Colbert, Trump, and the Roots of Liberal/Progressive Rage

PJ Media ^ | 5-3-17 | Roger Simon

[DeweyCA]

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We all know the endless litany of events, from pussy hat parades to smashed windows and fires at our most famous public university to people marching through the streets of Philadelphia calling for the death of the president and his vice president, so I'm not going to bore you with them all. I am only going to ask the simple question: Why Trump?

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I don't think we have a choice but to say the explanation is in the realm of human neurosis, not politics. And make that pretty severe neurosis, almost psychosis. Something about Trump's character and appearance -- what he says and does or, more accurately, what they think he says and does, because they are completely incapable of seeing it with any clarity -- has set off multiple trip levers in the minds of a huge percentage of Americans, including the media, Hollywood, the academy, etc. This, however, says vastly more about them than it does about Trump.

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But coming back to what causes that trip lever -- it may come down to what Marxists call "false consciousness," though in this case it's the reverse of what Marx intended. These people are using the pretense of socialism to cover up their love of the most rapacious capitalism. They hate Trump because he exposes them. His unabashed and unashamed capitalism and obvious riches are what they seek, but don't want to admit to themselves or others. Otherwise they would have to face what they are and stop pretending to "goodness." It's about the virtue signaling or what I have elsewhere called moral narcissism (really the psychological motivation for virtue signaling). But it has become considerably more extreme since I wrote the book and has reached the level of pathology. It's also extraordinarily infantile.

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[DeweyCA]

I totally agree that most of the Left's current outrage, including Stephen Colbert's act, is about the Left trying to show how they are morally superior to the rest of us. It is a pride and ego thing. Leftism starts in the narcissistic assumption that the Leftist elites know more and are better people and so they should be given the power of big government to reign and rule over the rest of us. Misplaced and excessive pride was Satan's original sin and also that of mankind. Leftism truly is satanic in its origins and its outcomes.

[DeweyCA]

The Leftist elites, including those in Hollywood, the newsmedia and academia, are usually quite wealthy and are reluctant to give much of their own money or time to help the poor. But they want to think and feel that they are morally better than others, so they spend other people’s money and they wear ribbons and do other virtue-signaling (including marches) to take the place of really doing any self-sacrificing to help the poor. It’s all about making themselves FEEL more righteous, without having to make any personal sacrifice to help others.

[lurk]

Collectivism is emotionally immature and feminine/visceral in its thinking process.

Masculinity, combined with confidence, is kryptonite to the collectivist mind.

[donna]

This is about Good vs Evil.

President Trump declared his side by saying one thing: Merry Christmas.

[tbw2]

Liberals have branded themselves as love, moral, tolerant, smart, rational. And now they believe their branding, that their views and only their views are moral, loving, tolerant, intelligent, smart.
It is an attractive proposition to be able to say “I am moral, no matter my actions, because I’m democrat, I’m smart, no matter IQ, because I’m democrat”.
Now they that they invest religious fervor into their political ideology, they are declaring holy war on the evil haters who oppose them. Thou shalt not disagree with their sacred narratives, contradict their official truth, fail to defer to the superior beings.

[jjsheridan5]

The left hates Donald Trump because he exposes them. One thing that the left demands, and relies upon, is the perception that they represent the "people" -- minorities, the middle class, the workers, children -- against the shadowy "others" -- religious figures, traditional businessmen, the "1%", the oppressors and the takers. And the left also relies upon the fact that their allies on the "right", from the Medveds, to the Romneys, to the Bushes, will never be able to capture this broad cross-section of generally conservative middle class voters (working minorities, blue collar democrats, etc.).

But Trump broke that mold. He has a unique connection to ordinary people. They like him. They admire him. And, more importantly, they trust that he likes them, and that he chose to run in order to serve them, and not himself. And this is a potentially fatal blow to the left. Not just electorally. But also by potentially removing the moral high-ground from under their feet. They cannot claim to be acting on behalf of the "working class", when that same working class has thrown their support behind someone who is not their choice.

So they are acting out. They are acting out because they sense their own irrelevancy. They sense that their claims of virtue have been rejected. They sense that Donald Trump has the potential to build a dominant political coalition centered around the very same people they claimed as their own. And while they have little political power (barely in control over a highly fractured, minority party), the one thing they do have is control over every lever of cultural influence, and they are going to do everything they can to make sure that Donald Trump is seen as evil, incompetent, and worthy of contempt and derision. So that they can say "I told you so", as they retake what they feel is their rightful position atop that moral high-ground.

[Harpotoo]

DTDS - Started when he announced and got more severe after each of his wins:-)

[georgia peach]

yes...

[Sam Gamgee]

It wasn’t even comedy. It was a rant. I thought Colbert always pretended he gave equal criticisms to both conservatives and liberals - but clearly revealed his true bent here.

[Ciexyz]

I’m appalled that Colbert would joke about any president with such vitriol and force his audience to sit thru it and endure it. What’s next, a scene out of the Untouchables where the big shot kills someone with a baseball bat and everybody has to sit there and be quiet about it because liberals own the airwaves.

[arthurus]

The extreme and prolonged reaction is because the left thought they had accomplished the Revolution with the obviously inevitable election if Mrs Bill.

It didn't happen. They have to believe that it was the work of hidden reactionary forces so any conspiracy theory that is launched by the most visible Revolutionaries, Mrs Bill, for instance, are instantly and totally believed.

They have been cheated and they are going crazy for getting revenge and killing the Fascists that took it away from them. Yes, killing. That is what leftists do in and after their Revolutions.

It is all only tangentially related to Trump's personality because his persona is, with his wit, what got him the win.

This is viewed by the left as War and they will fight it with whatever tools and methods they can come up with, including bombs and guns. For now they think their please-eat-me-last allies, the nominal Republicans can stymie the interloper and bring them to power by removing Trump. Count on people planning and figuring how to do an assassination on this man, perhaps first hitting some of his "henchmen".

It is much sorer a loss than the loss to Bush, even positing that Bush "stole the election" in Florida. They weren't in control of most of the levers of government yet. They got that control with Barak Hussein and thought they could ride it to the top and sweep away all opposition.

The nominal Republicans are the ones that amaze me. Surely they have heard about the Stalin Show Trials. The victims of those trials were not enemies of the system or of Stalin. They were the loyal robots and his comrades, anyone who might think he had any input into the system or had ever shown any independent thought about anything at all. Republican loyalists(loyal to the Democrats) will be the first show trial victims and there will be show trials. Every totalitarian system does them while the Big Boss is establishing total control. RINOs will become the high profile defendants because they carry that name "Republican" and Republicans will be the first nominated Enemies of the Stateand will co-operate .

[arthurus]

Thou shalt not disagree with their sacred narratives, contradict their official truth, fail to defer to the superior beings.

Rather similar to Mohammedans, not?

[tbw2]

Yes. I suspect liberals empathize with Islam for the totalitarian nature, personal religion and political system.
They’re also adopting the “criticism of the ideology is an attack on the believers, so you can kill them”, but it is phrased as “hate speech is evil, hate the haters, you can assault and threaten to kill evil haters because they aren’t worthy of anything”.
Still totalitarianism, but more of the maternal lovey-dovey type versus the jackbooted paternal harsh totalitarianism of most of human history and modern Islam.

[jacknhoo]

I don’t know why people would give Colbert the time of day.

[sweetiepiezer]

PETITION: 100,000 Signatures To Fire Stephen Colbert!

http://conservativefighters.com/stephen-colbert-petition/