When will we see the emergence of a leader immune to the PC hectoring and abuse heaped on the US president-elect? Whenever that figure rises on our public stage, expect the same reaction we are seeing on the streets of the US: the impotent fury of the irrelevant left.
I still don’t believe it – Hillary Clinton is not POTUS. A ghost somewhat resembling Ronald Reagan is back in the saddle, the Clintons are relegated to history’s dustbin (and perhaps the penal system) and the Left, as usual, is both wrong and furious. I did not mention Ronald Reagan by mistake – the parallels are plentiful, especially in the vilification department.
There are more than enough post-mortems of the miraculously, marvelously upsetting and unexpected outcome of these elections, all featuring the allegedly wise heads who said a Trump triumph was impossible but who now, once again and undaunted, dispense their oracular wisdom about what the future will hold. In case you can’t guess, by their accounting it will be mostly terrible. I will not tell you why did Donald Trump won, except to note that, judging by the impotent fury of progressives and aggressives, various minorities and terminal idiots, the right person won the prize. The high-decibel rabble now protesting democracy and its result in America are livid that their countrymen — their lesser countrymen, as they would have it — dared to think for themselves, refused to do as they were told. How typical of the Left, which professes to love democracy but only until such time when the elections don’t go their way.
There is yet more comic relief from the ranks of the Republican elite, where we can observe an indecent haste to eat their words, uttered so recently with indignation and righteous fury when disowning their own candidate. Now the same scolds and naysayers are, pardon the pun, trumpling each other in a race to gather the crumbs of power from the table of the man they urged their fellow Americans to scorn in the voting booth. This is the same guy they maligned, undermined and betrayed at every turn. It is better to watch than a five-ring circus, albeit with more than the usual quota of clowns. To the extent that our political stage here in Australia is a sideshow beside the big top of US politics, the critics-turned-supplicants bring to mind our very own Malcolm Turnbull, PM, who bucketed Pauline Hanson in the run-up to the election and must now work with the very same woman he denigrated and reviled. You would have to be Niki Savva (or have a hubby working in the PM’s office) to see anything but an egomaniacal blowhard’s folly in that little prime ministerial outburst.
But I was talking about a US election, so let me observe that, as a long-term student of the American system, I can’t remember such fury after any other election which did not go the left’s way. Why such a strong feeling this time? I am mildly concerned that the combination of the left’s frustration and presumed moral superiority might prompt episodes of armed violence, as idiots consider it their right and obligation to resist “tyranny”. It is an impression enhanced by an internet meme doing the rounds as I type — a Facebook post allegedly authored by Hollywood scriptwriter Paul Schrader. It may be a hoax — I hope it is — but the currency of its instantly widespread circulation and endorsements is deeply unsettling. Here is the post that thousands of disgruntled leftists are “liking” (emphasis added):
I have spent the last five days meditating on Trump’s election. Upon consideration, I believe this is a call to violence. I felt the call to violence in the 60’s and I feel it now again. This attack on liberty and tolerance will not be solved by appeasement. Obama tried that for eight years. We should finance those who support violence resistance. We should be willing to take arms. Like Old John Brown, I am willing to battle with my children. Alt-right nut jobs swagger violence. It’s time to actualize that violence, Like by Civil War Michigan predecessors I choose to stand with the black, the brown and the oppressed.
