From the lefty-progressive perspective things are looking good for the ’18 midterms. Trump is a louche sociopath who’s dirty to the bone, and every now and then God actually steps in and says “okay, I’m gonna put my finger on the scale and help out the good guys for a change.”
But lately I’ve become worried about hinterland pushback against the left. I’m even starting to worry that Trump might, God help us, be re-elected if a decent Democrat contender isn’t nominated, and right now there’s no rockstar in the wings. Not because swing voters will regard Trump as a first-rate President, but because some may be genuinely terrified of the alternative — of politically correct Stalinoids coloring the culture and pointing the finger every which way.
Attending the 2018 Sundance Film Festival is what put the fear in. As I mentioned on 1.21, it was like a socialist summer camp in the snow — insular, forward-thinking, politically correct, change-oriented, Time’s Up-embracing, POC and gay-celebrating. It felt a teeny-weeny bit oppressive. Like a shortage of oxygen or something.
I’ve been a lefty all my life and feel a deep-seated kinship with progressive ideals and goals today, but I’m genuinely scared about what lefties have been generating image-wise. By that I mean two impressions that have sunk in about what has felt at times like a cruel and dictatorial temperament.
One impression, which is arguably inaccurate, is that many lefties feel that whiteness is a genetically diseased condition, and nothing genuinely fair and benevolent can come from white people these days because there’s too much racism and horror in their history and so the historical ledger sheet has to be balanced. It’s not that whites have been asked to step back and let people of other shades run the show, but there seems to be a general sense that less whiteness will be a good thing all around.
The other is that Robespierre-styled punishment is the only way to deal with sexual conflict or misbehavior in the workplace. Many GenX and boomer guys in powerful positions are continuing to be accused and in some cases proven guilty of sexual misconduct and harassment and whatnot, and thank heaven that perpetrators of this kind of cruelty are being put on notice. But there’s also an apparent persuasion among #MeToo and #Time’sUppers that the only way to deal with these behaviors is to destroy their careers and banish them to exile like Moses in The Ten Commandments.
I have a seat-of-the-pants feeling that hinterland dumbfucks are appalled at lefty sanctimoniousness, and that this may become a factor — a “thing” — in not only the midterms but the ’20 presidential election. I hope it doesn’t. I hope I’m exaggerating. I don’t want to see Trump running again in ’20.
