Biden is calling for decency because deep down he knows that politics is politics and you say what you have to in order to win but when it’s over you shake hands and get on with things. He’s calling for decency in a country he can’t possibly understand. It isn’t the Trump supporters he has to win over - it’s his OWN supporters whose minds have to be changed. They have to be taught tolerance and forgiveness. They have to learn the lesson of human frailty. Or else there can be no unity.
Tolerance. It’s as simple as that. Accept that people have different beliefs. That is pretty much it for Team Biden to help bring the country together. But who are we kidding? There is no tolerance on the left. We believe fervently: it’s our way or the highway. That’s a mistake and honestly a road to nowhere.
Trump offered a respite from the growing strident puritanism forming on the left over the past 12 years that demanded all of America comply or be shamed, ridiculed, then persecuted and eventually threatened with their jobs and their reputations. So, if you’re religious and you don’t believe in gay marriage that makes you a bigot. If you don’t believe in abortion that makes you a fascist. If you believe in a biological male and female that makes you a transphobe hater and bigot. It is enough that you agree to the civil rights entitled to all Americans. No, it is the belief system itself that MUST change.
In other words, Democrats have become as strident and militant as the conservatives were in the 1980s. Who would have thought it? Our standards of what make good people or moral people or acceptable people have become almost impossible to meet because the list keeps getting longer and more specific - definitions change monthly and Websters Dictionary tries to keep up. We saw this recently when Amy Coney Barrett said “sexual preference.” Suddenly that was considered bigoted language even though literally weeks before it was said by well respected members of the left and even the current president, Joe Biden.
“Cancel culture” is not about unity. It is about purging the village to keep the village pure and righteous. THAT is what has to change if this country expects to come together in any way. I get a lot of grief now and before the election for criticizing the left - but that is because I know the left is why Trump took power in the first place and why his side will only grow while ours shrinks. We have painted ourselves in a corner and we have nowhere else to go except to collapse under the weight of our own oppression.
It isn’t easy to be tolerant or to forgive people who aren’t perfect, who still have obvious biases or even those who are weak and have to hurt other people to make themselves feel better. It is especially difficult when you risk being called out on social media for being honest. No one who considers themselves a decent and good person can stand being called a racist or a bigot or a misogynist. And therein lies the singular power of the left right now. That is it. Control people through fear by questioning their decency.
Unless we’re talking two separate countries or re-education camps - the left is not going to be able to lecture or scold or cancel all of America into submission. It just isn’t going to happen. No, rather we all have to learn how to accept that there are people in this country we don’t agree with. What matters is what laws are passed, what policies are enacted to address problems - the end result will always get back to the principles of sharing a planet with billions of people: you have to find a way to fight for yours and others’ rights but that is as far as it goes. Once you get into controlling how people think, what they watch, what news they get - once you police thoughts? You’re in Orwell territory. You are one step closer to totalitarianism.
All of us live in fear who belong to the left. It’s like being in Salem in 1692 and being afraid someone is going to point their finger and call you a witch. We self-censor constantly, spend endless amounts of time trying to make sure what we are saying such that we don’t say a single thing that is offensive. Every piece of art is scrutinized, every film carefully examined as the self-appointed police force looks for anything that might threaten the utopia. Friends, this is classic fascism on the rise - all that’s missing is government control.
Now, granted, Trump hasn’t made it easy. He has gone further than just simple “trolling the libs,” which he does often just for the pure joy of it. He has called protesters “animals” and “thugs,” not to mention the Obama birther scandal and going all the way back to the Central Park Five and the scandal involving the Justice Department investigating him and his father for discrimination. Part of what drives his popularity is that he spits in the face of people telling him what he can and can’t say. Trump simply refuses to be tamed.
Right before Trump showed up the left under Obama had reached peak utopia. Like the Puritans of Salem who were already afraid of the Devil seeing their relatives and livestock slaughtered by the Native Americans (who had a case, since the Puritans were on their land), not to mention the wild animals stalking the woods - all of this, to them, was proof of the Devil’s presence and they were scared out of their minds. So when Abigail (whose own parents had been murdered) began accusing people of witchcraft that was like confirmation of the thing they feared the most. That’s why the left lost its mind with Trump’s rise and why it was so delicious to those who hate what the left has become.
The fact is what drove the Trump movement had also been in placed for years prior - seen in people like Sarah Palin, but also in the Tea Party movement which took congress in 2014. It was simmering long before their guy showed up. The only reason he won was because they had a very specific strategy that worked. It only worked because the Democrats were deeply in denial about their weaknesses.
If you notice, with the left and cancel culture, everything is about winning the battle. If they get someone kicked off twitter or fired or canceled or their movie bombs or whatever it is - that’s the end goal. For four years they have tried to do that to Trump and it never worked. Finally COVID brought him down with the media’s help. The reason the left is flipping out right now is yet more hysteria and helplessness because they can’t even win THIS battle. Democrats and media refusing to even address the unprecedented methods of voting this year just makes them look more guilty to people on the right.
All they would have to do is calmly agree and say: sure, let’s count the ballots and then we’ll agree to move forward. But they have to see Trump humiliated and canceled. Nothing else will do. Trump defying that is driving the left yet more crazy - look at the op-eds scaring people about the breakdown of democracy. Trump is doing what he has been doing for four years - playing a game. He is doing it deliberately to drive the left crazy and to deflect his own loss before his supporters. They can’t see their icon go down without a fight so he is giving them that fight. It’s too bad the left can’t just calmly go along with it until it is all over. Rather, they have to play right into Trump’s hands.
If you want to unify with the millions of Americans who HATE the left because of what the left has become - you first must identify the problem. And the problem isn’t “wow, 71 million people are racists and didn’t reject Trump’s racism.” No, it’s more like - 71 million Americans know Trump isn’t perfect but they’d rather have an imperfect guy who is honest than continue to live in fear of saying or doing the wrong thing lest they lose their job, their family, their platform and their reputation.
No. America is not moving in the direction of oppressive totalitarianism - it is moving in the opposite direction. This election showed us that beyond any doubt. The candidate who captures that will be the one to rise in 2024 and beyond.
This is worth a listen. It’s long but it’s brilliant and insightful:
I would disagree with your argument that "No one who considers themselves a decent and good person can stand being called a racist or a bigot or a misogynist. "
Those of us who know ourselves to be good and decent don't give a rat's fig about what some secular moralist says; go too far, and we'll seek redress under defamation law. Or give them a fat lip if it's said to our face.
I know who I am and am secure in that; my life's work speaks for itself. If some intolerant bigot on the left wants to try to paint me otherwise, that will reflect on them, not me - at least among those who've shared this journey with me, and those are the only ones whose opinion I value.
That way of seeing things is pretty common among those of us living outside the Left's intellectual gated community.
The Left has become a giant HOA, fining people for painting their garage door a slightly wrong color of brown.