The Melting Left

For over three decades, Garrison Keillor has opened his narrative of the fictitious town in Minnesota with, “It’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon.”

Week one of the Trump Administration has been anything but.

Last week I wrote about the disconnect between women marching for freedom while at the same time donning hijabs.   I have come to conclude through the election and inauguration that the Left simply does not experience cognitive dissonance, and this deficiency runs  deep.  

Watching the Democrats react to Trump was like watching the scene from Star Wars when R2D2 was zapped, spinning it around with parts flying off of it and smoke coming out. 

It all looks bizarre and incongruous to the observer and makes you wonder what historians will be writing about 50 years hence.  This is a system that is convulsing and coughing up Bureaucratic Statism like a cat coughing up a hairball.

There was the dignified look of men running around in vagina costumes.   When that is your core constituency, you’ve got problems.

Then Keith Ellison tried to galvanize opposition to Trump by vowing to “take our country back.”  I’m old enough to remember being told that the phrase “take out country back” was deemed to be coded racism.

DNC chair candidate Sally Boynton Brown said that she wanted to “shut other white people down.”  I thought the Democratic Party was the party of inclusiveness.

Dan Rather, who lost his job at CBS over putting out a false story about George Bush was railing about “fake” news.

After a publicized dustup about transgendereds in latrines, transgendereds were complaining that they were excluded from the Women’s March.  Apparently, bathroom equality does not translate into protesting equality.

Chelsea Handler,  champion of immigrant rights, refused to interview Melania Trump because Melania “can barely speak English.”  Melania, it turns out, speaks 5 languages.

The limousine burned by the post-inaugural riots turned out to belong to a Muslim immigrant. Nice work, kids.

Barack Obama is reported to be on the cusp of a $20 million book advance.  Trivia question:  Which living president said, “After a certain point, you’ve made enough money?”

Trump appears to be following the Napoleonic dictum, “Never interfere with an enemy when he’s in the process of destroying himself.”  Trump is following a simple strategy:  Let the Left be eaten by its own internal contradictions like battery acid.

Nothing symbolizes the failure of Bureaucratic Statism like Michelle Obama’s school lunch program.  Like all liberal programs, it started with the best of intentions.  Who could be opposed to better nutrition for young people and less obesity?   In practice, Michelle’s program ended up like most government programs—coercive, uniform and wasteful.    The lunches were largely inedible and tasteless and were dumped by most of the kids.  Salad with kale paste dressing, anyone?  Yum.  They had a uniform prescribed number of calories, so student athletes received the same amount as the computer geek.  And as is the case when government gets too coercive, a black market erupts.  A nice little market for illicit cheetos, skittles and snickers developed.  The program will be dismantled by the new administration.

But the Left was not the only author of insanity this week.  The Trump Administration proved that it was also up to the task of illogic.  If the Cold War with Russia was re-kindled under Obama, Trump decided to start one with Mexico.  Yes, we have numerous issues with Mexico involving the flood of illegals and drugs over the border.  And, yes, it is probably time to re-visit and re-negotiate NAFTA, but the public display between Trump and Nieto was appalling and unnecessary. Nieto cancelled his planned visit to the U.S.  And the assertion of the Trump Administration that Mexico will pay for the wall via a 20% tax on imported Mexican goods is just plain false.  Anyone that stayed awake through Economics 101 knows that, depending on elasticity of demand for those goods, it will be American consumers that pay the tax, and will pay for the wall.  Trump knows this and knows better.  American companies have intricate supply chain relationships in Mexico.  While it is true that good fences make good neighbors, the rough treatment of Mexico is bad policy and bad relationship management. 

Finally, Charles Krauthammer (and others) have been critical of Trump’s “America First” posture.  America First is not altogether irrational, but Trump needs to soften it to let the world know that while his citizens are his first priority, it is not America Only.

Trump is the antidote to Obamunism.    While Obama reflexively ran around the globe expressing remorse and regret for America’s sins (most famously through his apology tour), Trump made it clear that he is reversing this view, “For many decades, we’ve enriched foreign industry at the expense of American Industry, subsidized the armies of other countries while depleting our own.  The wealth of our middle class has been ripped from their homes and then redistributed all across the world.”

Trump is the anti-Obama.  While Obama viewed the developing world as victims that American imperialism exploited and bullied, Trump takes the view that Americans were the ones that were used and exploited.

But true adult relationships do not involve exploitation, but rather freely negotiated exchanges.

While it is tempting to be smug about the silly implosion of the Left, some of Trump’s world views are as simplistic and adolescent as Obama’s.  We need to grow up.... and fast.