This piece from the op-ed pages of the Washington Post affirms that it is time for socialism. When I began to read it, I was expecting a lot of workers-are-downtrodden rhetoric, and there is some, but the real aim of the article isn’t actually helping the workers. It’s helping leftists to cope with Trump. The author, Elizabeth Bruenig, links to two writers – Andrew Sullivan (here) and Yascha Mounk (here) – both of whom are obviously taking the Trump presidency very badly. They both think democracy is being replaced by authoritarianism, that minorities are under attack, that a horrible form of nationalism is on the rise, and what not. The author’s suggestion is that socialism is the solution here, presumably because socialism would divert the attention of those attracted to nationalism in a healthier direction; maybe she's even saying that if the left hadn’t simply abandoned socialism and put all its eggs into identity politics, then nationalism would not be on the rise, Hillary would have won, and everyone would be happy.
Anyway, reading these people is a reminder of what a different world they live in. For example, the claim that Trump is authoritarian because he wanted to put his opponent in prison ignores a lot of context. Lots of little people think Hillary deserved to go to prison, because they themselves would have ended up in prison for doing the things she did. As Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit puts it, the attitude of Hillary and the media is that laws are for little people. Trump sides with the little people on this issue, which is something the Democrats themselves used to do. This hardly counts as authortarianism.
Then there is this quote from Mounk, who wants nationalism to be more inclusive:
It is a state in which all members have the same rights and opportunities irrespective of the group into which they are born or the culture to which they belong.
This sounds fine and dandy, but does it mean he is against affirmative action? He doesn’t say so, so I suspect not.
Then there is this statement, which defies any comment I could make (other than that he is completely out of touch with reality):
Barack Obama has been an especially persuasive advocate of the idea that Americans should focus on what unites rather than what divides us and that the symbolism of the nation can inspire hope, even as we reckon with the injustices of American history.
Right. Do these people ever look at what the other side is saying? Basically, these and many other people like them seem to be engaging in projection. If they say Trump is racist, the truth is that it is Hillary who is racist, except that since she engaged in verbal abuse of poor whites, our media paid no attention. If they say Trump is an authoritarian, then the truth is that it was Obama who was the authoritarian. He made a lot of executive decisions, promoted (at least in our colleges and universities) dumping due process, and so on.
But what a different world they live in.
Well said, particularly on the left projectingand being oblivious to what their opponents actually think and say.
They are also oblivious to reality. Earlier I forwarded Breunig's column to colleagues, along with the following recent NYT article on socialism's "success" in Venezuela... some of the most gruesome and horrifying news I've read in quite some time:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/17/world/americas/venezuela-children-starving.html
Posted by: Charles N.Steele | 03/11/2018 at 10:26 AM