I’ve always thought that society’s reaction to our boorish, prevaricating president would be a return to civility. But my young friend was spot on as last year’s elections proved. Using the Twitterverse as a platform, the AOC contingent (if I may call it that) became ascendant. And, their success has brought outrageous ideas (70% marginal tax rates, Green New Deal) into mainstream media discussion. Like Trump, AOC has become the “brand” of her party according to Peggy Noonan. Her essay (Congress’s Mean Girls Are Trump’s Offspring) in the Wall Street Journal asserts, “[t]hey believe that to be enraged is to demonstrate seriousness. It is to show that you understand the urgency of the moment, even if others don’t.”
Still I wonder where the line of acceptable behavior is drawn. I guess it’s somewhere on the spectrum of nasty women who make their living by being, well, nasty. Samantha Bee is okay, but Kathy Griffin is not. There’s a line between them somewhere, right?
Following President Trump’s election, I was astounded at the public reaction of those who supported his opponent and thought she had it in the bag. His outrageous behavior, boorish manners and policy lunacy was outmatched by street protests, hate-filled messages and the media’s obsession with him. “He’ll be reelected because liberals will overplay their hand,” I would tell anyone who would listen. Not many did. And, now, I am not so sure I was right.
Hatred has transformative power. It can make the innocuous into the menacing. And, menace provides moral empowerment, which in turn leads to totalitarianism. In a conventional society, laws are designed to protect people and their property. In a totalitarian society, laws are designed to move society toward utopia. Successful extremists can always define utopia. One extreme would have us erect barriers to free trade and reject immigrants while the other would open our borders and exercise government control over private enterprise. The reaction by each cohort is to accuse their opponents of either being Nazis (Hitler) or socialists (Lenin). Those who gain political power by conjuring hatred can and will do whatever is necessary to achieve their goals (as both Hitler and Lenin showed us).
America desperately needs leadership that stands for sanity and moderation, not demagoguery. Those whose political fortunes rely upon judging, lecturing and disdaining may resonate with a segment of the public but not with the “Exhausted Majority.” Despite the best efforts of the media, most people do not follow politics with rapt attention. They are more concerned about paying their rent and the rising cost of healthcare and sending their kids to college.
The question now is how to get the genie back in the bottle.
WHO WILL LEAD?
What I’m reading
Economist Brian Beaulieu says we’re in the third phase (Caution!) of the economic cycle. We may be on the precipice of recession – or maybe not…. In a 1 minute 43 second video, the Hoover Institute provides an alternative to a carbon tax called "Low Carbon Pollution Standards"…. David Brooks of the NY Times tells us that the media have become scandal mongers (once the province only of tabloids).
It’s old news now but I’ve been thinking about the mob that semi-attacked Tucker Carlson’s home last fall. If so-called progressives want to be the anti-Trump, shouldn’t they stop behaving like the anti-Christ?
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