The Right Side of History

When I was in Dublin, I had a lot of fun watching the BBC and SkyNews, mostly because they were still in shock over Brexit. It was as if they learned that the Loch Ness Monster was real. They just could not come to terms with the new reality. Every segment circled back to the vote and how it was the worst thing to happen since Dunkirk. They talked about Brexit in the same way people talk about life altering tragedies. At one point, someone even said, “I’ll never forget where I was the day I heard the news of Brexit.”

The interesting thing was that they were so sure that Brexit would be a disaster that they were starting to pretend that the disaster was happening, even though nothing had changed since the vote. At the time, the markets were up and the economic indicators were all pointing in the right direction. There was also the fact that the vote changed nothing. It will take years to implement Brexit, assuming it ever happens, which is unlikely. Still, the people on the Beeb were sure doom was at hand.

That’s the power of belief and a reminder that all the flapdoodole we associate with the Left is not based in facts and reason. It is something closer to a UFO cult, where the members, from time to time, become convinced of some great event that is about to occur. When that event does not happen, they go through a period of confusion and sadness, like how normal people mourn an untimely death. The difference is the Progs rally together to recast the event into a new great cause with its own doomsday cult attributes.

You can see that in this hysterical tirade by Mathew Julio Yglesias. He both Voxsplains the current crisis and provides a standard around which his fellow moonbats can rally.

The country has entered a dangerous period. The president-elect is the least qualified man to ever hold high office. He also operated the least transparent campaign of the modern era. He gave succor and voice to bigoted elements on a scale not seen in two generations. He openly praised dictators — not as allies but as dictators — and threatened to use the powers of his office to discipline the media.

You could be forgiven for thinking he was writing about Barak Obama, but that would require a level of self-awareness unacceptable in a religious cult.

He also has a long history of corrupt behavior, and his business holdings pose staggering conflicts of interest that are exacerbated by his lack of financial disclosure. But while most journalists and members of the opposition party think they understand the threat of Trump-era corruption, they are in fact drastically underestimating it. When we talk about corruption in the modern United States, we have in mind what Andrei Shleifer and Robert Vishny define as “the sale by government officials of government property for personal gain.”

This is from a guy who supported Hillary Clinton. It once again points out a feature of the Left and something you always see with the hive minded. They cast onto their enemies all of the things they fear about themselves. Membership in a mass movement is about self-abnegation. The adherent wants to obliterate his sense of self and replace it with the identity of the cause. The result is all the things they despise about themselves become the first things they assume about their enemies. Their bogeyman is always a reflection of themselves.

What we are seeing with the Trumpening is the same thing the Brits saw with Brexit. These people were absolutely convinced that they were riding the warm thermals of history, like gentle little butterflies drifting from one flower to the next, until they reached the valley of the chosen. It’s not that they cannot accept losing. They did not think losing was a possibility. These events are dis-confirmation of their most important beliefs. It turns out that history has no right side, after all, and that’s the cornerstone of the Progressive faith.

The tantrums and warnings of doom are just a way for the faithful to rally together to support one another as they figure out how to reconfigure the prophesies to fit the new reality. It is no different from what has been observed with UFO and doomsday cults. The believers become convinced X is about to happen and X will confirm all of their beliefs. When X does not happen, they are faced with the prospect of their beliefs being proved false. That was election night for the American Left.

What we are seeing now is the leaders of the cult trying to rally their members to provide mutual support. Focusing their attention on the alleged evils of the other side takes the focus away from the dis-confirmation. If they can muster their numbers, they can will their way through the crisis and reorganize their beliefs to incorporate the dis-confirmation into the narrative. In time Brexit and Trump will become part of the struggle myth that motivates the faithful to keep fighting. After all, they are on the right side of history.

59 thoughts on “The Right Side of History

  1. Pingback: Perspectives: Breaking the information stranglehold of the elite | St George News

  2. Pingback: Flapdoodle of the Left | We Seek the Truth!

  3. No media interviews, disband press pool & speaker position, post on Twitter, FB, YouTube and Cspan any communique you wish to relay to the ppl. Post polls on social media if you want feedback instantly on ideas, allow comments on FB. If you feel the need for an interview, choose random radio programs, YouTubers, bloggers of all stripes and bypass the legacy media in full. He could do a daily pop on at a scheduled time and give a few min summation, daily. A modern fireside chat, if you will.
    What people wouldn’t love this, besides the media types?

  4. I am new to this site, finding it during the US election. No idea how I got here but I am now a regular visitor.
    What you write makes a lot of sense to me. Your observations, thoughts and comments are echoed in the UK by the writer and followers at this site and I attach a link to a recent post that is in tune with your most recent post.
    https://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2016/11/21/lifes-a-commercial-and-then-yer-die/
    Keep on exposing the bollocks peddlars.

  5. I read ‘When Prophecy Fails’ after you described it here, and I’m seeing the disconfirmation process being played out as one institution after another fails. The longtime poster at Ace of Spades, Zombie, wrote a brilliant essay (just a comment on a thread about the NFL) about how catastrophic Trump’s victory is for the Left. It’s not just that they lost a battle, but losing this battle has proven that their entire battle plan for the last 60 years was wrong. https://steemit.com/election/@stevescoins/wow-trump-s-victory-is-a-pivotal-turning-point-in-human-history

    He agrees with you that most of them will refuse to abandon the failed plan, and will keep working from the same useless playbook.

    • Thanks for posting this. Zombie is a good mind. I gave up Ace last spring when he went completely LGF on those of us that tried to comment about Trump = SMOD. He chased a lot of the old timers away. Thanks again for posting Zombie’s insight. I think he’s right.

      • I left AoS at the same time, and haven’t posted there since he went nuts in March. But he did change his tun in the summer, so once in a while I check to see if there have been any interesting posts. Not going back to post, though. He’s too unstable. He could just go manic again for some reason and start calling everyone who disagrees storm troopers or Gestapo agents, and I’m not interested in being insulted like that agin.

  6. I’m not too worried about the Post-Election histrionics. By their very content, the Liberals and Progressives are proving over and over again that they are bereft of competitive ideas. Like a big ship, the passengers are on board and the course is set, and changing it is really a matter of losing a little steam first. Let them slow down and deflate all by themselves.

    Interestingly, Trump has gotten out with his first update on the 100-day plan, issued directly to the consumer instead of of through the established media filtering / analysis cycle. I expect more of this direct engagement; After all, who wouldn’t listen? And this, juxtaposed in the same afternoon with the reaming he just gave the industrial media in private, like the freakin’ Principal’s office. And once again, they scurried right on over to receive it, thinking finally they were getting the big scoop and staying close to Power, their professional birthright. Chumps for Trump, that’s what we should call the Press.

    What I think we will find, in the coming days, is that Trump’s energy and drive is going to force people to follow him, even if only to keep up enough to yell their protest within earshot. This is a very, very effective strategy, get out front quick, be first, and make the supporters and naysayers both chase you to keep up. Guess what that is? It’s a vector. They’ll be so distracted trying to stay with the herd, pretty soon they’ll start forgetting why they’ve been disagreeing in the first place. A little forward motion is a wonderful thing. Move, Follow, or Get Out of the Way.

    • I am always worried about the Left. This is no time to get complacent. They have been on the move for decades and we have a lot of deconstructing to do. Now Trump, and the Deplorables, get to do some disassembly at the same time as rebuilding. The left is looney and in that craziness is a dogged determination that must be fought with vigilance.

      Sultan Knish says, and I think correctly “The left won’t win. But it can destroy America. And many of its ideologues hate the country enough that they would consider that a victory. If nothing else, America provided a model that served as a counterweight to the ideal leftist society. Wrecking that model is already an ideological win for the left. The right didn’t have to fix Communist societies. That was a bonus. It just had to wreck them. The left doesn’t have to fix America. It just has to wreck it so that it’s seen as unworkable.”

      https://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2016/11/you-are-being-lied-to.html

  7. There is right and wrong. There is good and evil. There is righteous and unethical. And then there is the Left which I liken to Animal House … John “Bluto” Blutarsky: “Over? Did you say ‘over?’ Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell, no!” Never ones to let facts get in their way, past behaviors cause them to reassess and correct, or failures to provide teachable moments. They are like water to oil, anti-matter to matter. They are deadly to all who embrace their ideas.

  8. Mass hysteria is a subset of the phenomenon known as participation mystique where the individual joins with the collective and thereby loses his ability to maintain objective thought processes. Lynch mobs, protests and riots best exemplify the phenomenon.

    Mass communications, especially the internet, have exacerbated these effects to the point where individuals are swept up with the crowd despite being alone in their living rooms with only their computers or smart phones for company.

    Hillary, PBUH, cynically sought to take advantage of this phenomenon with her “Stronger Together” campaign theme. Women were thought, until recent times, to be especially vulnerable to this type of hysteria and were consequently denied the right to vote. With the recent suppression of competition among our youngsters, especially in our educational institutions, it seems that many of our young males are also falling prey to this psychological aberration.

  9. They can be on whatever side of history they like, who cares they lost and with more hard work and effort they will continue to do so.As for Brexit…it’ll happen.

  10. We had our family Thanksgiving last Saturday. It was good. Mostly because we made a commitment to make politics verboten. It has been in these past couple days that I have been shocked to learn just how left leaning some of our tribe are – in The Facebook. I’m new to the experience and I’m trying to stay out of trouble, by keeping my likes and comments on controversial things to a bare minimum. But wow! It takes restraint for sure. I have to measure the potential outcome of ruffling some who have been members in good standing with us for many years. I do not recall this kind of division in any previous era. Not even during the Viet Nam protesting and college sit-ins days.

    But, I have a theory and it’s something I’ve been monitoring the rise of for a few years. I’ve blogged about it but never in this climate where EVERY damn word is judged to be either for or against the meme.

    This morning, I had to write about it but, and I hate this, I don’t feel strong enough to link it in my timeline because of those whom I know will see it. I sit precariously on the uncomfortable top edge of the fence – do I speak? Why? Seems to me in this age of the Great Delusion, no one is going to change his/her mind. This tends to stop me from trying.

    http://bagsallpacked.blogspot.com/2016/11/report-from-facebook-trenches.html

  11. “What we are seeing now is the leaders of the cult trying to rally their members to provide mutual support.” That is EXACTLY what we’re seeing on CNN, MSNBC, NBC, ABC and CBS, as well as the NY Times and WaPo. I have this recurring mental image where all of the managing editors for these news outlets gathered in a private dining room of some hotel restaurant on the day after the election results came in to commiserate and agree to push the same themes in their post-election coverage. In actuality, no such meeting probably ever took place. But the equivalent happens on every Sunday political talk show now. On every Sunday political talk show, the panel members sit in front of the camera collectively bemoaning Clinton’s loss and trying to decide (1) what happened, (2) why it happened, (3) whose fault was it, and (4) how to “fix” things so that they can keep pushing their agenda, win back support for the same and protect their policy gains over the last 50 years.

    The TV media’s analysis of the “what happened” and “why it happened” parts is where one can see the human tendency to stick to one’s beliefs despite evidence to the contrary. The mainstream media repeatedly characterizes the 2016 election results as a victory for white, predominantly rural racists at the expense of “everyone else.” That is playing to the tried and true Democratic tactic of divide and rule on ethnic/racial and ideological lines, as well as portraying themselves as the party of the big city where all the really “smart and hip people” worth bothering about go to live, work and change the world into some progressive paradise. Occasionally, someone on the panel will have a moments of intellectual honesty and note the Democrats failed to keep the support of white, working class voters in the rural and suburban areas and that they need to reconnect with these voters somehow. But that’s just lip service to the “big tent” and “inclusiveness” idea the Democrats have had since the earliest days of the party.

    Another problem for the liberal/progressive element that is rather obviously ignored by panel members is why Trump scored 13% of the black male vote or 30% of the overall Hispanic vote. In fact, when these points were raised on one political show with a Democratic spokesperson, all that individual and the other panel members would say is that the Democrats needed to get out more black and Hispanic voters, as if that would diminish the votes of those black and Hispanic voters who voted for Trump. What is really going on is that Democratic leaders and their progressive supporters are scared of losing the most loyal block of voters they have. Should black Americans stop voting as a block, the Democrats would lose big time and they know. Moreover, given racial and ethnic demographics and living patterns in the US, that dimwit response ignores the reality that several million more black and Hispanic voters voting for Hillary would not have changed the Electoral College math very much. Where Hillary won, she normally won big. Where she lost, she lost by large enough margins and in areas where the racial/ethnic divide did not really help her. Nor could anyone of the panel members really offer a genuine and believable rationale why so many voters who are assumed to be pro-Hillary didn’t vote in the first place (I wrote “assumed” because I suspect once the curtain closes on the voting booth, many more individuals voted in ways that did not match pundits’ expectations or predictions.). The point of all these TV talk show round table analyses seems to be a collective willingness to ignore the idea that perhaps the Democrats didn’t just lose because they chose the wrong candidate but because they are pushing policies that most Americans never had or no longer support.

    Which leads me to the last point. If there is nothing else that has come out of the last two weeks, it’s that a very large and vocal number of self-described liberals have demonstrated how very arrogant and intolerant they are by acting in ways that are far from liberal in the traditional sense of the word. The examples are too many to describe here and I’m sure you’ve all read of them in the press, on social media outlets, etc. What is interesting is that now I see more than a few Democratic supporters, e.g., Stevie Van Zandt, losing patience with their more ideologically-driven and politically immature allies as they criticize juvenile and self-defeating behavior.

  12. First it was the great fireball in the sky, THEN it was the day the moon stole the SUN.
    Our grand wise men then PREDICTED Dewey Beat Truman in their eternal struggle to live as Gawds, in the manner to which they had become accustomed.
    Even wise men from afar are reading from the scripts provided.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vjq7n-pURm4
    It’s OUR fault if we carry them though. We KNOW “It’s just their nature“.
    Read the instruction manuals of their gawds.
    .

  13. A right winger may tend to agree that Progs could well be on the winning side of history, but he does not confuse that side with the right side. One notable winning side of history sacked Rome, and the Dark Ages had legs.

    For the first time in two generations there is an other side, and that is what astounds and infuriates Progs. This life raft doesn’t come with a signed copy of the Federalist Papers, so those with patrician principles can choose to keep swimming. We hope they do.

    Tocqueville, who penned the single greatest book on people and politics, wrote “The mental habits which suit action do not always promote thought. The world is not directed by long and learned proofs. All its affairs are decided by the swift glance at a particular fact, the daily examination of the changing moods of the crowd, occasional moments of chance, and the skill to exploit them.” This is a man who met with Andrew Jackson and admired him for having the measure of all his highly skilled opposition. Jackson’s Farewell Address humbled this reader.– http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=67087 Some people in those days had nothing better to do than take life seriously when not engaged in table dancing, bar fights, and duels.

  14. This schadenfreudelcious article and comments are largely true as well as fun. But, please recall that half the human race is below average, and that average is not all that great.

    It is folly to expect much from lefties, but the real folly is expecting too much from the members of our own side.

    We need to watch Trump, his appointments and elected officials even more carefully than before lest they use our euphoria to get up to the usual tricks and shenanigans of the politico.

    I was trained as a Catholic by my mom and firmly believe that we all have something like original sin. My atheist dad was a deeply pessimistic optimist who told me I could only be happy if I accepted that 90% of everything and everyone is useless shit. Both were correct.

  15. From my readings I garner two origins for this kind of thinking. One is in the usually referred to religious chiliasm associated with Joachim of Flora, which seems to have inspired many people both religious and secular. The more secular strain has its origins in the Neoplatonic ideas of the principles of plenitude and continuity that is the subject of Arthur Lovejoy’s The Great Chain of Being. Other texts that would be appropriate would be The Seventeenth Century Background by Willey, and The Metaphysical Basis of Modern Science by E.A. Burtt.
    What comes as a surprise from reading this kind of stuff is that you find that the notion of the empirical scientist going about making massive amounts of observations and inducing great principles of science is a myth, and the notion of Thomas Kuhn that scientists are in their actual behavior more like religious monks working under umbrellas of dogma we call paradigms is more the actual case.
    I would go so far as to say that the actual origins of this kind of paradigmatic thinking goes all the way back to the pre-Socratic philosophers.

    • Scott Adams talks about how we as humans did not evolve with a capacity to see the real world around us, but that what we do is participate in a movie that our minds place us into that is able to approximate something close to that reality, and is compatible with our ability to exist within it. It may be that the creation of a narrative that reality must conform to is simply a coping mechanism that has developed in us, or was placed there by our creator. This, too, falls into the realm of metaphysics, as it is not a scientifically falsifiable hypothesis, but it is an intriguing way of approaching the problem of how worldviews develop and are held. I think that we all develop ideas as to what for us represents progress, the basis of which can be utilitarian and technological, or founded upon interhuman relations in politics or religion, or evolutionary. Whatever other bases are limited by the imagination.
      I’ve always been fascinated by this assertion by Henry Sumner Maine, that,”…the movement of the progressive societies has hitherto been a movement from Status to Contract,” and that the use of things like race and gender by the left in order to achieve political goals was an atavism, heresy to the origins of liberal progressivism itself. I think that this notion was the basis for much of the old conservative establishment’s criticism of the progressives, and that one of the perhaps unwritten goals of Conservatism, Inc was to be able to take up the progressive banner when the left stumbled, fell and dropped it. Thus in this unwritten desire the notion of the advancement of society wrapped up in an idea was part and parcel of the old right.
      We need not convince ourselves that we don’t have certain notions as to what progress is, either. They may be hidden in our wants, desires and motives, but I think they are there.

  16. Excellent analysis , as usual, Zman. The added bonus is, with every lash and tantrum, they show their side to be harpy, judgemental and intolerant. That drives otherwise unbrainwashed / indoctrinated away and unlikely to view them in a positive or even neutral way. The future looks bright. The old axioms appear to hold weight. The progs have outdone themselves this time. I do not see a way for them to reclaim their “right side of history” agenda for a few generations. ( See the Fourth Turning/ Grey Champion.. ZeroHedge has post on it. )

  17. I always feel stupid when I hit SEND and then realize my thought was incomplete. What would happen if, in addition to (or instead of) my earlier idea to Just Say No to the Press, the White House revoked credentials to those organizations which have been obviously “in the tank” for Obama and the Dems/Libs/Progs and in their place issued credentials to Breitbart and other right-leaning organizations? That would be a nice slap in the face with a wet fish, don’t you think?

      • And Reince Priebus is also a Nazi:

        Reince Priebus on Muslim Registry: ‘Not Going to Rule Out Anything’

        http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/priebus-muslim-registry-not-going-rule-out-anything-n686391

        Now, if you read the article, two things are clear: 1) Priebus says “We’re not going to have a registry based on a religion.”; and, 2) Priebus is clearly talking about creating a vetting process that would keep radicalized Muslims out of the US. But this is common sense, and not nearly Nazi enough for NBC, so Chuck Todd (I presume, because it’s his show) approves a headline that makes it sound like Trump hasn’t ruled out making US resident Muslims wear a yellow crescent. Before sending them to internment camps. Or something.

        Now, when the legacy media behaves in this way, there are only three interpretations available to sane people: 1) the Lugenpresse know they are lying in an outrageous and disgraceful manner, but are beyond caring about their professional careers and the future of their business, which depends on public trust – their hatred of Trump and the American people is such that any and all lies are necessary and justified; or, 2) as Z writes, these people are brainwashed cultists who are no longer capable of reporting on political events in an objective way because they have forsaken objective reality for their beliefs; or, 3) the beliefs motivate the lying, while the lying motivates and reinforces the beliefs, in a kind of self-reinforcing feedback loop of exponential crazy that defies explanation and rationality. I’m wagering on 3 myself: these people are having a collective psychotic breakdown and are living out a kind of fever dream reality in which they, as the self-proclaimed good people, have actually convinced themselves that they are engaged in some grand existential and metaphysical battle with the forces of evil.

        This is not a promising development. These people must either come to their senses – not likely, as they have invested so much in provoking and cherishing their own delusions – or their behavior will eventually compel them to instigate a real fight with the rest of us. The swift outcome of such a fight would not be in doubt, but it would be unpredictable, possibly bloody, with unknown ramifications. I naively believed that once the election was decided that the left would revert to their typical, but predictable, leftist ways, but they have elected to pursue another path without any indication that they have given much consideration as to the likely outcome to their course of action – the latter part of which comes as no surprise whatsoever.

        We have a very bumpy road in store.

        • Re media motivations: Since the MSM reaction seems so thoughtlessly irrational maybe it’s time to consider using the framework of criminology. Note, I am NOT saying they are all criminals, just that some of their thought processes seem similar nowadays.

          Specifically, we are presently seeing a lot of low impulse control and inability to foresee consequences that are pretty obvious to most normal folk. Whatever else is contained in the vast swirling, contradictory, mists of criminology theory, these two aspects, as well as that of a lot of unfocused anger are lodestars indicating a potential criminal mind. Or an infantile one.

    • “I always feel stupid when I hit SEND and then realize my thought was incomplete.”
      Sometimes it means you get a second upvote. Revoking or denying credentials, if done selectively and in measured fashion, would be a powerful weapon which should be considered. If done for cause it could delegitimize that particular media organ. If overused, it could delegitimize a government instead. Fact is, the MSM has pdroven itself an active enemy and should be handled accordingly.

  18. I’m curious about something.

    What would happen if the new Administration just ignored the Media?

    We’ve all seen those scenes in THE WEST WING where the Press Secretary gives out information to the “press”. And, by the way, did those scenes remind anyone else of a pack of seals at the zoo barking for fish? But, to return to my original thought: what would happen if the Press Secretary just came out every day for a month, let’s say, and just said “We have nothing for you today, go home.”…?

    They’re already irrelevant and everyone knows it so why not make it really, really obvious to everyone? Especially to them. I would seriously love to see CNN et al try to fill the 24/7 news cycle if they had nothing to report. Maybe they’d go back to real journalism and find stories for themselves instead of being spoon-fed by the White House, which has better things to do anyway.

      • Is a press room just a privilege or a right? I would like to see them standing outside the fence waiting for announcements.
        The White House should have its own network/channel . If you want to know, watch it, if you don’t that’s your choice.
        I am for anything that replaces what now passes as. The Press.

    • I’ve watched CNN a little since 11/8. With nothing to report, they already have just made up, then decried what they think must be going on. Then when events prove them wrong, they just blithely make up and decry even more.

    • And that is why we had to have a protracted and intricate series of formal debates both during the nominating phase and the actual campaign, Certainly it was not for the sake of voters who were unaware of candidates or issues, for for the candidates themselves. They were clearly for the media to have a forum in which they could distinguish themselves by correcting the candidates and creating news in hope of provoking gaffes.In the next election the candidate, when asked about debate schedules, should tell the media to “Go debate yourself and the horse you rode up on”, or something like that.

    • I remember the first time I ever saw seals barking for fish. There was one seal that kept further back and would politely raise one flipper with an excellent imitation of human earnestness on his face. For the time I observed him, he drew consistently as much fish as any other two seals.

      It seems our presidential-elect press pool is less intelligent than this polite seal–though likely as smart as the the barkers.

    • Trump can sum up anything he wants to communicate to the electorate with a few tweets. So he should do that.

      Who needs the press? Send them home and let them read tweets, like everybody else. They can blather about it later if they like, and if anyone cares to pay attention to their bloviating.

      “The news,” in the sense of the agenda driven intrepretation of reality that we’ve been forced to consume for the past several decades is dead. Now there is just news, made by anyone originate, or record and broadcast it.

      It’s a free market in information now, and the dinosaurs finished themselves off with their disreporting on the election, and have no place in it. Except perhaps to tell tales of wicked stepfathers to delusional millenial children who like to hear horror stories before bedtime

  19. The rise of Trump exposed the fact that Conservatives are godawful at politics. And what’s giving the left (and Offical Conservatism) the vapors, is that the dirt people finally have someone who understands that unless you get the politics right, no one is going to give a crap about your policies. That’s why “Ivory Tower Conservatism” as practiced by the network of DC think tanks was so spectacularly unsuccessful. They thought they could win with policy, and that politics were secondary. Trump showed they had this backward. And that’s why he was the only man capable of killing off Hillary.

    • Cloud Conservatism has had the “vapors” for years, and the Republicans have been too busy with a checklist of guys/gals that have waited their turn to run for President. Vetting and supporting GOOD POLITICAL CANDIDATES is Job #1 of any political party. The Dems were too in-the-bag for Hillary, stiff-arming Bill to the detriment of their campaign, and the Republicans were clueless as to how deadly-dull their lineup was, sooo. . . make room for TRUMP!

  20. Always remember, you can’t spell “liberal” without P-R-O-J-E-C-T-I-O-N. They’ve confused Society with their Daddies, and their enemies with themselves. Had somebody given Karl Marx some Xanax and a good talking-to, we’d have been spared all the horrors of the 20th century.

  21. The “right side of history” folks on the left need a history lesson, but the right has a fringe that also does. There’s a theory (THEORY!) known as the “Fourth Turning” which seems to turn reasonable folks into fanatics who set up a dichotomy: linear or cyclical history, leaving out what I consider the most reasonable approach, the “shit happens” random-events hypothesis. Oswald Spengler was the class act of cyclical theory; Strauss & Howe are more middlebrow. Francis Fukuyama was possibly the last of the linearists, so wrong has he proven to be, but I’m almost certainly indulging in wishful thinking with that forecast.

    It’s true that no matter what side of history one takes, there is no shortage of those who rely upon emotion instead of reason, who once they’ve become “believers” in a theory are hard put to budge from it even when it’s clearly flawed, instead trying to force facts to fit the theory. One thing’s certain, though: shit’s happening!

  22. I put little more than kid pics and birthday congratulations on Facebook. But boy is it a great listening post if you live in a bastion of Cloud People. Every time it looks as though the momentum has petered out, the Progressives come up with new ways to soil themselves in public. Some are hilarious, others disturbing, like one fellow who sternly informed all this Conservative “friends” on Facebook that he was “watching how you respond” (to his unhinged posts) On the “recast” point, there was a FB group for all the “moms” in our town that become infested with wailing and gnashing of teeth the night of the election. A few brave souls made the mistake of suggesting this was silly and overwrought and the non-hive minded were immediately attacked. Brutally. The resolution was the formation of yet another group, just for the like minded, where a couple hundred of them immediately encamped, wth a ruthless enforcement of idealogical conformity. Disagree, you get kicked out. But you can see in real time the thought process that ends up with bodies in trenches in other parts of history.

    • I already lost one good friend after a much delayed reunion turned into a three-hour tongue lashing over my Chistianist ways. ( I am in fact a rather passionate Deist and was one long before I ever met him.) I have resolved not to drink at thanksgiving since I am certain that there are two family members who will try to use it as an opportunity to take out their Trump-induced frustrations on me.

      In some ways, today’s divide between urban and rural is greater than the North-South split in 1860. The elect living in their white-topias in Manhattan, SF, Seattle, etc. are convinced that the fairly diverse bunch living in the sticks are evil incarnate. We are past the point of compromise. They have self-segregated into urban income sinks, while we live in the most productive parts of the country. We will not lose much if we lose them.

      • Hey Baboso! To paraphrase Tina Turner “What’s drinking got to do with it?” They gonna attack you just for being there! That’s who they are. Might as well enjoy yourself with a little libation anyway. Screw them.

        • Both are on my wife’s side. I am already in trouble for fighting with one of the two.

          If it was my blood relatives, I’d drink and fight!

      • don’t drink the first hour

        then pretend to drink the second hour

        see if there is any change in their behavior during the second hour

        • Both live in the bubble and I’m probably the only person they know who is a conservative. I do plan to let them drink. I will not give either the satisfaction of an emotional response.

          • Hi El, I too have acquaintances and a few relatives in the bubble. I host a Christmas party yearly, attending this are about 35 friends and relatives, some of whom are cloud/bubble dwellers. In a break with tradition my Christmas tree has been renamed the Trumpmas tree, and it will be decorated accordingly, plenty of Pepes and topped by Kek I expect an interesting experience. BTW Trumpmas is the holiday you celebrate whenever lefties are about.

  23. I agree with you. To the left, attending riots is the equivalent attending church and shouting obscenities is the equivalent of singing hymns.

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