[The content of the post to follow literally woke me up at 4 am tonight.]
After I posted about Rationalization #3A, Pollyanna’s Mantra, the latest rationalization for the Ethics Alarms master list, I received requests on the blog and off of it for a useful example of the rationalization in practice. As it happens, there is one that could hardly be more immediate.
The silver lining of the Democrats winning the election a month from now is that Donald J. Trump will not be President for another four years.
It is hard to imagine anyone who would not regard that development, in isolation and by itself, to not justify a long sigh of relief. Trump’s Presidency is exhausting, even for his supporters. It isn’t all his fault, but it is nearly all because of him—the constant political warfare, the never-ending puling and carping from the news media, the mind-numbing boredom from the social media Borg seeking approval by daily Trump-bashing.
Then there is the chaos, which began literally on Day One and never abated. The President is a chaos manager by style and instinct. I have worked for such people, and they can be effective. “My greatest talent,” one of them told me, ”is that if you turn off the lights and everyone panics, I’m the one who is in a better place in the room when the lights go back on.” That’s Trump. The problem is that nobody likes being in an environment that can be thrown into chaos at any moment, and eventually the stress drives victims mad.
As long as Trump is President, we will have the tweets, and the pit of our stomach dread that he’s going to say something that’s impulsive, incendiary, repulsive, or that the news media will deliberately interpret in the most negative light possible. As long as he is President, I know my friends and relatives are likely to parrot back one of the Big Lies that have been used to undermine his attempts to do his job, and I will have to decide whether to slap them in the face with facts, earning their resentment. As long as he is President, I know that the political process won’t work, because his opposition believes, in its unreasoning hate, that his flaws justify abandoning all ethical principles and the practices necessary to make democracy viable. As long as he is President, I am going to be furious and exasperated that he cannot speak more clearly and eloquently, that he cannot act as a leader of the whole nation (both because of his limitations and the limitations unfairly placed on him by others), that he does not have the leadership and rhetorical skills to build consensus when even a mildly competent politician would, given the facts at hand.
I could go on in this vein for many pages, especially if I expand the list to the incidental annoyances that will abate with his removal, like the deterioration of late night comedy shows into nothing but anti-Trump agitprop. Perhaps, although I wouldn’t wager on it, the ethical rot of the nation’s journalism establishment might be slowed, if not reversed.
No, I won’t miss having Donald Trump in the White House; far from it.
Unfortunately, the circumstances that will coincide with the welcome end of the Trump Presidency, the changes and possibly permanent results brought about by the actions of the same people and groups who have opposed this President so relentlessly and unfairly, will be so disastrous that his exit will be no more worth the carnage than a change in the official White House china pattern.
The methods used to destroy and end the Trump administration will now be institutionalized in American politics, along with the division and toxic passions they engender. The Presidency itself has been permanently weakened. Impeachment has been normalized and weaponized as a means of political warfare rather than the rarely-used safety valve the Founders intended. Our electoral process and democratic traditions, which have served the nation and its political stability well, have lost the faith of the public, as rejecting the legitimacy of the Electoral College and other institutions became an essential ingredient of the anti-Trump strategy.
In order to focus on the sole objective of vanquishing the President, the once trustworthy Democratic Party allied itself with and eventually embraced the anti-American values and objectives of the extreme Left, for which achieving the transformational power to crush the American traditions and values that have guided and nourished this nation was the real objective all along.
We have lost the consensus regarding the nation’s founding, its heroes and achievements. The basic truths of Jefferson’s mission statement are now sneered at routinely. The absence of Trump will be incidental to the diminishment of free speech, the discrediting of the nation’s belief in individualism and dissent, the acceptance and facilitation of racial and gender discrimination, and the end of a cultural commitment to integrity, equal opportunity, free enterprise, due process, earned citizenship, and the rule of law. Journalism will be permanently transformed into a propaganda organ of the Left; literature, entertainment, sports and the arts will similarly be smothered in political correctness and mandatory ideological conformity.
To abridge the parade of horribles in the interest of space, let us just sat that the United States as we have known it will seek to exist as the culture capitulates to the socialist and utopian lies that have stifled so many national cultures, leading them to insipid mediocrity at best, and totalitarianism at worst.
But we won’t have to put up with Trump, so it’s all worth it.
We will have, in the parlance of the Vietnam War, destroyed the United States of America in order to save it from, not the policies of Presient Trump, but his personality, rhetoric and manner. The “silver lining” of this wide-ranging and probably irreversible catastrophe will be avoiding four more years of a narcissistic creep.
Before the pandemic, with typically warped logic, comedian Bill Maher told his gallery of anti-American rabble that he wished for the collapse of the economy in order to eliminate the strongest component of the President’s popular support. When a guest explained that such a collapse would have terrible human and national consequences, Maher said, not joking, “It will be worth it.” Similarly, those who have blindly brought America to the brink of totalitarianism, oppression, violence and even civil war will still point to the defeat of Donald Trump as the silver lining in the product of their efforts, the blackest cloud to cover the U.S. since the 1860s and perhaps ever.
No, it will not have been worth it. It will not even be a mitigation.
Ethics Alarms 
In 2016, I mourned Trump’s nomination, not because of his character but because he was the last outsider anywhere. The notion of ordered liberty had been extinguished through Western Europe and the American left. Now the Republicans had coughed up this carnival barker who was sure to lose badly. It was over – no institution in the West believed what Jefferson and Lincoln believed.
But the people bit back, and on election night all the probability gizmos crashed and Trump won. That just earned us the glory of being battered by every institution for four years. It’s been worth it – if the next election does go badly, we’ll have had four extra years where the nation was still relatively free. We gave people four years when they were still free not to betray their neighbors. It’s not the 300 at Thermopylae, but it’s still a creditable thing to have done.
“Similarly, those who have blindly brought America to the brink of totalitarianism, oppression, violence and even civil war will still point to the defeat of Donald Trump as the silver lining in the product of their efforts, the blackest cloud to cover the U.S. since the 1860s and perhaps ever.”
Brink? We don’t know what is yet to happen. We could begin to see a resurgence militant groups from all quarters. Dark clouds eventually become deluges or result in tornadic events.
Joe Biden talks about unity but he has never modeled unifying behavior. Kamala Harris is as narcissistic as Obama and Trump but without their engaging personalities. Sorry, Jack I will never support a Biden Harris administration. I have been called a Nazi by my brother – who is now dead to me-, told to gargle with a bunch of dicks here (I have always been civil here) , and labelled a racist, uneducated deplorable rube by the progressives because I will not buy their garbage. There is no way I will ever come over to their side and support such an administration. You cannot simply deny my fundamental freedoms, castigate me for my beliefs and then expect me to set all that aside and help you use me as your bogeyman so you have someone to blame. It does not work that way. Trump may have been lots of things but he never pitted American against American.
Sorry, Jack America no longer exists as a refuge for those seeking freedom. America has become a place where freedom is contingent on who you support. I expect that at some point soon I will be jailed or fined for some comment I write because it offends someone. Maryland just expanded the hate crime law which does not require proof of animus. I suggest we watch the movie Gangs of New York to see what could be on the horizon.
Bill Maher might soon say “What Have We Done?”
Especially if people are openly “jailed or fined for some comment [they] write because it offends someone”
Already in practice and defended in Britain and other places. No shortage of people in the US pushing the “They shouldn’t be allowed to say that.” idea, and being supported by big social media.
Jack wrote, “those who have blindly brought America to the brink of totalitarianism, oppression, violence and even civil war will still point to the defeat of Donald Trump as the silver lining in the product of their efforts, the blackest cloud to cover the U.S. since the 1860s and perhaps ever.”
I completely agree!
I dunno, the GOP in general seem to have done a pretty good job of that over the last 4 years.
The question is, can you do it successfully? And what does “success” mean in such a context. From here it looks like a Lose-Lose situation, when by “winning” using these tactics you lose the only reason for fighting, you become your enemy, or what you perceive your enemy to be.
The Nietzsche Trap that so many on the Left fell into in the past. Those who fight monsters must beware they too don’t become monsters thereby. There is no excuse for doing it again, following the Right example since Newt.
The pendulum swings, and those who felt aggrieved in 2016 and voted Trump in have now accumulated a whole heap of felt aggrievement by others against them.
So. What to do about this.
“My side” appears now to be in the ascendent. If I may quote W.S.Churchill’s theme of his work, History of the Second World War:
In War, Resolution.
In Defeat, Defiance.
In Victory, Magnanimity.
In Peace, Goodwill.
Those on the centre right – which means to the Left of the DNC – must, should Trump not win , transition from Defiance to Magnanimity, and to Goodwill thereafter.
Don’t be too sure Trump will not win. We can take it as read that any state with a GOP legislature and Governor will face intense pressure to ignore any popular vote results and submit electoral college votes for Trump. As is permitted by the Constitution and upheld by the SCOTUS in Bush vs Gore.
It’s against custom and tradition – but not actually illegal.
. Any Democratic Governor that threatens to veto such a resolution by a Republican legislature faces ‘popular action’ by Trumpian “militias” like the Wolverine Watchmen and their ilk. Second Amendment People, as Trump called them in 2016. I don’t see them having much effect unless they actually start shooting.
As typical of the right as the Weathermen and SLA were of the Left 50 years ago, that is, not at all.
This may all be moot in the next 5-14 days if what all of my MD friends surmise about Trump’s health is true. Still, we can all hope that the heroic therapeutic regime was successful, despite the patient’s actions.
Zoe,
My entire point is that calls for unity will fall on deaf ears for me. Further I don’t have a side. I wanted the Constitutionalist who was characterized as looking like the devil.
“The pendulum swings, and those who felt aggrieved in 2016 and voted Trump in have now accumulated a whole heap of felt aggrievement by others against them.”
You must believe your own propaganda. Your aggrievement is contrived and fueled by the rhetoric of your progressive champions. Get off the paranoia wagon and evaluate the world as it is and not how you are told it is.
Enough of the BS. What order or piece of legislation sponsored by the GOP denied you any rights. No one in the GOP claimed that any group of citizens were the root of all problems. Yes we did say that undocumented people needed to go back and reenter legally. Yes we are concerned about the criminal element that exploits our porous border but that is not an attack on other citizens. Instead we were labeled as racists and xenophobes. Yes, there are serious questions about just how far one’s rights extend or how conflicting rights are adjudicated but the GOP has denied no one any Constitutionally protected rights. Progressives on the other hand have worked to balkanize our society into us versus them.
It used to be we were all Americans but now we all have to wear our identity badge to show who we ally with.
Ignoring the will of the voters has a cost and there’s no reason to think Nancy Pelosi wouldn’t have the will to do what the constitution requires.
*Modified by the 19’th ammendmet.
**Modified by the 26’th amendment.
She could and would refuse to seat members from any state that pulled that bullshit.
The more and more I read and hear from both political spectrums regarding this upcoming election in regards to the possibilities, predictions, popular vote vs electoral college, voter fraud problems and possibilities, the polls showing one side way ahead of the other, etc, etc it’s beginning to sound to me like we’re all being preprogrammed from both sides that if anything smells off in this election then we’re heading straight into a constitutional crisis situation. All this political propaganda is literally tearing us apart before we even get to the election, how’s it going to effect our ability to think critically and render reasonable judgements if a contentious election has any kind of issue?
Are we being setup by BOTH political extremes?
You know what would fix the problem?
Monarchy. A proper constitutional monarch with just enough power to dismiss a prime minister and force their party to offer up one of their less extreme member. A proper monarch who could hold back royal assent in extreme circumstances and force the most controversial legislation to go to a referendum. A proper monarch who can head up a proper honors system so some shit-weasel can’t sell honors.
We still have openings for vassals, some of the best titles are still up for grabs. There’s still time to contribute to the armies of house grrl. How many swords can we put you down for?
You are familiar with the events in Australia in 1975?
https://theconversation.com/australian-politics-explainer-gough-whitlams-dismissal-as-prime-minister-74148
I wasn’t born yet.
Also, you’re speaking to me now?
Speaking to you? I never stopped.
I only speak when I feel I have something worthwhile to say though.
You may now breathe a sigh of relief at that. Lots of people are doing, I’m sure.
Re: the Dismissal – I lived through that tumultuous time, in fact, my year 12 economics exam was the day after. The answers to questions about current government policy had to be hurriedly revised.
Then I demand an answer.
In February I asked you to email me.
I invoked your name three times.
I’ve heard it said over and over the British are all at least half-fey, so how did you resist the summoning?
What KIND of swords ya got? Also, what about court dress? Saw some 18th cent. Hungarian diplomat stuff in a Catherine the great exhibition that was kind of badass. Sort of like this but w/ pants, boots, fur hat & less silk:
https://www.khm.at/objektdb/detail/567056/
I needed a good chuckle today. Thanks. If history has shown anything, it’s the Democrat Party that refuses to accept the “will of the voters” and has actually taken direct action to challenge election results in at least 2 elections.
jvb
Why don’t you gargle a steaming pile of pig shit, it’d be a large improvement over what’s coming out of your mouth right now.
It’s Democratic party. Get it right or don’t ever address me again.
You have never struck me as a pedant.
Fuck off. Nicely, though.
jvb
Don’t feel bad. It’s not your fault democrats don’t know how to do their party name thing correctly.
By the way, I don’t like pigs, so.. . And I intentionally wrote “Democrat Party” because that party is anything but democratic. It is run by totalitarians, racists, and thugs.
jvb
PS: Valkygrrl, go jump in a lake, respectfully or not.
valkygrrl,
You found the edge and proceeded straight over. If you need some help back up just ask; otherwise, let us know when/if you’re able to pull yourself back up.
Steve
My introduction to politics in North Carolina came not long after I moved here. After over a century, the Republicans finally got the voters to give them a one vote majority in the state house. What was the Democratic response to that? Well, the Speaker bribed one of the Republicans to switch parties so that the Democratic party could remain in power. It’s actually encouraging that the Speaker later went to jail for this little episode, but still…..this is also the same state where the Democratic party in the 1890s indulged themselves in an armed coup to overthrow the elected government of one of our towns. That was the last time the Republicans were in power here before the 2010 wave. The Democrats had what I believe were called ‘red shirts’ — yes, it would be correct to compare them to the brown shirts of Germany that we all remember so fondly. Those brown shirts could have been taking notes from these Democratic red shirts.
It used to be that local politics were more focused on getting stuff done and not nonstop rhetoric and bickering. That has changed since 2010 when the Democratic party lost what they evidently regarded as their divine right to rule the state, no matter what the people here thought about it.
zoebrain wrote, “We can take it as read that any state with a GOP legislature and Governor will face intense pressure to ignore any popular vote results and submit electoral college votes for Trump.”
Isn’t this is the exact same bastardization of the Electoral College slippery slope that the Democrats wanted the states to do so they could put Hillary Clinton in the Oval Office.
“I dunno, the GOP in general seem to have done a pretty good job of that over the last 4 years.”
Do you have any examples of this, or is this just ‘Orange man bad’ and ‘Trump is a racist’. When has the GOP denied fundamental freedoms (other than the bump stock ban)? They haven’t been trying to restrict 1st Amendment rights, or 2nd Amendment rights. I can’t think of an example of Trump trying to restrict civil liberties (other than the bump stock ban). Democrats, on the other hand, breathe this stuff. Find me a college campus run by Democrats that has free speech. Look at NYC where the Democratic mayor shut down the synagogues and a sent in the police to round up the Jews because he only allows protest for causes he approves. Look at all the Democratic states that are restricting church worship more strictly than other gatherings. When Joe Biden says he ‘removed the attack ads’ while Trump was in the hospital, he meant over 200 of Trump’s ads were removed for ‘hate content’, but Biden’s ads weren’t pulled. Show me when a GOP group shut down a talk by a leftist. You can’t express a conservative opinion such as ‘The United States is a good country’, ‘we should have control of our borders’, or ‘we shouldn’t discriminate based on race’ on almost any social media platform because it is ‘against their Community Guidelines’. On those sites, you can state that you think babies born alive can be killed, the President should die (or be assassinated), and genocide is OK (as long as it is the right race). Those sites are all run by Democrats. Show me where the GOP has done or even proposed something similar. The left has pushed ‘Red Flag Laws’ that allow them to revoke your Constitutional right without a conviction and without even your knowledge. The Democrats are pushing for mandatory lockdowns, extended periods of unprecedented Executive authority, and the suspension of Civil Rights using a virus (that is in-between the deadliness of the flu and chicken pox) as pretense. Show me where the GOP has called for the removal of statues of any Democrat, such as FDR. Show me where GOP politicians have called for their followers to physically attack Democratic politicians or their followers and push them out of public spaces and public life. We have seen Democrats do these things, however. Show me where Republicans have said that you can’t defend yourself and just have to let the mob kill you. We have several examples of Democratic governments doing that. What is more fundamental than my right to my life? Well, right to life seems to be a GOP ‘talking point’ in today’s society.
As for election fraud, Gov. Whitmer has sent out 7.7 million applications for mail-in votes to a state with a population of 9.9 million and only ~7.4 million people over 18 in the state. Despite this, none of my relatives in Michigan (registered as Republican) have received such an application, but neighbors (registered as Democrat) have received up to 9 with a variety of names on them. Other states seem to be experiencing something similar.
https://www.shorenewsnetwork.com/2020/10/01/dead-voters-receiving-mail-in-ballots-across-new-jersey-ahead-of-election/
https://www.redstate.com/jenvanlaar/2020/05/11/hundreds-of-ca-25-voters-have-received-multiple-mail-ballots-for-special-election/
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/83-mail-in-ballots-voter-fraud/
“I dunno, the GOP in general seem to have done a pretty good job of that over the last 4 years.”
I think I’m going to have to avoid reading other comments on this post lest I discover what liar/ignoramus/gullible idiot wrote that. It is absolutely unsupportable, legally libel if a a similar statement were made about a non-public figure. Every citizens’ rights are protected by the Administration’s opposition of open borders. Republican opposition to the extremist efforts to constrain American autonomy and mobility in the reaction to the pandemic has been to counter Democrats like Whitmer and de Blasio. Republicans have tried to protect the freedom to worship, while Democrats have increasingly attacked that part of the First Amendment; leftis colleges have been maing free expression on campuses dangerous to students and faculty. Obviously the Second Amendment is under attack, and not by Democrats. The FBI/Justice Department/Obama effort to sabotage the Trump administration from the outset was an attack on the Rule of Law; the impeachment, as Prof. Turley, among others, clearly and persuasively explained, was a pervversion of the Constitution. Kentucky and California, among others, are Democratic governments trying to directly reverse anti-discrimination laws by passing benefits limited by race. Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc.
I can only assume that whoever wrote that sentence was focusing solely on abortion, which is a human rights conflict that cannot honestly be described as an effort to reduce American rights, but is rather a substantive disagreement over the right to kill another human being; and the special problems of defining how the law should treat the tiny minority of Americans who are transgender, or claim they are.
In any event, I don’t want to know who wrote it. it is either flip and unserious, contemptibly dishonest, or astoundingly stupid.
“In any event, I don’t want to know who wrote it.”
Post 5 in response to post 2
zoebrain wrote that.
This adoption of the anti-American values and objectives of the extreme Left was on its way before 2016, as Matthew Yglesias wrote in his Vox article “The Great Awokening”. This turn to the extreme Left was what incited quite a number of Democrats to defect to Donald Trump four years ago.
I don’t agree that this is all President Trump’s fault. I don’t feel he brought this about or that he is the problem, I feel that he just made the problem visible to the average person. We now know that Hillary Clinton orchestrated a fake accusation of ‘Russian Collusion’ against Donald Trump as a smokescreen to obscure her devastating e-mail scandal where she allowed all our foreign enemies (and ‘friends’) to see everything that passed through the state department. We watched the President, Vice President, and top people in all the intelligence departments swing into action to investigate and falsely accuse people of crimes to try to swing an election. When they couldn’t swing the election, they thwarted the transfer of power and continued to actively work against the elected head of the executive branch. There did not appear to be anyone in any sort of power who followed the Constitution. The entire bureaucracy is rogue. Name me a single FBI agent that has come to light in 4 years that followed the law and the Constitution….I’m waiting. There was a Deep State, it controls most of our government, it is above the President, and above the Justice system. It has been there a long time, the actual mechanism of control of our government and our lives. That is why elections don’t matter. It didn’t matter if Gore or Bush won, the same people would have been in charge and the same basic policies would have been in place.
Then Trump came and he wasn’t part of the Deep State. He wasn’t a puppet like Biden or Harris. That is why the left freaked out. We actually had a President who insisted he was the President. Why was he impeached? A Lt. Col. didn’t like the President’s foreign policy towards Ukraine. We know that now. Vindmann sent the tapes of the President’s conversation to someone else (not legal?) and told them to file a complaint. The Inspector General took the complaint and falsified a government form (let that sink in) to allow the complaint to go through. The President was impeached because a Lt. Col. objected to the President’s foreign policy. Why did this happen? Because Presidents haven’t been allowed to make foreign policy for a long time and everyone knows it. He was impeached because the Powers in Washington didn’t even remember that Presidents are SUPPOSED to be the ones making foreign policy.
This looks like what Richard Nixon did.
Trump declassified all; documents related to the above.
http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2020-10-06/trump-says-he-has-declassified-documents-related-to-russia-clinton-email-probes
These declassified documents must go viral.
I recently read a piece that explained the entire post 2016 election fiasco in two words: “Hillary lost.” Donald Trump almost single-handedly winning the biggest professional electoral prize in the world has, ironically, disproved the notion that “anyone can grow up to be president.” It’s not true. You have to be a long-time professional politician. No one who hasn’t groveled for votes and cash for their entire lives can get into the club.
Mrs. OB says she is exhausted and is nearly content to let the left have its way so they and their supporters will learn to be careful what they wish for. I’m not so sanguine. I don’t understand why Wall Street and the investor class is contributing to Kamala Harris. Maybe all they want is peace in our time with China so they can get all their stuff built there for less than they can in Indiana or Wesconsin. Maybe a booming stock market is just for chumps, the little guys.
But, are we all convinced Trump is going to get clobbered on November 3? This looks just like 2016. Biden is campaigning in Arizona to turn Arizona blue. Just like, you know, HRC did. We’re seeing pieces about how the Democrats are looking to flip states they don’t even need, to “expand the map.” They seem to be getting a little giddy. You know, just like in 2016 when HRC was up in the polls by, you know, double digits.
Again, why would anyone who was angry enough in 2016 to vote FOR Trump switch their vote to Harris and Biden now? Sure, Rachel Maddow is angry and not going to vote for Trump, but, so what? Who among the Facebook borg and the Trump Deranged voted for him in 2016? No one.
Query: How many presidents have we had who were narcissistic creeps? I’m no presidential historian but Bill Clinton and Barack Obama come readily to my mind. Jack Kennedy? Woodrow Wilson? Andrew Jackson? I’d call Kamala Harris a narcissistic creep. And she’s an intellectual box of rocks compared to Bill Clinton. (We still don’t know about Obama’s mental capacity.)
Openly, like Trump, in ways that the public could see?
Maybe just one, Clinton.
I suspect a not insubstantial number of voters find “what you see is what you get” refreshing in a D.C. politician.
Matthew Yglersias, in the Vox article “the Great Awokening”, claimed that Democratic voters who defected to Trump were fueled by “racial resentment”.
Now here is an interesting tidbit from the WaPo.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/09/06/joe-biden-attracts-both-black-voters-racially-resentful-voters/
The argument goes that Biden is not Woke, does not buy into redefining racism beyond the point of incoherence. (Remember in 2016 was when people were Taking the Knee and saying Black lives Matter.)
Racially resentful Democratic voters are going to vote for Kamala Harris? Best friend of Willie Brown and Keith Ellison? Catholic Democratic voters aren’t going to remember her smarmy, vicious attack of Brett Kavanaugh? Sounds like wishful thinking to me?
They voted for Joe Biden in the primaries.
Would Democrats disaffected enough to vote for Trump in 2016 even vote in the Democratic primaries? I’ve seen articles saying Republican voter registration is up compared to Democrats. I think these voters the pollsters are finding are the equivalent of unicorns, MIchael.
I would guess at least a significant minority of them voted in the primaries. I do wish there was more polling data on how the “defectors” voted in the primaries, though i suspect they overwhelmingly voted for Joe Biden.
I have seen evidence of Republicans outregistering Democrats in swing states.
At first, the fool I am, I thought Jack is wrong. I did not see this as a Pollyanna Rationalization by the Left. Deposing Trump is not their silver lining justifying their actions. Their stated goal from the day after the 2016 election, whipped into an irrational frenzy by the news media and the useful idiots on social media, was Trumps removal. If a Pollyanna Rationalization exists on the Left, it is that once they remove the focus of their hatred, even if it results in the destruction of America, as we know it, they will be free to institute their ideology and make the country a Utopian paradise.
But does half the country really want that? Does half of the country want to embrace these socialistic ideas? My answer, NO. And there lays the Pollyanna.
My error rests in viewing the anti-Trump voters as a monolith, but they are not. While some subscribe to the philosophy stated above, many, probably most, do not. They just want Trump gone. You can thank the four-year propaganda campaign for most of those. In the quiet of the night, if they dare search their inner beliefs, they see the dangers in aligning with the radical Left, but the lure of the silver lining keeps those fears buried. Just make it to November 3th and all their problems will disappear along with the Orangeman.
Now that is a Pollyanna. My apologies for doubting you, Jack.
My personal favorite lefty Pollyannaism: Jane Fonda saying, with a contented smile, “Covid-19 is God’s gift to liberals!”
Not surprising, right?
But despicable.
“Less than a week after being hospitalized for coronavirus, Donald Trump told the nation he considers his diagnosis a “blessing from god.”
The president made the comment during a nearly five minute-long video shared via Twitter on Wednesday, as the U.S.’s COVID-19 death toll surpassed 211,000. Trump acknowledged his recent stay at Walter Reed Medical Center, claiming the hospitalization wasn’t necessary, but was encouraged as a precautionary measure.”
When both Hanoi Jane and the Orange Buffoon say something, you can be sure it is grade A baloney.
Of course that was a few days ago. Death toll is now over 215,000 and rising.
What is the antithesis of polyannaism? Finding the negative in anything good.
Why is this concept so seductive?
Negativism or pessimism has always been a cheap way to look wise and superior with actual credentials.
Benjaminism.
(Animal Farm reference)