No, We Don’t All Need to Get Along

Good intentions abound. That’s the only reason people still embrace misguided ideas like “colorblind society,” despite the powerfully negative connotations that such phrases conjure up.
 
The latest nicey-nicey concept I’ve encountered (and no doubt you have as well) is the absurd notion that, for America to succeed, we need to put aside our differences. In essence, we all need to get along. 

Where in the hell did this strange idea come from?

For the overwhelming majority of American history, we have not all gotten along.

For example, Hamilton and Jefferson didn’t say, “let’s be pals” when they were hashing out what kind of government we should have. They had more important things to do.

Even during the so-called Era of Good Feelings, America’s many slaves weren’t feeling the love and joining in group hugs. 

Speaking of slavery, America didn’t even reach its centennial before we started shooting at each other over that touchy topic. And it was another century of violence and antagonism before the government said, “Maybe we should be nicer to ethnic minorities.” At no point in that process did we all get along.

Yes, one could argue that the country was united during World War II, but even in that case, all it took to bind us together was a global conflagration where millions of people died and the very survival of democracy was in question. In other words… good times. 

More recently, we’ve come to blows over Vietnam and Iraq, over abortion and affirmative action, over gay rights and healthcare.

So when was this mythical time when Americans were of one mind? And why does anyone think this is a necessary condition in order for the country to thrive? Obviously, we’ve found a way to work around our internecine loathing.

The truth is that a nation as vast as ours — with its myriad subcultures, each enjoying a large degree of freedom — is never going to be truly united. To believe otherwise is to embrace the thinking of a child.

However, this Kumbaya concept is more than a pathetic pipe dream. It features an insidious aspect snaking below the surface.

We see this in the earnest pleas, even demands, for liberals to shut up and support Trump. Of course, conservatives would like nothing better than for progressives to give Trump a chance (which many liberals, inexplicably, are quite willing to do).

But why would leftists agree to a right-wing agenda that goes against every principle we have, and that could lead America into chaos? Apparently, we should do so out of blind patriotism and for the sake of the vague, abstract concept of “unity.”

According to this idea, striving to be friends supersedes the threat of decimating the country.

“Yes, thousands of people are dead now because Obamacare was repealed, but at least we’re all getting along, and that’s the most important thing. Yup.”

This is clearly insane.

And aside from the specifics of the current era — where a wannabe fascist seeks to make the nation great again for white supremacists — the fact remains that striving for unity at all costs is spectacularly naïve, even destructive.

The US Constitution is the result of Founding Fathers threatening to duel each other to the death. Slavery was abolished through warfare. Civil rights came only after decades of people refusing to back down, and not settling for getting along.

One of the virtues/flaws of American culture is our hyper-competitiveness. As such, one idea or principle usually emerges triumphant. Sometimes it’s a good idea… and sometimes it’s not. Still, as we know, the moral arc is long but bends toward justice (at least we hope it does).

However, progress is delayed even more when we smile and act polite in the face of idiocy or fanaticism or demagoguery. And there is no need to do so.

Because we have never all gotten along.

And we never will. 

Rave Reviews

So two months into America’s slow-motion collapse, it’s time to ask, what do Latino leaders think of our sociopathic, incompetent lunatic of a president?

Well, 403 Hispanic opinion leaders recently took part in what the National Institute for Latino Policy (NILP) calls, “the closest thing to an ongoing survey of national Latino leadership in existence today.” 

Now, the NILP takes the rather odd position of breaking down survey results by Latino subsets (e.g., Puerto Rican, Mexican, Other Latino), so overall numbers are difficult to ascertain.

Still, the range of responses is pretty consistent across demographics. For example, the percentage of Hispanic leaders who think Trump will create “the wrong kind of change” in America ranges from 84% to 93%. That’s a pretty tight grouping.

So we can safely say that, for example, Latino leaders believe Trump is a menace on immigration, because anywhere from 93% to 98% of them think that.

As you can imagine, the survey’s results are fairly grim for the Orange Menace. We see that 93% to 99% of Latino leaders believe that Trump will divide the nation. And it’s clear that Trump’s Muslim travel ban isn’t exactly popular with Hispanic leaders, in that 87% to 96% of them disapprove of it.

So is there any good news for Trump in this survey?

Well, this is as close as it gets to positivity for the president:

Latino leaders are divided over whether Trump should be impeached for his business conflicts of interest, or for his shady dealings with Russia — with some even saying he should be impeached for his refusal to disclose his tax returns.

That’s right. Latino leaders aren’t split over whether Trump should be removed from office. About 65% to 73% of them want that. 

The only bickering is over the precise way to do it.

For Trump, this constitutes a victory lap.

Bubbles

Hey, remember when I said that too many liberals were genuflecting to Trump and insisting that he was all presidential and shit now, just because he successfully gave a mediocre speech? And remember when I said that was nonsense, and that Trump hadn’t changed and never would?

Yeah, that was last week. And I was right.

So now that we’ve further established that liberals are acting like a bunch of abused spouses, how do we focus on creating a new mindset — one that doesn’t play into conservatives’ hands?

There are, of course, a number of strategies. But I would rather focus on what not to do.

For starters, let’s drop the ludicrous suggestion that progressives need to “get outside their bubbles.” 

“But wait,” my fellow progressives wail. “We lost the white working class, and it’s because we’re just a bunch of spoiled, condescending, pampered elitists. We need to kiss their boots and tell them how great they are, in the desperate hope that they’ll vote for a democrat.”

Sorry, but when it comes to reasoning with a hardcore Trump supporter, there is very little return on investment.

First, the truth is that most Americans live in bubbles — defined as clusters of like-minded individuals who tend to line up on politics, culture, religion, etc. In fact, there are apparently up to 11 different Americas, which makes sense when one considers how vast this country is. Furthermore, Americans have always lived in bubbles. It’s just more obvious now with the rise of social media and academic studies.

And yet, it is only now that we’re hearing “get out of your bubbles.” And it is only liberals who are being told to do this (despite the fact that the Democratic candidate actually got millions more votes).

I rarely hear the reverse. That is, how come nobody ever says that people in the Midwest and the Deep South live in their own bubbles, and that perhaps they should try to understand the viewpoints of the dreaded coastal elites?

In fact, one could make the case that “rural and exurban people need to see more of America. People do not understand the depths of how little rural America travels and sees other people and cultures.”

And if I haven't mentioned this in the last nine minutes, I’m from Wisconsin, and I’ve probably spent more time in rural America than the vast majority of liberals. So I can tell you, the rural conservative bubble is much stronger and more impenetrable than the urban progressive bubble.

Yet it is liberals who are told to “stop ranting and seek out” Trump voters for their opinions. However, when a progressive actually attempts this, it’s all shouting and insults, and nobody ever changes his/her mind. Or Trump supporters don’t bother to show up to the conversation — because they don’t have to.

In fact, I have yet to see one of those “opposing sides come together” kind of stories where the instigator was a Republican. And the reason is obvious.

Conservatives have the default setting of being “the real Americans,” and asking them to do anything to upset their world is political suicide and culturally shameful. Meanwhile, liberals would rather be punched in the face than get accused of being elitist, so we had better bend over backward.

In essence, conservatives who refuse to compromise are principled and strong. But liberals who do the same are smug.  

It’s all enough to make you want to stay inside your own little bubble.

You Made Me Do This

Recently, I badmouthed those liberal celebrities who blame themselves for the rise of Donald Trump. Of course, our titans of the entertainment industry have bigger problems to face, like opening the correct envelope, so I’ll leave them alone.

Instead, I’m going to focus on progressives in general — be they famous, infamous or completely unknown — by pointing out a disturbing trend that has emerged since November. This is the tendency of leftists to absolve conservatives of all responsibility for Trump’s election. Even weirder, my fellow progressives are saying it is our entire fault that America has a cackling xenophobe in the White House.

Indeed, many good leftists are bowing their heads and admitting that it is the most malignant of monsters — political correctness — that explains, “more than anything, how the left created Trump.”

Progressives are shouting that the left abandoned the white working class, and that liberal elitism pushed rural voters away, and that liberals became bullies and gave conservatives no choice (no choice at all!) but to embrace Trump.

All this strikes some other liberals as whiny and self-indulgent. But I disagree.

I believe that it is the political equivalent of spousal abuse.

It’s clear that some liberals have been punched, degraded, and insulted by conservatives for so long that many progressives now accept the horrible image that right-wingers have created for them.

Just like in cases of spousal abuse, liberals are justifying the repulsive behavior of many conservatives, releasing them from blame, admitting the ill treatment is deserved, and then lining up for more.

Let me be clear. I am not making light of the issue of domestic violence. Some of my friends and family have suffered through this agony, so I don’t employ this metaphor lightly.

But it is eerie how so many progressives, no matter how much they are slurred and ridiculed, turn around and say that we had Trump coming, just be virtue of being liberal.

Remember, right-wingers never blamed themselves for Obama. Hell, they shrieked that liberals were idiots who had destroyed America by voting for a Kenyan socialist who was going to take away all their guns. Obama’s election only increased conservatives’ disdain for progressives, and it lead to zero self-loathing or reflection on the part of conservatives.

So why are liberals prone to accepting blame for the actions of conservatives, even clamoring for it at times?

Well, there are many reasons for this.

First, liberals tend to be nicey-nicey and avoid hurting anyone’s feelings (that conservative chestnut has a grain of truth to it). And in this case, progressives don’t want to get all mean and point out that many Trump supporters are straight-up misogynists and racists.

So progressives imply that Trump supporters are merely misunderstood, and that if we just charm red-state America enough, these people will forget all about their hatred of gay marriage and fear of Latinos. 

It’s just that easy. Yup.

Of course, we would have to ignore statistics like this one: “A whopping 39 percent of Trump voters believe that women who get abortions should face legal punishment, an opinion that is otherwise so unpopular that even the anti-choice movement disavows it.”

But of course, they can’t be criticized for that loathsome viewpoint. It’s all the liberals’ fault.

Far too many leftists are saying we must reach out and plead with Trump supporters, who in turn don’t have to change at all. It is the progressives who must alter their worldview. This is despite the fact that Trump lost the popular vote (overwhelmingly) and has one of the worst approval ratings for a president this early in his administration. No, let us — the progressives — drop all our principles and try to understand the fury of a small group of conservatives, even as they deride us as dim-witted, latte-sipping wimps.

This brings up another point, which is that liberals are insulted routinely, and yet, we have not used this as a pathetic excuse to “blow up the system” or whatever euphemism the right wing is using to endanger democracy.

“But wait,” the bruised and battered liberal says. “We made them hate us, because Hollywood skewers them mercilessly in popular culture.”

Hey, here’s an interesting statistic for you. Latinos are the most underrepresented group in popular culture, and when we are shown, it is usually in stereotypical or highly negative ways.

No, the white working class has no idea what it’s like to be mocked.

But let’s accept the argument that the entertainment industry — and by bizarre extension, all of liberal culture — has been vicious to conservatives. First, liberals don’t say, “suck it up, snowflake,” because that would be, you know, not nice.

Instead, the self-loathing liberal says that this is perfectly reasonable grounds for embracing demagoguery.

Think about that.

We’re basically saying it’s ok to get annoyed that, for example, many black people prefer the term “African American.” And not just peeved, as when one rolls his eyes, dismisses something as silly, and then goes about his business.

No, we agree that the logical reaction is to fly into an eye-popping rage and vote for a narcissistic nutjob. How in the world does A follow B? Why is becoming furious at the idea of women getting equal pay somehow acceptable, and even more so, a solid rationale for voting for an unqualified man-child who is cozy with dictators?

But progressives ignore these reddest of red flags, and they simply say, “Hey, right-wingers, we apologize for asking you not to slur Asians and refrain from throwing shit at mosques. We don’t know what we were thinking.” 

Again, this is the political equivalent of saying, “I’m sorry I made you so angry that you punched me in the face. I’ll go get your beer now.”

As a final example of this twisted tendency, look at how many liberals are falling over themselves to proclaim Trump “presidential” now that he has successfully delivered one insult-free, semi-coherent speech. This most meager of accomplishments has convinced many progressives that Trump is a changed man, and will do the right thing, and will be the president for all of us.

And he bought me flowers and didn't hit me on my birthday and he’s a changed man it’s different now don’t you see he really loves me and it will be better now and…

And…

And…

The Fault in Our Stars

Self-flagellation is never sexy — not even when sexy people do it.

I’m talking about individuals like Latina actress Zoe Saldana, who said that Hollywood liberals like her “got cocky and became arrogant and… became bullies.” She implied that this behavior led people to vote for Trump.

Of course, Hollywood celebrities have recently been wailing and gnashing their teeth over Trump’s victory. Because so many of them are liberal, this is perfectly understandable. What is mystifying, however, is the object of their scorn: their fellow progressives.

In addition to Saldana, there is celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain, who said, “the utter contempt with which privileged Eastern liberals such as myself discuss red-state, gun-country, working-class America as ridiculous and morons and rubes is largely responsible” for Trump.

Wow, that is quite the self-indictment. And then there is our old friend Bill Maher, who believes “liberal culture’s preoccupation with language helped put Trump in the White House.”

Indeed, many people believe that endorsements from liberal celebrities “don’t matter anymore [and] more likely and long-term: They hurt.”

Yes, there is no shortage of celebrities who are admitting their culpability in Trump’s rise, even if they themselves are ardent touchy-feely progressives. Hell, it’s apparently because they’re touchy-feely progressives in the first place that we are in this mess.

But there is one little flaw with this apology tour: All of it is bullshit.

In a way, it is just more celebrity self-aggrandizement. Celebrities are saying that their opinions have the power to convince everyone how to vote — especially those knuckleheaded Neanderthals in the Rust Belt.

However, celebrities who humble brag about their cultural power are only the most visible manifestation of an insidious development in our society.

I’m talking about progressives who are so busy blaming themselves for Trump that they are not focused on fighting right-wing demagoguery.

And yes, that forms the perfect segue to my next post. So stay tuned.