As Glenn Youngkin ties up Terry McAuliffe in the race for governor of Virginia, the forces of blue are getting a little wild-eyed. First former Pres. Obama showed up to accuse the dreadful GOP of manufacturing fake outrage over petty incidents like girls being raped in public school bathrooms by boys in skirts. Now McAuliffe has blurted out a classic line:
“Folks, we will not allow Glenn Youngkin to bring his hate and his chaos in our Virginia schools. And we will never let our children be used as political pawns.”I imagine I'm not the only voter who sees more hate and chaos in nutty school policies that leave 15-year-old girls the pawns of woke-trans orthodoxy. The upcoming Virginia election returns may display some outrage that's not at all fake.
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ReplyDeleteMark Tapscott at Instapundit notes that Nathaniel Blake has coined a corollary to Rod Dreher’s Law of Merited Impossibility, 'That will never happen and it will be awesome when it does.'
ReplyDeleteSeems like 'We are not changing anything and it will be your fault when things stop working' is another one
More on projection: https://amgreatness.com/2021/10/26/the-left-is-everything-they-hate/
ReplyDeleteThe playbook used to be that Republicans were stupid and bigoted. Those haven't really gone away, but I think Republican always spreading hate and chaos have moved into the top slots.
ReplyDeleteThey have nothing else except insults.
I am not for a moments saying Republicans are above this. It's a matterr of percentage.
That’s quite an essay, Tex.
ReplyDeleteAVI,
ReplyDeleteMy criticism of Republicans— at least politicians— is more that they’re dishonest, rather than that they’re projecting. My two Senators, for example, claim to fervently support many things that they clearly don’t care about; their behavior suggests that what they really care about is personal wealth to be gained by insider trading and donations from major corporations.
If this projection issue is real the Left is being dishonest with themselves first and foremost, which is a different thing. My Senators know what they’re about.
I only recently noticed what I think has been a thing in leftist publications for a long time: the idea that Trump brought "chaos." It's a weird notion: overbearing fascist control that's also somehow chaotic--more chaotic than releasing accused criminals without bail, encouraging rioting and looting, confusing men and women on a basic physical level, and so on. Now I read it everywhere, sometimes in the rueful context of "we thought we were getting a new President who would lead us out of the chaos and re-establish norms, but instead we got this . . . creature."
ReplyDeleteWell, to some people, Trump was, quite simply, Every. Bad. Thing. - so it was (um...) 'logical' to use any and all negative descriptors when referring to him.
DeleteThus, Trump was "a fascist" and "a dictator" (despite his actions being the least authoritarian of any President in the last almost 30 years), and so forth.
So "chaos" fits the pattern.
So long as humand allow these atrocities, consider job and soddom to be light judgments of the collective.
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ReplyDelete"I only recently noticed what I think has been a thing in leftist publications for a long time: the idea that Trump brought "chaos.""
A few things going on with this...first, anyone who is innovative and changes the-way-things-are-done-around-here is likely to be accused of creating chaos. Second, Trump has an intuitive pattern-recognizing sort of mind, as opposed to the more rigid and strictly in-the-box minds which are predominant among bureaucrats, politicians, and academics, and unfortunately, he has never learned to translate his insights into one-two-three explanatory terms for the benefit of those who think more conventionally.
His policies usually struck me as simple and commonsensical. If I were inclined to doubt, as I was with the notion of tariffs and closed borders, my criticism would have been that the solution was simplistic, not chaotic. He brought me around on tariffs by approaching them in sensible pragmatic terms: imposing bargains on other powers who insisted on using tariffs for anti-economic purposes, but leaving open the possibility of reducing tariffs between cooperative, responsible partners. I was brought further on board for barriers to trade in areas where we have strategic needs to control access to production.
ReplyDeleteOn borders, I guess I'll always favor generous immigration policies, but only if we can stop the lunacy of pretending not to notice who's crossing the border, and offering more generous safety nets than we can afford for all comers. After many years, I essentially gave us on immigration, from the conviction that there was no way to get rid of the silly policies that make open borders a disaster.
So my dominant impression of most of Trump's initiatives was a surprising influx of rationality, a long-delayed willingness to open our eyes and look at a few facts on the ground. It was so puzzling to read everyone that he was toxic and racist. I never could even figure out what in the world they were referring to. And then there was the idea that he was inexplicably refusing to do anything about COVID. So weird: the vaccine was garbage until he was gone, and then it was mandatory, and in both phases he was the villain.
"gave UP" on open borders
ReplyDeleteRead "everywhere" not "everyone." Sheesh, I can't proofread today.
ReplyDeleteI understood 'chaotic' to mean that he was often driven by emotion rather than coherent principles. His emotional, intuitive grasp of issues often worked out (though not always); but because it wasn't based on coherent principles, the right decision was a kind of undependable accident.
ReplyDeleteStill, he manifestly did better than those who are doing it now. Gas prices were low, the economy boomed until the pandemic, and the withdrawal from Syria (however hotly opposed by the establishment) did not lead to a collapse like in Afghanistan (however willingly the establishment went along with it).
I never saw any evidence that he was more driven by emotion than the typical public figure, politician, journalist, or all-around Trump critic. His policies looked to me like they were based on careful thought. The opposition to them was hysterical.
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