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Democrats: Please start making sense. Please.
In the 1970s I was told that we were all going to die in the next ice age, which was said to be already underway with the colder winters we were having at the time. Then in the 1980s, I was told that we were all going to die because of global warming, which was said to be already underway with the warmer winters we were having at the time. Now, with the weather seemingly cooler again, they’ve given up and said that we 
are all going to die of climate change. All the same people believed all the different stories as they came, because this was never really about the weather, it was about the acquisition of money and power.
Last night, my 16-year-old daughter was writing a paper for her high school English class. In her papers for this class, she rarely mentions the reading material, and instead writes about the oppression of women, because that’s what her teacher talks about in class, and it’s easier to get good grades by writing garbage about her teacher’s pet topic than it is to write high-quality papers about actual books. I think I’m proud of her. Anyway, I was proof-reading for her last night, and I pointed out to her, “Look, in this one paragraph you describe women as helpless victims of male privilege AND as strong, powerful dominators of all they survey that don’t need men at all. You have to pick one. You can’t use both. You’ll sound stupid.”
She responded, “Yes, it sounds stupid because it is stupid. But no, I don’t have to pick one. She’ll eat it up. Automatic ‘A’. You just watch.”
Thinking back on the decades of dire predictions of our imminent demise due to, well, whatever the weather seemed to be at the time; I thought that perhaps she had a point. She wasn’t making sense, because she didn’t have to. In fact, it was in her best interests not to make sense, considering her audience.
I like to think that Democrat policy meetings sound a lot like my daughter and I. Some of their speechwriters saying, “C’mon – I know this is a fundraiser in Portland, but any voter with an IQ higher than their age is going to laugh us off the stage with this crap.” And then their political advisors responding, “Yes, but we’re not expecting any voters like that to attend a Democrat Party fundraiser in Portland.”
Or something like that. I like to think, at least, that there is some sort of debate along these lines.
In a democracy, voters don’t always get the government that they want, but they usually get the government they deserve. So maybe the Democrats are just serving up whatever is selling at the time, and right now, that happens to be, well, stupidity with a side of insanity. But my point is that it’s not the fault of Democrat leadership. It’s our fault. That’s what we ask for, so that’s what we get.
There was an absolutely brilliant post some months ago on Ricochet (Logic is Boring) about the conflict between the Democrat Party’s old guard (Pelosi, Schumer, et al) and their young firebrands (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, et al). I like to think that that conflict is an ongoing problem for the Democrat party.
I like to think that because the only other alternative is that the Democrat party really is as stupid and insane as it sounds. And in a two-party system, you don’t want either party to be absolutely bonkers.
The Democrat party seems determined to free itself from the constraints of logic and reality. The weather is cold! The weather is warm! Whatever! Vote for us! Women are oppressed and helpless! Women are powerful and self-sufficient! Whatever! Vote for us!
I have some friends who are former leftists who became conservatives later in life. They all explain their decision the same way. Some variation of, “I just realized one day that it didn’t make any sense.”
Only by controlling education and media can Democrats keep this many people on board with, well, whatever they’re pushing at the time, whether it’s baby seals or trans-sexual bathrooms. But now that the left IS the establishment, they’re creating a significant number of people like my daughter, who giggles while writing unintelligible garbage papers that will get her A’s.
It seems to me that the Democrat party is a house of cards, built on a foundation of Jello. There’s not much holding it together, so they respond to any questioning of their ideology with rage rather than debate (as explained in another absolutely brilliant post).
But I wonder how long can they keep this going? At some point, it won’t just be 16-year-old girls. At some point, even fools and college professors will hear a little voice inside them saying, “This doesn’t make any sense…”
What do you think? Is the Democrat party’s current strategy of passionate arguments for nonsense a sustainable strategy? Will this work long term? Their strategy of taking over the educational establishment and teaching students to embrace hatred and disdain independent thought has certainly helped. But is it sufficient? Will they eventually be forced to attempt to make coherent arguments for their positions at some point?
You may think, “Who cares? It’s their own fault for being incoherent. I don’t vote for them anyway.”
But I care. Because if they succeed in continuing down this rabbit hole of impulsive incoherent insanity, they’re taking us with them. They already are – I offer you President Trump as evidence.
Come on Democrats. I’m rooting for you. I really am. Please start making sense.
Published in General
Alexander Tyler’s maxim.
I have to say, I just realized one day that it didn’t make any sense.
And I am not upset that you did the mind meld thing and published my inner logic.
What is upsetting is that what the Dems did several years ago on the “it didn’t make sense” scale of logic is being out done right now by new philosophies and new policies that make even less sense than the older philosophies and older policies.
Also, I got a kick out of your daughter’s way of getting through the next few years of school. Kudos to the both of you.
I don’t think that the left is remaking Hitler’s Youth, so much as they are creating an unthinking, unquestioning, maxim-spouting, absolutist generation who will blindly follow whatever will help the Untermench in xir constant battle against the evil machinations of those shifty-eyed white people.
Maybe. Or maybe each generation rebels against the previous one. The Scandinavian countries went down a path of democratic socialism, then abandoned it and turned things around. Calvin Coolidge was able to roll back the size of government. The lies are not sustainable. Eventually, people will notice that Miami is not underwater.
I really hope you are right. They are not equipped with the practice of or the tools for discovering truth, but it not being underwater is something one would have to realize as the truth.
One of the reasons I hated school, being judged by incompetent wannabes.
This nonsense will go on for some time, I’m afraid. Living in the Bay Area, most of my social network is composed of Democrats and it is very rare to find one who buys into the full menu of nonsense. Most of it, yes, but there are almost always exceptions. The most doctrinaire Dem I know makes a big carve-out for “Homeless Advocates”, for whom he has utter contempt. A Black guy who wore a Hillary hat into work one day is secretly terrified that one of his children will convert to Islam. Last week I had a rather unpleasant dinner with a friend who is a major Bernie supporter but who just went off on the Chelsie Manning case. “The Government paid to have his (unmentionable) cut off. Thats insane!” After the forth usage of that phrase I had to ask her to stop as it was causing some sort of phantom pain for me down there. She was not sympathetic but I was able to change the subject by pointing out that Obama pardoned the nut. So there is hope – they all know some aspect of the platform is nonsense. On the other hand, they are not about to switch sides over it.
Well played, sir.
This is awesome. Your daughter gets it, and is well positioned for college. All my kids have had me drill into them (over and over until I get the eye roll when I bring it up. You know that eye roll, I’m sure) that in college, learning and getting edumicated is important, but not as important as learning the system. Learning the ins and outs of the syllabus, what events count for what percentage of the grade, and what themes will predispose the professors to max your grade because you’re feeding their preening, fragile egos. Your kid is going places, man.
Obama pardoned only one nut but all the rest got the axe?
My mom used to tell her students, “Find out what the old fool wants and give it to him…what this old fool wants….”
My first reaction is that far too many Democrats buy into the magical thinking of the Left, because at first blush at a very shallow level, this magical thinking sounds to many like it would work and is the right thing to do. Health care for all. A Universal wage. A place to live for everyone. Yada, Yada, yada. If you have never been exposed to logic, working out real problems, managing people, budgets, economics, the real history of marxism and it’s varietals, or even American History in any sort of depth, one could be expected to believe that nonsense.
To say ” stop talking nonsense” just doesn’t make sense to those people because they have been brainwashed to believe the mantras of the Left and have been conditioned to react very negatively to any other thought. It goes back to the our schools and the brainwashing of our kids.
But on the other hand, Crazy and Corrupt Joe Biden the Traitor is leading in the polls by a wide margin because many democrats apparently don’t fully believe the narrative and may think that someone like Bernie running on the narrative will get absolutely massacred, even though Traitor Joe is a very flawed candidate at best.
It will go on as long as there are spoils to be shared among the believers, whether faux or real.
I didn’t get out of college all that long ago, but I don’t think it was like that then. Or maybe it was the place and the time.
Great post, you really touch on the deepening insanity that’s arisen from the empowerment of the weak.
How many examples of extreme fear mongering has the Left foisted on us since the 60’s? But I don’t think there’s ever been a case of fear mongering with a wider scope than the warming/climate hysteria for quite some time.
Having given this some thought I tend to believe it’s with all forms of government but just quicker with democracy.
I’ve noticed a pattern: People who switch from Left to right do so for rational reasons, those who switch from right to Left tend to do so for emotional reasons.
This is the key, they don’t think, they feel. Thinking is hard and doesn’t massage your ego like feeling does. So don’t expect them to see the logical fallacies when they refuse to look for them.
Also, they haven’t been trained as critical thinkers since our schools abandoned the effort many years ago. Today even most colleges don’t even attempt to teach critical thinking, instead they train ‘students’ to parrot answers they have been force fed. So they really aren’t equipped to consider whether what they are constantly told has any basis in reality.
Well, we do talk a lot about critical thinking at universities. Supposedly we all think it’s important and try to teach.
About 99% of us have no idea what it is, of course.
Critical thinking is when you’re critical of people who think. Duh.
Sometimes, alas.
Or criticism as a substitute for thinking.
http://ricochet.com/240235/archives/what-is-critical-thinking/
The humility typically found in my profession requires me to recognize brilliant writing wherever I find it.
I have three daughters. So yes, I most certainly know that eye roll.
I agree that she’s learning skills which will help her in life. But I really wish she could use English class to learn how to read, how to write, and how to think. Liberalism has killed the liberal arts. And that’s a huge loss for western society. We’re only just starting to feel the impact.
And thanks much for your kind words!
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard. – H. L. Mencken
He was right.
The old-line Democrats could be considered rabble-rousers, in that they pandered to the emotions of their base with fear-mongering in order to stir up passion and win votes, while not actually believing the crap they were spewing. But the new ones in the AOC mold actually believe the fear mongering because they grew up on it, and take the most wretched excesses pumped out on the left as gospel.
It still makes them sound stupid to most people, but there obviously are certain enclaves around the country — including certain areas where the voters stroke their own egos by thinking of themselves as the Best and the Brightest — where contradictory and counter-intuitive thinking is accepted without question, because thinking that fits The Narrative. And while some people will challenge one or two parts of it, usually because they have some personal experience in the situation or investment in continuing to think logically about the matter, they’re so tied into the local peer group hive-mind they won’t challenge any of the other beliefs that are equally ridiculous.
Great essay, thank you. I’m reminded of my own school days when the nuns, and then priests at university were not too impressed with my self esteem. They were more concerned with preparing you for a world that would try and mold you into an emotional, unthinking basket case. Your daughter has figured out how to manipulate the manipulators. It may be sad because they are wasting her time, but after all she has learned something in spite of their best efforts to hide the fact that she is smarter than they are.
So I’m going to infer that the new-school Democrats are the rabble that’s been roused.
That’s the problem for the Pelosi, Hoyer and Schumer wing of the party right now — they did all this to stir up the base with their crazy, hyperbolic claims, but the crazy, hyperbolic part of the base was simply supposed to keep voting them into power. They weren’t supposed to get elected to office themselves and then try to take control of the party away from Pelosi, Hoyer and Schumer.
Now they’re trying to figure out how to ride the tiger, and maintain overall control of the party while having to humor the AOC wing of the party without scaring off the swing voters they need to win in 2020. But the Ocasio-Cortez types are as sure of their demographic destiny to rule American as much as the McGovern people were at this time in 1971.
Yes. You expect some of this Leftist stuff to show up in Social Studies class, but they have found a way to work it into everything from reading in English class to even some of the examples that they use for word problems in Math.
It may be a sort of generational thing. I have two daughters who are ten years apart. I have a third but she will be 52 this month. The two younger are my examples. The one who went to UCLA in 2000 is a Bernie voter. Not crazy but leans that way. The one who went to U of Arizona in 2008 is conservative in spite of the misinformation she was fed. For example, her finals study guide informed her that “The Silent Majority” was made up of “white people who refused to accept the 1964 Civil Rights Act.” No mention of Vietnam or Nixon. It went right over her head. The younger kids seemed to realize the crap they were being fed for what it was.
Lest one think the older generation was steeped in conservatism, my oldest daughter, when in 6th grade, had the teacher conduct a war crimes trial of Harry Truman for dropping the atomic bomb. The kids convicted him. That was in conservative Orange County, CA.
Perhaps so but in 1971 they hadn’t so fully infiltrated the educational system and other fundamental institutions.
Definitely more pervasive now, but the same sort of hyperbolic claims that the radicals of the Vietman era were spewing out, where the worst of that group took it even further, with actual acts of domestic terrorism. (The specter of 9/11 still constrains the radical left, because they fear a return to things like the Weather Underground, even with Trump in office, won’t get the same sort of tacit support from liberals in general, as was the case 50 years ago, when Democrats mildly denounced the bombings while at the same time telling everyone we had to understand the root causes of their anger.)