I promise this is the last time I’m going to write about this.
Here’s Jeffrey Lord on Real Time with Bill Maher last night, reminding us once again about the giant, almighty, indefatigable concern troll that now rules America and has this nation firmly within its grasp and under its control:
There are a lot of Americans out there, and I talk to them a lot, who think that people in the media and the political world look down on them and have, basically, contempt for them. And they look at Donald Trump as somebody who can go out there, and stand up, and dish it right back.
Never mind that Jeffrey Lord is a scumbag, never mind that the second sentence has no meaning, never mind that the only reason anyone would “think that people in the media and the political world look down on them and have, basically, contempt for them” is that that’s what other ”people in the media and the political world” are telling them, on a 24/7 continuous cable/radio/Internet loop, to “think.” Never mind that there are probably two people outside of that category who are not yet sick of hearing this shit.
Never mind also that this took place on Real Time a mere week after author Asra Nomani spent the entire show concern-trolling all over the panel table, the nadir coming when she scolded Maher and Seth MacFarlane for mocking an NBA player who actually thinks the world is flat.
The single most important person in America in 2017, around whom all present and future political behavior revolves, is the American who “think[s] that people in the media and the political world look down on them and have, basically, contempt for them.” And the giant, almighty, indefatigable concern troll who captured the nation in 2016 and now holds it prisoner in 2017, certainly plans to keep it that way.
I don’t know how much more there is to say about this. If the only way for Democrats to win elections going forward, the only way to defeat the next self-evidently vulgar, perfidious, authoritarian man-baby the Republicans nominate for President, is for “liberals,” be they Democratic officeholders or candidates, the so-called “mainstream media,” entertainers, and the tens of millions of regular people who, for whatever reason(s), prefer Democrats over Republicans, to feed this troll, keep it alive, happy and comfortable, then I’d rather lose every election from now until the next time the Jets win the Super Bowl. As “turned off” as “moderate voters” are supposed to be by “political correctness,” I’m even more “turned off” by these demands for attention, respect, empathy, deference and honor from self-appointed heroes and martyrs who should be taking their fear and pain and “economic anxiety” and what-not to a therapist and not into the voting booth. Maybe it’s selfish, maybe it’s short-sighted, maybe it’s illiberal, maybe it’s Just As Bad™, but that’s how I feel. I’m exhausted by this topic, and by this giant, almighty, indefatigable concern troll.
Since the Jan Brady Election last November, two schools of thought have emerged: (1) Carol and Mike and the other kids, and Alice, had better start giving Jan the attention, deference, honor and respect she deserves, legitimizing her feelings and fears and anxieties and resentments, or else she will just keep acting out and hurting herself and everyone else; versus (2) Jan needs to grow the f*** up, own her choices, start asking herself why she feels like she’s being mocked and ridiculed, understand that the world does not revolve around her, and what’s more, Carol, Mike, et al. need to start telling her that, tell her the truth about herself and stop enabling her.
The problem with (1) is obvious; it sustains and enables the giant, almighty, indefatigable concern troll. But the problem with (2) is that it also sustains and enables the giant, almighty, indefatigable concern troll, in part because of all the backlash it provokes from Team (1). Winning elections, getting progressives (i.e., Democrats) back into power, limiting the damage that the Trumps and the McConnells and the Ryans of the world can (and will) cause, is more important than scolding and admonishing [X] who feel [Y] by [Z]* that they’re wrong and need to get over themselves.
[* X — select from: (a) Trump voters/supporters; (b) conservatives; (c) White Working Class™ people; (d) people in The Flyover States™ (or Rural America™); (e) “moderates” // Y — select from: (a) ignored; (b) disrespected; (c) insulted; (d) looked down upon; (e) condescended to // Z — select from: (a) “liberals”; (b) the “elites”; (c) “Washington”; (d) the “media”; (e) “Hollywood”.]
Or is it?
The fact is that the giant, almighty, indefatigable concern troll is always going to be there, guarding the gates of the prison that it’s (read: that we’ve) created. It will always tell its prisoners that “people in the media and the political world look down on them and have, basically, contempt for them,” whether that’s actually true or not. And if it is true, the troll will never suggest or insinuate that perhaps there might be a reason, let alone a valid reason, why “people in the media and the political world look down on them and have, basically, contempt for them,” let alone allow anyone to ask, consider or examine what that might be or [gasp!] get them do something about it. The troll will always tell its prisoners to look without, never within, for the sources and causes of their problems, concerns, fears, anxieties — and irrational political choices.
In other words, Jan is always going to be told that people are picking on her, and is always going to feel like people are picking on her, whether anyone is actually picking on her (and whether she’s free to ignore them) or not. So it won’t do any good to just stop picking on her or to go out of one’s way to get others to stop picking on her and validate her feelings of being picked on. But it also won’t do any good to explain to her that she’s not actually being picked on, and that feeling like you’re being picked on is no excuse for irrational, counter-intuitive or destructive behavior whether you’re actually being picked on or not. It won’t do any good to feed the troll, and it won’t do any good to try to kill it either.
So, given the choice of two approaches that won’t do any good anyway, which one do we take?
Personally, my view is, we have to kill this troll. This has to stop, and if it doesn’t stop with the next election cycle, or the one after that, or the one after that, it still has to stop. This idea that it’s OK for you to vote for a self-evidently vicious, cruel, unprincipled, cynical, perfidious political party whose explicit goals are to hand your environment over to polluters, your money to financial predators, your health care to no one, and everything else to the church (or to Vladimir Putin), because you “think that people in the media and the political world look down on” you or because you find Rosie O’Donnell annoying, that this is in any sense a rational choice, has to be flushed out of the system entirely.
The alternative, as I see it, is to keep feeding the giant, almighty, indefatigable concern troll. Do that, and even if Democrats win power again it’ll be a replay of the Obama and Clinton years; viz., a short two-year window to get anything done, then bam — a GOP sweep in the midterms, and another long, slow, depressing, six-year hike up Bullshit Mountain until enough [X] feel [Y] by [Z] to vote another Republican into the White House. I’ve seen this movie too many times. It’s time to change the plot.
Just before the 2014 midterms, I wrote that when Reagan won 49 states in 1984, Republican rule became the nation’s “default setting,” in that the country will always put Republicans in power unless there’s a really, really, really good reason not to — as was the case in 1992, and 2008. Candidate Bill Clinton and candidate Barack Obama won because they were rock stars; they ran fantastic campaigns, they were right about all the important issues, and they were precisely what the country needed at the time. Yet each time, the country snapped back to its default setting almost immediately, and they were both ultimately succeeded by Republicans who won not because they were rock-star candidates (let alone because the country was in bad shape and needed to change the party in the White House), but because their respective opponents were lackluster politicians who ran lousy campaigns, and the country figured there wasn’t much difference between them anyway, so we might as well reset to default. Funny how patterns emerge.
Feeding the giant, almighty, indefatigable concern troll will only perpetuate this pattern and keep the country’s political default setting right where it is. We need to change the default setting. And we need to start by killing the giant, almighty, indefatigable concern troll, one cut of painful truth at a time. It’s not all we need to do. But it’s a start.