Sunday, November 13, 2016

Time for the Left to Reexamine Them(our)selves

On Left, Right, and Center, David Frum has some good thoughts for the left and those protesting Trump. Rather that indulging in "fear" and other emotions, or identity (I, as a woman, am terrified), start reclaiming American values, institutions, and symbols, and your(our) own. That is, protest not against the American Flag, but by carrying the American Flag. Appeal to American ideals. An agenda might look something like this:

1) Opposing mass deportation
2) Opposing logging Muslims into databases
3) Opposing abandoning our NATO treaty commitments

And focus on the specific, problematic ideas Trump endorsed in the campaign. In short, try to be appealing as opposed to divisive.

Kneeling and supporting kneeling for the National Anthem is looking even more foolish today. Because why the hell should the darker forces behind Trump get to claim the Flag as theirs? It's not. It's ours. It represents values of liberty, freedom, opportunity, all the things Liberals used to believe in. It doesn't break us into identity groups, it doesn't mean smashing cars and stopping traffic. Why get excited by this type of anti-social vandalism? Why protest the election results when Trump played by the rules and won. It is YOUR message that stinks. It is the way you deliver the message that stinks. If you cannot believe Trump won, it is because the Left chose to isolate itself into certain pockets of America and only engage in its own echo chamber. The Left chose emotion over rationality, it chose identity politics over individual rights, it chose relativism over patriotism, and guess what? Those ideas are rightly unpopular. Change. Adjust. Stop protesting Halloween costumes. Stop being crybabies. Stop rooting for American to lose wars. Grow up. Start acting like adults and people will start listening to you like adults.

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