of them, about the Tea Party so, no credibility left there to burn with those of us who voted either for Trump, or against Hillary.
Discuss.
I’ve often wondered whether the solution to overpopulation in the world is to shoot the people who complain about overpopulation in the world. Why that thought should pop into my mind at this moment I can’t imagine.
Yer a sick and warped b*stard for suggesting that, Dearie – don’t ever change! ;-)
Direct. To the point. Probably has less adverse environmental effect. And probably you could mitigate the costs by selling ammunition. My own plan took note of the Clinton Archipelago of places that voted for Hillary:
https://polination.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/clinton_archipelago.png
and suggests nuking it from orbit just to be sure.
Of course, depending on the level of Leftist violence tomorrow, and whether it includes the assassination attempt that the Left so deeply lusts after, one or another of our suggestions may be implemented.
Subotai Bahadur
That’s easy, Mom. What used to be far-left campus madness metastasized and went mainstream, and found a willing host in the form of a postmodern suburban population that has never been hot or cold or hungry or dirty in its life. And, lethally, that is in love with beautiful abstractions about the way it’ll be *someday.* The American Dream became a deconstructionist nightmare. Obama is its champion and enabler. But they enabled him first, twice in a row.
They are stoned on the same concoction as the French revolutionaries and the Bolsheviks and the National Socialists and the Red Guard. They know that everything Old and Conventional is Evil and Rotten and Must Be Destroyed, and that their victory is a historical inevitability — and that by extension, so is the extinction of their enemies. They say so with chilling regularity, usually quoting demographics — rural versus urban, white and/or Christian versus everybody else. I grew up being vaguely aware that the browning out of America would happen in my lifetime, and blithely assuming that it would be no different than when the Germans came to outnumber the original English colonists. America would be the same, just slightly darker and with more interesting food. We had a unique advantage in not being a conventional ethno-state; I was fond of describing us as the world’s largest refugee camp run of, by, and for enterprising ex-refugees. The American Dream would carry us strong and proud into the future, firmly rooted in our past and proud even of the scar tissue from the sins we had to excise. Excited by the what was to come, and what we could do in it.
I was wrong. The exit polls from the New York Times confirm it. The screaming snarling mobs of illegals and urban blacks threatening race warfare confirm it. The killers from Syria and Somalia confirm it. The rule of law and the can-do spirit that served as the great leveler for the English and Germans and Russians and Irish and Norwegians and French and Greeks and Italians and the smatterings of everybody else has been made a mock of, and the great civilizational achievement in getting all these diverse peoples united under a single flag — united, as Herodotus describes the ancient Hellenes, by ‘common language and customs’ — has been thrown underfoot. We are are just homogeneous disgusting filthy White People, apparently. (Outliers like Subotai and his family do not count.) And we have got to go.
You were right: they hate us. They really really hate us. Hate feels good, and they are addicted to it. Even Garrison Keillor despises us, and has come to despise Christianity and Christians, and has gone on record in the Washington Post with his despite. The man whose kind, drowsy, humorous voice I grew up with spits on me and on my faith because I didn’t vote the correct way. I thought I was past being hurt or dismayed by the deconstructionist left’s vitriol, and was well into the wide awake and fighting-angry stage. I was wrong about that too.
Not even Nazi Germany or Imperial Rome put sodomy on the marriage altar or gelded healthy boys and sent them to school in dresses or insisted upon slaughtering the unborn in industrial numbers as an intrinsic civil right. We are so very sick and sad and decrepit, and no mere temporary division of political and economic spoils can remedy a depraved culture. No civilization in history has ever come back from that sort of abyss. They all fell and burned.
But if any polity can claw its way out, it is ours. Nobody ever fought a two-front war as we did in the 1940’s and survived, much less won. We were the first. Nobody ever fought a ruthless and violent revolution and replaced what they were fighting with something nicer, more representative. We were the first. (Rumania was the second, IMO). Nobody ever fought a war to end slavery on their own soil, or undertook to enfranchise them afterwards, though it took a century and in many ways remains an unfinished work. We have many historical firsts to our credit, though we had a healthy culture and a robust self-belief when we scored them.
Keep troth… and keep buying ammo.
Just as the best scenario – that Obama was another Carter – has played out and there are many ways that he is worse, I’m afraid the scenario that this is ’68 again may be unfortunately a best scenario we aren’t going to meet.
Yup, it’s gonna be good. The sheer entertainment value you produce for the world, just might be your epitaph.
I can barely keep up with the profound changes underway. The cracking of the edifice is so universal that one hardly knows where to look, to give it definition, or something. ;) They terrified all over! Davos is fun, Europe is melting down real well, and uncertainty fills the air. Israel is in a self inflicted state of indignation. Putin is arming the Libyans ……..
I just hope it’s not too bad for the US. You deserve to be taken down a peg or two, but not too much more.
I was cautiously optimistic last November despite polls to the contrary. Why? I guess I am four years older than Sergeant Mom, but I remember the 1980 election like it was yesterday. Reagan and Thatcher.
If I remember correctly neither was supposed to win. Thatcher proved to be a harbinger for Reagan.
Now we had Brexit, which was not supposed to win.
Admittedly this is a very unscientific rationale but there are undercurrents in politics at the pollsters could never measure.
As to the consternation among the left? Well yes, they do live in a bubble. And this was quite awake up which many do not want to embrace. Trump was not a stereotypical Republican candidate. When the mud was being flung at him, he flung some back at them. When the mud flung to Trump didn’t seem to stick that enraged them all the more.
Add to this his promise to dismantle most of what Obama created and then some (just as an example I’m thinking of reducing 20% of the federal workforce-the country would not even know the difference and the amount saved would be in the many billions) – the left views Trump with both fear and rage.
As to how much he will be able to accomplish, it will be an interesting four years. I fear he may become a Schwarzenegger who came into the California governorship full of conservative promises and then collapsed like a cheap suit when the public labor unions threw $100 million against him.
But then Trump is a hardened New York City real estate magnant used to adversity.
We shall see.
Don’t gloat too much, Pen Gun. It’s only the USA that prevents Mexico conquering Canada.
“It’s only the USA that prevents Mexico conquering Canada.”
And the cold weather. If Canada had the US climate, it would be over run by now.
The Revolution has only begun. If Trump can keep some significant promises and the economy improves, there will be hell to pay.
Think of Germany if Frederick had no contracted cancer of the larynx and had lived as long as his father had. No Wilhelm II and no World War I.
Alexander Dumas’ father was a Marshall of France and a mulatto, like Obama. His mother was a black slave, his father a nobleman. There is a story that at a violent period in the French Revolution, the Directory sent for General Dumas to help them put down a revolt in Paris. He had gone out riding and his wife, who was not enthusiastic about the Revolution, told the delegation that she did not know when he would return. They left and sought Napoleon who provided the “whiff of grapeshot to quell the uprising and went on the rule.
What if he had responded to the Directory’s request and had no ambition for empire ?
We will see what happens and I am optimistic.
“Nobody ever fought a war to end slavery on their own soil”: that’s an odd thing to boast about. You might as well say ‘our Constitution prevented us from settling the question of slavery without bloodshed’.
“Don’t gloat too much, Pen Gun. It’s only the USA that prevents Mexico conquering Canada.”
Oh I am aware of the danger. ;)
Mike K, don’t make us come down there and burn Washington down again.
Dearieme- How’d you manage to miss the whole point?
It’s not a boast. When England voted to end slavery, they didn’t end it. They just outlawed Englishmen who sold them to their former colony in the US. What they practiced in India for the following centuries only ended when blood was shed, mostly the blood of others.
Americans fought a war because a very large part of the populace could not abide the PRACTICE of slavery within its own boundaries. Americans ended the practice because it clashed with their conscience and their Constitution.
Peasantry, serfdom, slavery, these ended in the US by the act of a single conflict BECAUSE Americans had that piece of paper. Lacking this piece of paper, Europe would cling to their serfs, peasants, and enslaved colonies for long after these institutions were put aside in the US.
“Nobody ever fought a war to end slavery on their own soil”- More accurately, other than those enslaved, no other people ever fought a war to end slavery on their own soil. However, quite a few were fought to end peasantry and serfdom.
Sgt Mom – The most diabolical punishment available for these meltdown prone irresponsibles is to note their name, what they say, and remember it, publicly, so they cannot get rid of it.
I don’t think anybody is doing that. I’m not even sure that in the EU states whether this is legal anymore. I would do it as a commercial enterprise but not for free.
PenGun – For you, that was rather magnanimous. I’ll take it in that spirit and wish you well
Subotai Bahadur – In all but the deepest blue of the Clinton Archipelago are significant numbers of people who both think Trump and voted for him. They just were outnumbered. I’m thinking nuking from orbit is not a proper response.
Good God, I think Obama is making another goodbye speech. This is the longest retreat since Bonaparte.
@Thomas: what piffle.
“It’s not a boast. When England voted to end slavery, they didn’t end it.” Oh yes it did, and the slaveowners were paid compensation for their loss of property. That’s a far more intelligent solution than fighting a civil war.
“Americans ended the practice because it clashed with their conscience and their Constitution.” It certainly didn’t clash with the Constitution. The Constitution was written to accommodate slavery.
“Lacking this piece of paper, Europe would cling to their serfs, peasants, and enslaved colonies for long after these institutions were put aside in the US.” The Tsar freed the serfs before the US freed the slaves.
What you are witnessing is a cultural transformation as thorough and profound as Christenizing the Roman Empire. The Enlightenment has ended, buried under the massive pile of corpses and massive bureaucracy created by “scientific socialism” and “technocracy.” All the ideals of the past are submerged. Even its morality of honesty, integrity, honor et. al. is replaced by the new moralizers who shout “racist, sexist, fascist, homophobe, transphobe….” The future is coming and teenagers (“Hunger Games,” “Divergent”) will not save from its hellish totalitarianism, mass murder, and genocide. The optimism of science fiction’s founders is proven false; their visions never included destruction of democracy and population and religious replacement of North America and Europe.
Why my people decided to hate their accomplishments; their art, religion and culture is unknown to me, but hate it they have, and so the West and its dwellers will disappear.
The Czar did free the serfs before the President freed the slaves. Too bad the Czars disappeared. In May 1940, the conquering socialist powers had allied to dominate Europe from Pyrenees to Pacific. And those socialist states were slave states. Slavery ended in Western Europe in 1945, and in Eastern Europe in 1991.
“It certainly didn’t clash with the Constitution. The Constitution was written to accommodate slavery.”
I don’t know that this is a fair statement. The Constitution was written to unite colonies in a single nation. Some of those states had slavery and the Connecticut Compromise was created to allow a single nation. The slave states wanted the slaves to count as individuals for representation, even though they could not vote. The northern states wanted no counting of slaves. The compromise allowed the single entity of the United States.
At the time Britain was still being ruled by a Parliament elected from rotten boroughs which would exist until The Reform Act of 1832.
Democracy can be messy for everyone.
Hey kids, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Remember Wisconsin. Think back to the ordeals of Governor Scott Walker. The “wymen” activists will use the same tactics against the Trump administration, but they will be on steroids.
Who are these people? NEA, AFT, SEIU, and their allies, various and assorted lefty organizations, NGOs, as well as, anyone else who is dependent on the government trough. Noble, nah; self serving, YES.
And with the pink pussy-hat march and bruhaha last weekend, the crazy just got dialed up to 12.
The meltdowns and tantrums continue unabated, because, well, the lies continue unabated. 1968 still lives on as a magical time in the minds of the pink hats and their new recruits. Unmasking the lies, of that era, and this, start with a single easy step. Identifying correctly who the previous occupant of the White House is.
All these new lies, rape hoaxing, hands up don’t shoot, ISIS isn’t Islam, etc. are all built on that single lie. Once this character can be exposed, the apparatus that made him and all the others before him can also be exposed. No more “sealed” records, no more hidden FBI files. If a twenty year old private (C’mon!) can expose top secret material of the most sensitive nature, than the ant-farm that is the CIA and intelligence community can cough it up.
Otherwise, it’s more “parade” permits till 2068.