With the Never Trumpers’ revolt defeated, we move into new, foreboding political territory

Liberal complacency strikes again

I don’t mean to pile on or attack Mr. Black but it’s critically important that we understand a few things at this point because we may facing a very difficult and potentially dangerous era.

To wit:

“But I didn’t see this coming. I don’t mean that the week before the election I believed the pollsters. I mean that via some uncorrupted core of optimism about my country and my species, I didn’t think that Homo Americanus could overlook this level of lying and shapeshifting self-dealing and lack of feeling for those who struggle in ways that he never had to.”

The primary feature of liberal complacency is denial. That “never Trumper” protest wasn’t any kind of “revolt”, it was simply denial. The decision to put Hillary Clinton on the ballot was wishful thinking pretending to be critical political thinking, another form of denial. The liberal rejection of the critical, popular, and aggressive liberal agenda that Sanders represented was yet another form of denial that such measures are actually necessary.

In short, if you didn’t see this coming it’s because you were living in a state of denial. You may have thought you were just being “positive” but pathological optimism is just one form of denial and pathological optimism has become a standard feature of complacent liberalism. Now you see just how far your “incrementalism” has really moved the needle… and which direction the needle has moved.

The truth is this IS America and some of us tried to tell you that, we’ve been trying to tell this for decades. It’s critically important to remember that Sanders and his aggressive liberal agenda weren’t kept off the ballot by conservative republicans, it was liberals who blocked a liberal agenda. Complacent liberals who didn’t think a liberal agenda was necessary or worse, even realistic. Complacent liberals who thought mediocrity was good enough and that “tweaking” the status quo at a time when American’s are demanding radical change would win an election. Complacent liberal who despite all available evidence decided to believe that electing a black man and putting a woman on the ballot proved that incrementalism had won the day against institutional and personal sexism, bigotry, and oligarchy. Complacent liberals just “brightsided” us into the most dangerous and incompetent president in American History at a critical time when we needed precisely the opposite.

The truth is that complacent liberal incrementalist mistakenly believed that they were making progress when in fact they’ve been incrementally pushing us toward a Trump presidency for decades. And it is critically important to recognize that if anyone is to blame it IS complacent liberals. Not because we want liberals to feel bad about themselves (god forbid) but because we need to form an effective response to the mess that’s been dropped in our laps. If I’ve learned anything about complacent liberals after decades of dealing with them it’s that they will return to their comfort zone of complacency like a moth to a flame and that tendency has the potential to doom our nation at this point.

A few word about the media, because Mr. Black is a media creature if ever there was one; to the extent that media is to “blame”, it’s important to understand that we have/had a complacent liberal media who’s biggest sin in this election cycle to was completely dismiss Sander’s and his campaign as irrelevant or unrealistic despite all available evidence. The guy came out of nowhere as a self described socialist and won 22 states and 48% of the primary vote while racking up deep and enthusiastic support that still hasn’t dissipated, and all of this despite a hostile party leadership that actively sabotaged his campaign. Yet the liberal media decided he was a sideshow. The liberal media decided the main even was a lackluster candidate with no clear message, agenda, or popular support simply because her last name was: “Clinton”. By the time folks like Mr. Black started worrying about things like Clinton’s foreign policy credentials it was way way too late.

So the “liberal” media ignored or ruled out the only liberal candidate in the field and became obsessed with Trump. We ended up with the Trump show 24/7 because Sanders was deemed irrelevant and Clinton wasn’t doing or saying anything noteworthy, she never did come up with a campaign of any kind other than “don’t vote for Trump”. I think the media felt comfortable spending so much time on Trump because A) It was making them a lot of money and B) They didn’t think it really mattered because they couldn’t really imagine him winning anyways. The horrible and undeniable truth is that all that coverage helped him win, and I’m sorry but there’s simply no denying that.

So if you didn’t see this coming, know that people like me don’t want you to feel bad about yourselves, that’s not the point. The point is you need to recognize you’re denial and the role that’s been playing not just in this election cycle, but in the continual drift towards these kinds of election cycles. Elections matter, and the only thing that will stop Trump at this point is an vigorous, passionate, and aggressive liberal response. You’ll never get that complacent liberals or people like the Clinton’s who you’ll notice have pretty disappeared from view. So you have a choice, join the rabble while you may or sleep with the sleepers. (Billy Bragg, Waiting for the Great Leap Forward) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M9DC2DFtGs

By the way, I must admit that in the beginning I didn’t think Trump could possibly win, I wanted him to be the republican nominee because I figured he would be the biggest train wreck and either Sanders or Clinton would be able to beat him. That was my own complacency.