The permanently enraged left, even under Obama

Clark Coleman wrote:

Check out the last item, “The Angry Left,” in Gary Bauer’s April 20 e-mail. It was speculated at VFR that Obama’s election might cure some of the rage and insanity of the Left during the Dubya years. It seems not to have worked.

Here is the Bauer item Mr. Coleman sent:

The Angry Left

Washington Post political reporter Dana Milbank is no conservative. In fact, National Review once called him “‘the most anti-Bush reporter’ in the White House press corps,” and that’s saying something! But in a column this weekend Milbank observed first hand what we have been reporting for some time: that the anger and hatred on the political Left in America today is bizarre and totally irrational.

In a Sunday column, Milbank noted that he read nearly 2,000 comments posted in response to his most recent columns just to see how folks reacted to his writings. Here’s what he found: “The vitriol of last year’s presidential campaign has outlasted the election. For the right, this isn’t terribly surprising… The left, however, is more difficult to explain. It made sense for them to be angry when George W. Bush was in the White House. But now, even under Obama, the anger on the left is, if anything, more personal and vitriolic than on the right.”

While Milbank’s column was largely tongue-in-cheek, he’s on to something that is potentially more disturbing, and that is the totalitarian impulse of the Left to shout down and silence speech and ideas it finds offense; to force its ideology upon the American people through the most undemocratic methods available (namely the courts); and all of it done while masquerading under the guise of “tolerance” and “equality.”

I replied to Mr. Coleman:

The Bauer item makes no sense. He doesn’t explain what Milbank is talking about, what these people are angry about. And he doesn’t supply a link. I’ll google the article.

Ok, I found the article, in the April 19 Washington Post. The closest it comes to an explanation of the rage is this:

But many focused on a frustration on the left caused by Obama’s centrism—his opposition to prosecuting those involved with torture, for example. “I am angry because the whole Republican party has not been rounded up and thrown into a black site,” one wrote.

So it’s pure negativity and rage. They want to destroy Bush and Republicans. Anything by Obama short of that, and they’re going to be enraged at him.

Now the question is, are these just the loony margin, and therefore their attitudes do not reflect the left as a whole, and therefore their rage does not disprove my hopeful scenario of the pacification of leftist anger resulting from Obama’s election?

Or, is this kind of continuing rage typical and common, in which case my hopeful scenario is disproved?

Milbank says this type of thing is common in the comments following his articles. Then it’s not just a marginal thing, the people posting comments would cover a range of liberals, not just the really whacky left. Which means that a broad range of liberals have this unappeasable, permanent rage.

Which means we’re dealing with some kind of new phenomenon.

There is a thread at Free Republic responding to the Milbank article. Here’s one comment:

“I am angry because the whole Republican party has not been rounded up and thrown into a black site,” one wrote.

This is what the radical base of the so-called Democratic party believes in—set up a dictatorship, ban alternative political parties and send the oppostion to concentration camps. They literally want to kill you. Now they are brazen enough to express their outrage that, a few months into a leftist administration, the show trials and mass executions have not started. The radical base is angry that Obama might be a Fabian Socialist and not another Stalin.

I think it may be that Americans are buying more guns, not because they are afraid of Obama per-se. I think it goes deeper than that. People see that the radical base of one of the two major political parties wants a Stalinist dictatorship and will accept nothing less. It is this radical base, say, 20% of Democrats, who are driving the agenda. Republicans and moderate Democrats do not stand for much of anything, while the believers in totalitarianism work constantly for their goals. It is finally clear that a certain percentage of Americans want the political system to be based on violence and terror, and this is a great threat—it is a mass movement.

Here is the Milbank column

Next Choler, Please
By Dana Milbank Sunday, April 19, 2009

Dear Reader:

I wish to apologize to you for my behavior last week.

On Tuesday, I learned that I am a right-wing hack. I am not a journalist. I am typical of the right wing. I am why newspapers are going broke. I write garbage. I am angry with Barack Obama. I misquote Obama. I am bitter. I am a certified idiot. I am lame. I am a Republican flack.

On Thursday, I realized that I am a media pimp with my lips on Obama’s butt. I am a bleeding-heart liberal who wants nothing more than for the right to fall on its face. I am part of the ObamaMedia. I am pimping for the left. I am carrying water for Obama. Lord, am I an idiot.

I discovered all this from the helpful feedback provided to me in the “reader comments” section at the end of my past four columns on washingtonpost.com. I undertook this exercise on the advice of former washingtonpost.com editor Doug Feaver, who wrote on these pages recently that journalists need to take the comments seriously [“Listening to the Dot-Comments,” op-ed, April 9]. Further, he added in his blog, “those who don’t are making a mistake.”

Now, I may be a pimp and an idiot—but I did not want to make a mistake. So I reviewed all 1,800 comments posted on my columns over the course of a week. As a sociological experiment, it was fascinating.

The comments are naturally an unscientific indicator, but the impression I got is consistent with what I’ve heard from colleagues: The vitriol of last year’s presidential campaign has outlasted the election. For the right, this isn’t terribly surprising; their guys lost the White House in 2008 and control of both chambers of Congress in 2006, so lashing out in frustration is to be expected. The left, however, is more difficult to explain. It made sense for them to be angry when George W. Bush was in the White House. But now, even under Obama, the anger on the left is, if anything, more personal and vitriolic than on the right.

A reader in an online chat brought this to my attention a couple of months ago, noting the animosity in the comments following a column. “Did you torture their cats and grandmothers? Most of the truly unhinged comments appear to come from Democrats, who apparently think you’re Cindy McCain in reverse drag.”

I replied that, to keep my blood pressure under control, I don’t read the comments, and that I did, in fact, torture their cats.

Well, last week I read the comments. On April 10, I wrote a column about an Obama appearance urging Americans to refinance their mortgages—a fairly gentle piece pointing out that the president sounded like a LendingTree.com pitchman. The comments compared me to Bernard Goldberg and Glenn Beck. One complained that “I gave Bush and the Republicans a pass.”

Actually, a National Review column called me “the most anti-Bush reporter” in the White House press corps, but never mind that. “Uh oh, Milbank,” wrote commenter “farfalle44.” “Now the Obamabots have labeled you an Obama hater—watch out!”

For Thursday’s column, I criticized the “tea party” outside the White House. Conservatives left hundreds of indignant comments—I was an Obama “lap dog” and “licking Obama’s shoes”—but that didn’t buy me credibility with the left. “You do a real good job of attracting all the ill-informed, mathematically challenged, left-wing haters,” said one reader. “I bet ya mom’s really proud!”

So why is the left so angry? I don’t know (I’m an idiot), so I put the question to the readers in my weekly online chat on Friday.

A reader from Rockville described it as a “sore winner” phenomenon. “People get used to being angry and when things change, they don’t. So they find stuff to be mad about.” Another said that some on the left “feel obligated to stay in the fight” because of the harsh treatment of Obama by the right.

But many focused on a frustration on the left caused by Obama’s centrism—his opposition to prosecuting those involved with torture, for example. “I am angry because the whole Republican party has not been rounded up and thrown into a black site,” one wrote. A reader in Evanston, Ill., took a similar view, that true believers on the left don’t want “b.s. rhetoric about looking forward.” Okay, but why wouldn’t this be directed at Obama? Readers explained that some of it is. But, “if we yell obscenities at Obama,” replied a reader in Dunnellon, Fla., “we get a visit from the Secret Service. Yelling them at you is worry-free.”

So the angry left should thank me: I’m taking one for the team.

[end of Milbank article]

- end of initial entry -

David B. writes:

On the permanently enraged left, I’ve been noticing that myself. It seems that with the election of someone like Obama, the 20 percent most fanatical leftists think they have it won, and can go in for the kill.

It may not be that bad as yet, but eventually Americans are going to have to stand up for themselves or be run out of their own country.

Alan Roebuck writes:

This post fits with something I’ve been thinking lately: Liberalism is an empire.

Of course, liberalism is also a religion, but its philosophical base (the God of the Bible does not exist) and its formal principle (non-discrimination uber alles) cannot account for the cohesiveness of the liberal coalition: The feminists, the environmentalists, the racial lobbyists, the homosexual lobbyists, and so on appear to have nothing in common ideologically, other than the hatred of traditional America that leads them to want to destroy it.

Liberalism is thus an empire: a unification of disparate peoples under one sovereign, and held together by loyalty (whether enforced or voluntary) to that sovereign. And what is the Liberal Emperor who holds the empire together? Hatred. Liberalism is an empire of hate.

And, engaging in an act of psychological projection of near cosmic proportions, the Unholy Liberal Empire sees its enemies as being defined by their hate. Liberal, cure thyself!

James P. writes:

Byron York does not ascribe leftist anger to pure negativity. He puts it down to insecurity, narcissism, fear that their opponents might be right, and anger that Obama hasn’t gone far enough fast enough.

Whatever the cause, let us hope that Republicans draw the appropriate conclusion, which is that Bush-like efforts to placate, appease, and bribe the left are futile. (Frankly, it shouldn’t have taken Bush eight years to figure this out, if he ever really did.) The left will hate you no matter what you do, and the Right will get no credit for being “nice” the next time the left is in power.

York says, I asked William Anderson, a friend who is a political conservative, a medical doctor, and a lecturer in psychiatry at Harvard. “They are angry, but I think they are also scared, and I think it’s because they have a sense that their triumph is a precarious one,” Anderson told me. Democrats won in 2008 in some part because of the cycles of American politics; Republicans were exhausted and it was the other party’s turn. Now, having won, they are unsure of how long victory will last. “They see that they have a very small window of opportunity to do all the things they want,” Anderson continued. “They see the window of opportunity as small because they know in their deepest hearts that the vast majority of the American people wouldn’t go for all of the things they want to do.” So they are frantic to do as much as possible before the opposition coalesces. And the tea parties might be the beginning of that coalescence. Then there is the question of self-image. Watching Garofalo and Olbermann discuss the tea parties, it was impossible to avoid the sense that they saw themselves as two good people talking about many bad people. “One of the things about narcissism is that it looks like people who are just proud of themselves and smug, but in fact narcissism is a very brittle and unstable state,” Anderson told me. “People who are deeply invested in narcissism spend an awful lot of energy trying to maintain the illusion they have of themselves as being powerful and good, and they are exquisitely sensitive to anything that might prick that balloon.” Again, the tea parties could represent a threat. What if the protesters weren’t racists, weren’t violent, weren’t mentally defective? What if their point was legitimate, or even partly legitimate? Those are questions better batted down than answered. Finally, there is the sense of anxiety and fragility that stems from the liberals’ newly-won power. They control everything in government, and some fear what the responsibility of governing is doing to them. Their president of hope and change has chosen not to prosecute the authors of the Bush-era “torture memos.” He is escalating the war in Afghanistan. He seems determined to bail out the nation’s richest bankers. For some on the left, it can be difficult to abide those actions and still maintain the image of one’s self atop the moral high ground. So they lash out at the easy target presented by the tea parties. And that is how political triumph can produce anger and unhappiness. Don’t be surprised if there is much more of both in the days to come.

LA replies:

That’s very interesting.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 21, 2009 07:11 AM | Send