This is the second article on the same subject, written by the same journalist (Sean Salai), published in the last two days by the Boca Raton News. For the first, see the Japery blog at New Pantagruel.

WW

Anybody here ever worked full time on an election? You push yourself around the clock, to the point of collapse and beyond. You talk about one thing, you think about one thing, you care about one thing — and then all of a sudden that one thing is gone. Even if your guy wins, there’s a chance you’ll go into a tailspin for a few days. It happened to a lot of Clinton’s people in 1992. Most campaign junkies I know drink heavily for those few days and get over it.

I understand what Mr. Hechtman is saying. When I did volunteer work for campaigns and my candidate lost, it was deeply depressing. But the Boca Raton story didn’t describe the people seeking therapy as campaign workers, but as Kerry supporters, Kerry voters who were deeply invested in his victory.

As a society, we’ve really gotten soft in the head. What a terrible waste when a 25 year old kills himself at the site of the World Trade Center because his candidate lost the election.

I have no doubt that the ultra-liberal stranglehold on the workings of the government schools contributes to this problem. Instead of concentrating on acquiring the right kind of knowledge, a significant amount of school time is devoted to encouraging students to get in touch with their thoughts and feelings and unburden their psyches. Many students come out of this process with an exaggerated sensitivity and vulnerability.

Timegrid’s comment goes to the core of the difference between the right and left. As Jim Kalb put it recently at Turnabout, “The most important difference relevant to American politics, I think, is that Blues assume the world is made of constructions, while Reds are more likely to think it’s made of realities.” But the Blues’ constructions have now gotten so out of wack with reality that a sizeable part of the country rejects them. This is going to force the Blues, if they still have any residual rationality and want to survive politically, to pull back from the brink and return to the objective world.

The Democrats have a fundamental contradiction: they want a good, secure life for all, and they want everyone to be a self-created being, utterly free in his desires and lifestyles. Their demand for homosexual marriage is the ultimate symbol of this. The homosexual rights project is not compatible with a good and secure life for all, because a good life requuires cultural stability, which in turn requires stable families, which in turn requires traditional morality. Similarly, the belief in open borders, in treating illegal aliens as legal immigrants, in granting rights and social welfare benefits to illegals and even to illegal alien criminals, is obviously incompatible with a stable society. Similarly, the belief in multiculturalism, the idea that all cultures are of equal value and must be liberated and included, and that America has no authoritative common culture deserving of respect, is incompatible with a stable society. Similarly, their view of America as a uniquely guilty and racist country which owes a debt to all the minorities of the world, and their tendency always to side against America in any dispute with another party, is obviously incompatible with the nurturance of a healthy society with security for all. Democrats cannot go on simultaneously regarding America as Santa Claus and Satan, as the source of all benefits, and as the wicked force that withholds all benefits.

The Democrats’ contradictory adherence to both security and liberationism, to social welfare on one side and alienation from society on the other, to stability on one hand and inclusion of the cultural Other on the other, cannot be maintained. If the Democrats want to survive as a party, they will have to return to their core commitment, the commitment to a good and secure life for all Americans, and reject cultural radicalism. They would also have to reject multiculturalism, open borders, and group rights, and reaffirm America as a particularist and unitary society where in the public sphere we treat each other as Americans, not as members of racial groups. If they did all these things and became the party of American security and American well being, they could outflank the Republicans on social issues since the Republicans have become a radical party devoted to democratizing the world and treating every human on earth as an American.

The “Reds” may think the world is “made of realities”, but their nominal leader sure doesn’t. Didn’t he chide his war detractors for being stuck in the “reality-based community”?

Mr. Auster again hits it out of the park. Even more directly, if the Democrat Party makes a bold move to the right, say, on illegal immigration in an attempt to return jobs to Americans, I believe much of the country will embrace it. Instead of pushing for nationalized health care when all studies and experiences in Canada and Britain show that socialized medicine is a farce and doesn’t work, if the Demos run as protectionists—protecting American jobs—they may turn things around by ‘08. This of course presumes that it will be lead be someone other than the polarizing Hillary. I believe that Bush and the RINOs/the GOP will be hurt badly by their tries to get amnesty and citizenship for illegals.

Why the combination of venom and depression among Democrats? I would say that modern left-liberalism has become so secular and so utopian that it is obviously the religion of its adherents. A set of beliefs that includes your view of human nature, your view of social relations, and your view of how things are to improve (i.e. your hope for the future) is your religion. Thus, for left-liberals, to be in the minority in both houses of Congress, and in the governorships, and to lose the White House, is not just to suffer a political defeat; it is equivalent to being told that they will not be allowed to practice their religion for the next four years.

I came to this realization a while ago when pondering why the left-liberal tries to suppress free speech, whereas the classical liberal promoted free speech and thought it would lead eventually to a shared understanding of Truth. To speak openly in disagreement with liberal political beliefs is like going to someone’s church and announcing loudly that you don’t believe their scriptures and think their faith is a bunch of hooey. Hence, disagreement with left-liberals is not public discussion; it is heresy. But defeating them in elections goes far beyond public heresy; it says that they will not be allowed to PRACTICE their religion, because they will not have the power to do so.

In contrast, a conservative believes that his hope for the future is found in his religious faith, in his prospects for eternal life, in his rearing of children to carry on his faith, in his evangelism of his faith, and in his building of family and local institutions to nourish the good life. Politics is important primarily because all of these things need to be protected. When these things are not under attack, the conservative is likely to not be much interested in politics. But the left-liberal will always be interested in politics, because that is his hope for a better world and better life in the future, i.e. it is his religion.

If (secular liberal) politics is your all, if you have no transcendent (because your liberal politics rejects the natural, social and spiritual dimensions of existence as impositions on the radical freedom of the will and the equality of all wills), then you must dominate politics completely, and the loss of such dominance is the end of your world.