Introspection is tough. Brutal self-examination can be both cathartic and scary. It can also be hysterically funny. As I watched television and read newspaper editorials by the insider political elitists pounding their collective chests in total disbelief following the election of Donald Trump to the presidency, I had my first belly laugh in weeks. These people really are that stupid.
Liberal commentator and Trump hater extraordinaire Thomas Frank writes in the Guardian: “The American white-collar class just spent the year rallying around a super-competent professional (who really wasn’t all that competent) and either insulting or silencing everyone who didn’t accept their assessment. And then they lost. Maybe it’s time to consider whether there’s something about shrill self-righteousness, shouted from a position of high social status, that turns people away…It is a liberalism of the rich, it has failed the middle class, and now it has failed on its own terms of electability.” That sums it up. But Dude…you are just figuring this out now?
Pompous arrogance pisses people off. That is what the Democratic Party has given America for the past eight years…condescending pompous arrogance. Starting with those pillars Obama stood in front of after his nomination…through the Nobel Peace prize for just breathing…through the health care bill shoved down America’s throat with total disregard to the wishes of the vast majority of Americans and a Republican Senator being elected in Massachusetts of all places…through the machinations of creepy Harry Reid in the Senate…through the loss of the House of Representatives…through the loss of the Senate…through the loss of most of the governorships and statehouses…through lying to the American people then laughing about it in front of microphones…through a completely corrupt Secretary of State who shook down governments and corporations for hundreds of millions of dollars…through the corruption of the FBI…it takes the election of a Donald Trump to figure out there is something wrong?
The working class deplorables, both men and women, that made up the base of the Democratic Party have had their say. The Democratic Party made a calculated decision to not only downplay the worth of its base for almost 100 years, but to kick them in the ass as they shoved them out the door. The new coalition put together by the Democratic Party is a coalition of the very rich, the very poor, the highly educated, those with very little education, whatever private unions are left, and those with a basket filled with boutique issues deemed acceptable by those sitting on the liberal throne. Then they wrapped the entire package in terms of bigotry and hate. Not even a fawning corrupt press, rooted in the very rich, could save this doomed political alliance.
Here are the takeaways for those that will now try to put Humpty Dumpty together again. Americans and American culture are basically good, not evil. Americans are a compassionate and generous people who believe in fair play. America is a country built on majority rule with protections built in to protect minorities on any given issue. America has been built by bringing disparate folks, however awkwardly, into the mainstream, not kicking them out. American culture does exist and it is exceptional. Americans will ultimately defend that culture. Americans don’t like to be called names.
When the vast majority of Americans are hurting financially and concerned about national security, don’t give them transgender bathrooms while calling them bigoted homophobes for wanting their core concerns addressed first, or racists for wanting borders. At the end of the day, no matter how worthy the boutique issue du jour, or how wonderful a global village might sound, America’s future is determined at the ballot box.
Mark G. Mangie