{"id":9635,"date":"2016-11-23T12:22:30","date_gmt":"2016-11-23T20:22:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=9635"},"modified":"2016-11-23T12:22:30","modified_gmt":"2016-11-23T20:22:30","slug":"the-progressive-disintegration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-progressive-disintegration\/","title":{"rendered":"The Progressive Disintegration"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The self-destruction of so many failed progressive gods.<\/h3>\n
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By Bruce Thornton \/\/ Front Page<\/em><\/a><\/div>\n
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A month ago, progressives were having a conniption fit over Trump\u2019s refusal to accept the outcome of the election. So of course, now that Trump has won, they are rioting, vandalizing, staging \u201ccry-ins,\u201d ditching class, group-hugging, tweeting threats, calling names, seeking counseling, and doing everything in their power to make sure that their party declines even further. If this behavior continues, and if\u2013\u2013a big \u201cif\u201d \u2013\u2013 Trump governs the way he promised, we may be witnessing the start of the progressive disintegration.<\/p>\n

Start with the melting snowflake millennials, all those \u201ccocksure women and hensure men,\u201d as D.H. Lawrence once described feminists of both sexes. These layabouts have become used to throwing tantrums whenever they don\u2019t like something or they feel \u201cunsafe.\u201d Most of them are spoiled brats, the pampered detritus of the middle class. But don\u2019t forget the Alinskyite activists who manipulate these juveniles and bus them in on George Soros\u2019 dime. These two-bit Leninists are adept at using \u201cuseful idiots\u201d in order to further their aim of destroying America\u2019s political and social order. They\u2019re skilled at manipulating empty slogans like \u201cincome inequality,\u201d \u201cfair share,\u201d \u201csocial justice,\u201d \u201cdiversity,\u201d \u201cinclusion,\u201d and all the other bumper-sticker bromides in order to consolidate and increase their power and influence.<\/p>\n

If the delicate millennial Eloi were really interested in reforming their team instead of indulging phony moral exhibitionism, they would start with the Democrat party. No true leftist would have sat still for the nomination of a candidate so obviously part of the fat-cat ruling class as Hillary Clinton. (And no, he wouldn\u2019t be happy with Bernie Sanders either, a bumbling blowhard who thinks imitating Sweden\u2019s \u201csocial democracy\u201d \u2013\u2013which means an overregulated capitalism leavened with over-generous social welfare benefits\u2013\u2013is somehow an epochal revolutionary change.) It was electoral malfeasance to choose a geriatric insider and establishment plutocrat with no charisma and a long record of abusing her privilege and power. So, kiddies, go protest against the DNC and Barack Obama. They\u2019re the reason the Republican party is the strongest<\/a> it\u2019s been since 1928.<\/p>\n

Next, look at yourselves. As Piers Morgan\u2013\u2013no conservative he\u2013\u2013said recently, \u201cThe tragic truth is that America\u2019s millennials are a bunch of phone-addicted, selfie-obsessed, hashtagging, snapchatting, kale-munching, twerking, lazy, whining, ill-informed, politically correct, cossetted narcissists who find absolutely everything mortally offensive and believe there are 165 ways to sexually identify.\u201d It follows that your politics are merely symbolic, expressions of your inflated self-regard, privileged life-style, and arrogant pretensions to sophistication and intelligence. Unsurprisingly, as Morgan points out, according to the National Institutes of Health, 40% of you think you should be promoted every two years despite performance, 77% of you can\u2019t name a senator from your home state, and 80% of you think you\u2019ll be richer than your parents, even as you pile up student debt earning junk \u201cstudies\u201d degrees utterly useless for employment in the real world.<\/p>\n

In contrast to symbolic politics, real politics is grubby hard work: knocking on doors, registering voters, and not just preaching to the choir, but converting new voters. Follow Obama\u2019s advice to Republicans three years ago: \u201cYou don\u2019t like a particular policy or a particular president? Then argue for your position. Go out there and win an election\u201d (HT Cal Thomas). By the way, you won\u2019t win many elections by demonizing nearly half of voters as ignorant, racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic, and cisgendered \u201cirredeemable deplorables.\u201d<\/p>\n

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More important, you need to vote. Only half of your 24-million-strong cohort voted<\/a> in this election. You also need to understand that not everybody between the ages of 18-29 thinks exactly like you. Thirty-seven percent of millennials voted for Donald Trump. Instead of crying and vandalizing and screaming question-begging epithets, you should figure out how to talk to your fellow millennials and make persuasive, fact-based arguments based on coherent principles. But of course, if you could do that, you wouldn\u2019t be progressives.<\/p>\n

Then there are the Dems. They long ago embraced a balkanizing identity politics based mainly on demonizing those white voters who pulled the lever for Trump. They pander incessantly to race hucksters and rich women and sleek \u201cHispanics,\u201d most of whom never cut grapes or even speak Spanish. They embrace counter-factual nonsense like \u201cwhite privilege,\u201d when they of all people should know that the color of privilege in America is the currency shade of green. They and their wholly owned subsidiaries, the mainstream media and the educational industry, enforce a preposterous political correctness that is intellectually lazy and morally bankrupt. They trade in group-identities often based on stereotypes and generalizations that old-school Jim Crow segregationists relied on. The blatant hypocrisy of a political correctness that never protects Christians, poor whites, or conservatives finally angered enough voters to set aside their distaste for Trump and put him in office.<\/p>\n

Yet despite that rebuke, after the election the Democrat elite indulged the same old nonsense. The tried to play the \u201csexist\u201d card to explain Hillary\u2019s defeat, posited a preposterous \u201cwhitelash\u201d of racists, tarred the careerist James Comey as a Republican mole, whined about the Electoral College while trying to suborn Electors, conjured up sinister Klansmen and alt-right storm-troopers, insulted 49 million Americans as haters, and prophesized an imminent fascist coup engineered by Trump\u2019s goose-stepping Goebbels, Steve Bannon. Rather than come up with new ideas, they\u2019re doubling-down on the stale paradigm that demography guarantees them a permanent coalition comprising various identity-groups united by the promise of more set-asides and wealth redistribution, and bicoastal plutocrats who compensate for their privilege by catering to the minority masses they make sure never enter their gated compounds except to make the beds and mow the lawn. They don\u2019t consider that Trump\u2019s victory could make that plan obsolete if he follows through on his promise to tighten up on immigration.<\/p>\n

Finally, instead of rethinking their exploded economic myths and abandoning a divisive identity politics, many Dems want to keep steaming full speed ahead toward the next electoral iceberg. Look at the two candidates touted as replacements for the tarnished DNC interim chair Donna Brazile. Howard \u201cScreaming\u201d Dean, erstwhile presidential candidate and governor of a state with fewer people than Fresno County, is a tax-and-spend, \u201cfair share,\u201d regulation-happy, identity politics tribune and radical egalitarian redistributionist of the kind whose policies have given us sluggish growth, job-killing regulations, and astronomical debt. The other choice is Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison<\/a>, a zealous Muslim convert by way of the ultra-racist Nation of Islam. He is tainted with anti-Semitism, apologetics for Iran and terrorists like Hamas, virulent hatred of Israel, wacky 9-11 conspiracy theories, and the usual progressive blame-America-first foreign policy and magical-thinking economics. No surprise that he has been endorsed by the Jacobin Cherokee Elizabeth Warren, and ex-Senator Harry Reid, Obama\u2019s legislative Luca Brasi.<\/p>\n

The few sane Democrats counseling a change of course are unlikely to halt the self-destruction of so many failed progressive gods. Only Trump can prevent that \u201cconsummation devoutly to be wished\u201d by failing to keep his campaign promises.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The self-destruction of so many failed progressive gods. By Bruce Thornton \/\/ Front Page A month ago, progressives were having a conniption fit over Trump\u2019s refusal to accept the outcome of the election. So of course, now that Trump has won, they are rioting, vandalizing, staging \u201ccry-ins,\u201d ditching class, group-hugging, tweeting threats, calling names, seeking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1090,22,11,23,31,187],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-2vp","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2534,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/its-the-philosophy-stupid\/","url_meta":{"origin":9635,"position":0},"title":"It’s the Philosophy, Stupid","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 15, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton Advancing a Free Society The Democrats\u2019 position in the negotiations to raise the debt limit and deal with runaway government debt can be summarized in one mantric phrase: the rich must \u201cpay their fair share\u201d in taxes. White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer, for example, said\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":752,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-gay-marriage-evolution-deception\/","url_meta":{"origin":9635,"position":1},"title":"Obama’s Gay Marriage ‘Evolution’ Deception","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 29, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine In yet another act of election-year cynicism, Barack Obama has announced, \u201cI think same-sex couples should be able to get married.\u201d This statement follows similar pronouncements by Joe Biden and Education Secretary Arne Duncan. To hear Obama tell it, this change reflects his \u201cevolution\u201d\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":862,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-a-creature-of-the-corrupt-university\/","url_meta":{"origin":9635,"position":2},"title":"Obama a Creature of the Corrupt University","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 5, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine The November presidential election was the favorite topic at the Freedom Center\u2019s West Coast Retreat last weekend. Amidst the prognostications and arguments about which Republican would or should get the nomination, or how pessimistic or optimistic conservatives should be about defeating the President, the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Education"","block_context":{"text":"Education","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/education\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":700,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-presidency-and-the-pathologies-of-progressivism\/","url_meta":{"origin":9635,"position":3},"title":"Obama’s Presidency and the Pathologies of Progressivism","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 16, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine Obama\u2019s presidency has failed miserably, but it has accomplished one thing: it has revealed for all to see the lethal pathologies of progressive ideology. This doesn\u2019t mean progressivism will go away. We thought the New Democrat Bill Clinton had put progressive ideas to rest\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6606,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/bruce-thornton-on-secure-freedom-radio-with-frank-gaffney\/","url_meta":{"origin":9635,"position":4},"title":"Bruce Thornton on Secure Freedom Radio with Frank Gaffney","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 10, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Seth Jones, Bruce Thornton, Peter Pham, Diana West October 9th, 2013\u00a0\u00b7\u00a0Comments SETH JONES, Associate Director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the RAND Corporation, joins guest host DAN BONGINO, to help explain the terror threat from and historical background of the terrorist organization al-Shabaab. BRUCE THORNTON, a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. 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