The Lost

For John, BLUF:  The arrogance of the Progressives is almost too much to bear.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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I Guess I’m the Intolerant Left But I Don’t Really Care Anymore

Here is the sub-headline:

A letter of resignation to “finding common ground”

From the Medium, by Mr Smm Corey, 3 November 2020.

Here is the lede plus two:

here are many legitimate reasons to despise Joe Biden — enabling white supremacy is not among them.  In a nation beset by any number of ongoing, unattended, worsening calamities, many millions of Americans will turn out to vote more or less on “Do you like Trump or hate him?”  Biden is a bumbling, right place at the right time failson who’s about the bare minimum the Democrats could do to be better than a racist game show host.  This is undeniably a garbage choice, but it shouldn’t be a difficult one.  Diving too deep into the incredible clusterfuck that is 21st-century America will make you feel like your sanity is unraveling into a crazed state of constant self-gaslighting,  where you think to yourself, “maybe Chris Martin was the best part of Graduation.”  Blaming the state of this desperate and miserable present on general abstractions like partisanship or divisiveness is a cheap, if not downright evil, way of avoiding pinning the blame for our shitworld squarely where it belongs.  I don’t believe the majority of Trump voters possess some seething, menacing hatred towards marginalized groups, mostly because it is both a gross generalization and an unhelpful interpretation of a multi-faceted phenomenon.  But your average Republican is profoundly ignorant about systemic oppression — or doesn’t meaningfully oppose its existence.

I don’t loathe conservatives, at least on an individual level. Looking at the world through a rigid good/bad person binary is a disposition that is both childish and Puritanical.  Like any other human, they are products of their environment, which, in this case, is a thunderstorm of retrograde boomerisms, a failing education system, right-wing disinformation, and a ruthless political party that is contemptuous of anyone who earns less than a six-figure salary.  Above all else, it is both disappointing and depressing that many Americans, whether out of denial or principled spite, struggle to acknowledge conservatism for what it is, or at least what it has morphed into:  Rationalized ignorance and selfishness.  Of course, among the red state lumpenproles, this cultural malignancy is a jumble of venal gossip, some urgent taking of offense at a faraway abstraction, fife-and-drum patriotism, a dissonant mix of resentment and worship of capital, garbled rehashes of some vague outrage they saw on Fox or scrolled past on Facebook, Blue Lives Matter, and all things Maximum America (white people stuff).

I don’t particularly enjoy being a jaded person with dwindling respect for those with a certain party affiliation.  But when Sarah Palin was graciously plucked from the murky depths of Republican depravity, she became the gateway idiot that led to Donald Trump.  Of course, the Republican Party has always been a clammy culture-war grift in service of their abiding and only area of interest — an insatiable appetite for more of America’s wealth that they feel is rightfully theirs. Rape-happy Mexicans, tyrannical undergrads, Trump’s ongoing siege against deep state pedophile rings — the GOP’s deliriously servile cult faction actually believes this dreck.  Debate club prigs like Ted Cruz and Paul Ryan built successful careers as ostensible conservative thought leaders pretending to care about clownish pseudo-economics while mastering the kind of rhetorical bad-faith and starchy euphemisms it demands.  While capital ultimately pulls the levers on the Republican Deathstar, these supply-side doughnuts are withering in their cultural influence.  They lost to the QAnon cranks and the herrenvolk populists.

First off, it isn't like he doesn't care any more.  He never cared.  The bitter clingers, the deplorables, the chumps, have always been below the salt.  Those are the Trump Voters.

And the nasty attitude toward Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is pitiful.  Ms Palin had a real job in Government and while at it cleaned up the local Alaska Swamp.  Looking down on her is not just ignorant, but an example of the overweening cultural imperialism.

People like Mr Sam Corey just mean I am stuck praying for more people to develop a less harsh spirit.  It is a burden.  But maybe good for my soul.

Regards  —  Cliff