?7 Things Liberals Should Learn From This Election But Won't

Townhall.com ^ | November 12, 2016 | John Hawkins

[Kaslin]

1) The Standard Liberal Rhetoric Against Republicans Is Nuts: Last week, Bill Maher said the following, “I know liberals made a big mistake because we attacked your boy [President George W. Bush] like he was the end of the world. He wasn’t. And Mitt Romney, we attacked that way. I gave Obama a million dollars, I was so afraid of Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney wouldn’t have changed my life that much, or yours. Or John McCain. They were honorable men who we disagreed with. And we should have kept it that way. So we cried wolf. And that was wrong."

Whether you love or hate Trump, you have to agree that his behavior, temperament and style are wildly different than that of George W. Bush and Mitt Romney. Yet, the Left’s charges against Trump seem to be largely identical to the ones it leveled at Bush and Romney. Racist? Check. Sexist? Check. Is a mean, hateful person? Check. Fascist? Check. A Nazi? Check. When you try to paint every person that doesn’t agree with you as the devil, then you’ll soon find you lack the ability to describe someone you truly believe to be the devil if he appears.

2) Smearing People As Racists Has Consequences: A big part of Barack Obama’s initial appeal to many of the Americans who voted for him in 2008 was the unspoken promise that he’d lead us into a post-racial era. How racist could America be if we had a black President, right? Unfortunately, Obama and his allies on the Left took us in exactly the opposite direction. Day in and day out, any white person who didn’t toe the liberal line was called a racist and falsely accused of having white privilege. Anyone who complained about it was told in so many words, “You’re white; so shut up.” Meanwhile, the clear majority of people being called racists didn’t agree with that assessment. They seethed; they got angry about it and many of them got their revenge by voting for Donald Trump.

3) Radical Liberalism Doesn’t Play In Most Of The Country: Barack Obama was the most radical President in American history. During his tenure in office, gay marriage was forced on an unwilling country. As a follow-up, Christians who refused to cater gay weddings were persecuted by the government while liberals insisted that mentally ill men should be able to use the bathroom with women and little girls. White Americans are now routinely racially smeared because of the color of their skin. Iran is on track to get nukes. Obama gave away control of the Internet Address book. Obamacare has been a disaster for most Americans. Our government has moved from ineptly fighting illegal immigration to encouraging it. It goes on and on. There’s a lot of good to be said for trying to make life better for the American people, but there’s nothing good to be said about trying to force an unwilling country to become a liberal utopia.

4) Maybe Unlimited Executive Power Wasn’t Such A Great Idea? The liberal attitude of the last eight years seems to be, “We want our way, we want it right now and we’re willing to use any method to get it.” Liberals urged Obama to go around Congress at every opportunity. They gave him the thumbs-up when he unilaterally changed Obamacare. They applauded him each time he signed a controversial executive order. Now Republicans have the House and the Senate while Donald Trump is going to be President.  That means the executive orders Obama centered his whole second term around can be revoked with a stroke of Trump’s pen. Also, remember when Harry Reid used the nuclear option to undermine the filibuster? How’s that decision going to look if and when Republicans draw the only sane conclusion, which is that Democrats are going to kill all filibusters as soon as it’s convenient? With that in mind, why shouldn’t the GOP nuke the rest of the filibuster now? Just remember, liberals, they learned that lesson from you.

5) Trying To Win Policy Arguments With Judges Creates A Backlash: Liberals have written off flyover country as a land of deplorable backward hicks whose opinions need not be respected because they don’t agree with those of Elizabeth Warren and Rachel Maddow. So, since they can’t convince these people to do what they want, the liberal response has been to find judges who’ll set the Constitution aside and force Americans to implement the left-wing agenda.  Judges SHOULD BE about as relevant as umpires at a baseball game in politics because it’s not their job to legislate from the bench. Unfortunately, since liberals consider the court to be nothing but politics by other means, judges have become an enormous political issue on the Right. In fact, I can’t even count the number of times I heard a Republican say something like, “I think Trump is horrible, but I have to vote for him because of the Supreme Court.” If liberals were content to have liberalism in places like San Francisco, Detroit and Chicago without trying to find judges who’ll force it down everyone else’s throat, it’s entirely possible we’d have a different President-Elect today.

6) Hillary Clinton? Seriously?: I can very easily understand not liking Trump.What I don’t really understand is this sanctimonious, “How can anyone vote for Donald Trump?” attitude from people who were backing Hillary Clinton.Here’s a woman who’s famous not for her own achievements, but because she married the man who became President. She’s unlikable, dishonest to a fault and deeply corrupt. Keep in mind that even as Democrats were voting her in over Bernie Sanders, there was a potential FBI indictment hanging over her head and only James Comey’s decision to play politics prevented her from being charged. In other words, this is a woman who richly deserves the “Lock Her Up” chants that were often heard at Trump rallies. In a year when the American people picked a man who’s the living personification of “Screw the status quo,” Hillary represented everything regular people despise about the status quo. The fact that someone like that could ever become the Democrat nominee should prompt a lot of soul searching.

7) Liberals Have Gone Way Overboard With Political Correctness: We live in a world where someone like Justine Sacco can lose her job, face countless death threats and have her life decimated just because she tweeted out, “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!” Is she racist? Was she good at her job? Is she a good person? All of those questions were treated as irrelevant in that notorious case because she put out a mildly offensive tweet. Most Americans are sick of living in an insane world where they have to walk on eggshells out of fear that their lives may be ruined if they make a bad joke. For many people, the fact that Trump is the walking, talking embodiment of a middle finger to D.C., the media and the people shoving political correctness down their throats is his most attractive feature. That’s because they have calculated that if Trump can get away with it, they may be able to do the same thing.

* Special thanks to Dominic LeBel for suggesting this column idea on Twitter.

[ShivaFan]

Clinton’s loss at the hands of Donald Trump supposedly amounted to the most surprising outcome in the history of modern electoral politics, but there is nothing surprising about it.

This was an election of 50 states, it was about a color of diversity that the arrogance of an all imposing top down bureacratic centralist government doesn’t understand.

Arrogance of 1 verse the diversity of 50 gasping to be heard. Entire populations in many states that came to feel to be invisible - in fact so invisible they weren’t bothered to be counted in the phony liberal election polls. Here too, it was arrogance that “missed” counting them.

America is way more than just downtown New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Seattle, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Chicago or Portland. And certainly way more than K Street and Washington D.C..

Way more diverse than that.

Perhaps there are not enough States. Sure, there has now been a tremendous victory of the true voice of diversity against the arrogance of one that “forgot” about the jobs and the need for a sense of pride of the “invisible”.

The “forgotten man”. Oh how shocking, let me add the truly “forgotten woman” as well.

Today I heard about a supposed “movement” to breakaway California from the United States because folks are suppose to be so upaet with Trump winning.

But there was already an actual, real and growing “successionist” movement on the rise in California, organised and living movement - to secede from California. And they spelled the word correctly, secede not succession as it was spelled by the same arrogant centralists who wanted to push a phony story as part of the same arrogance.

In this real movement to secede from California, the people want to breakaway from the arrogance of Los Angeles and San Francisco, and form their own new States. Where the end result is more diversity, 52 states instead of just 50.

Maybe this is a good idea. Let’s have more and more States in the Electoral College - let’s have true diversity in the face of this rancid arrogance. That way, if you are being drowned and turned into invisible, you have more options to drain the swamp and become visible by the sheer power of a “new” sort of “migration” within our own national boundaries where we actually still have borders from complete and entire suffocation in the prisons of arrogance. Probably 60 States is a good idea. 70. Entire parts of New York deserve their own Statehood as much as entire parts of California. Entire areas of Illinois needs their own new State and breakaway from Chicago.

You see Hillary was going to take us backward.

Backward to the times of Mesopotamia and City States. When a City rules over everyone else instead of a State. Talk about archaic and arrogant.

Kansas doesn’t exist? Dorothy can’t go home to Kansas anymore? She can only go to some bum infested sidewalk of Portland? Hillary Clinton lost because of arrogance. But America doesn’t want to live in her ghetto. Too many are already invisible but sort of don’t like it.

However, being invisible does have one advantage. When you slap the uninvisible they often don’t see the hand coming.

[wastoute]

The biggest F.U. in history.

[bert]

Diversity was on display at the polls. There were Baptists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Mormons, Roman Catholics and Anglicans. Here in East Tennessee there were mostly Scotch Irish but there were folks of Italian, Swiss, English, French and Chinese ancestral back grounds. Some of the above were black

[conejo99]

” remember when Harry Reid used the nuclear option to undermine the filibuster?”
And they will do it again as soon as they regain power.
Instead of doing the same ourselves, now might be the best time to place the filibuster in the constitution. While we’re at it we might want to limit the number of supreme court justices.

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Bump

[taildragger]

Add another, Aging Rock Stars should not get a gig playing on the deck of the Titanic. They just nixed at least 48% of their market, they didn't see that she was sinking and what was hitting her from under the surface that sunk her candidacy, perhaps they should have read FreeRepublic....

Will they be forced to play gigs in a dive bar somewhere? probably not, but they may not fill the large venues like they did...

[exDemMom]

That was a beautiful response.

I am a native of CA who has lived away for military service. When people ask if I want to return once I retire (in about 4 years), I am never quite sure how to answer.

The California I grew up in was a beautiful state. But the political climate right now is better suited to a banana republic. The wacky politics affect the quality of life—a decent income that allows you to buy a decent house in many other states might get you into a “starter” home in CA—if you stay away from the major metropolitan areas. And, despite the high price to live in CA, I recall from my last visit 5 years ago that some areas look very run down, like there has been no maintenance on 60+ year old buildings, buildings which I remember from my childhood.

There are many problems with CA, and I’m sure I could write a lot more about it just as an outside observer. I’m going to visit again in February—I’ll see what CA looks like after several years of Moonbeam round 2.

If CA would break into smaller states, thus isolating the good parts of the state from being dictated to by the totalitarian minded liberals of SF and LA, I would certainly consider moving back (to the state of Jefferson!) when I retire. As things stand, I’m thinking that converting to an RV lifestyle without any actual fixed roots sounds pretty appealing.

[Kaslin]

Great post.

I don't remember who it was but on Wednesday morning someone on Fox and Friends brought up the painting by Jon McNaughton The Forgotten Man

[reaganbooster]

The forgotten man painting you posted is extraordinary in its emotional impact. It brings a tear to my eye because what it represents is so true. Thank you so much for posting it!

[Kaslin]

It is indeed extraordinary and very fitting> You are very welcome.

[PLMerite]

I think Sean Hannity bought it to give to President-elect Trump.

[HotHunt]

I don't know who posted it on FR yesterday I think, but the post said that Sean Hannity had purchased the original of this painting from McNaughton and plans on giving it to President-elect Trump to hang in the WH.

Great gesture for a Great man who will make America Great again.

[SES1066]

I am trying, from memory, to ID the various Presidents and the associated binary grouping which appears to be 'concern for the individual' on the left and 'social engineering' on the right. The split that leads back to Nixon & Ford also makes me think that the artist is being subtle in that he has JFK & LBJ in the left grouping but looking at the Obama / social engineering group on the right with a degree of approval or acceptance. The same might be said in the opposite for Ford, Bush'41 and Bush'43 grouped in the right but looking at the 'forgotten man' (individual) with expressions of dismay and discomfort! The Presidents that I think I have ID'd are (from left to right);
5th) #7 A.Jackson,
8th) #16 A.Lincoln,
9th) #18 US.Grant,
12th) #40 R.Reagan,
14th) #2 J.Adams,
18th) #4 J.Madison,
19th) #6 J.Q.Adams,
21st) #1 G.Washington,
22th) #34 D.Eisenhower,
24th) #35 JFK,
25th) #36 LBJ,
26th) #33 H.Truman,
27th (stooping) #5 J.Monroe [principal author US Constitution],
28th) #37 R.Nixon,
30th) #38 G.Ford,
31st) #41 G.H.W.Bush,
32nd) #43 G.W.Bush,
33rd) #44 B.Obama,
34th) #39 J.Carter,
35th) #42 W.Clinton,
37th) #32 FDR,
38th) #28 W.Wilson,
40th) #27 W.Taft,
41st) #26 T.Roosevelt.

Obviously, I have not looked up the picture for the painter's list because I wanted to do my own work. BUT I cannot find one of the 1st tier Presidents, WHERE IS Thomas Jefferson (#3)?

The good news is that H.Clinton will NOT APPEAR in any such future versions!

[uncitizen]

I bet Trump hangs it in a conspicuous location in the Oval Office.

[upchuck]

Thank you for posting the entire article.

[TBP]

Liberals never learn.

Republicans, OTOH, learn a lot — they learn the wrong lesson. Their capacity for doing so is virtually infinite.