Yesterday’s Abbreviated Pundit Roundup (and, for some reason, today’s as well) brought to our attention a New York Times op-ed by Sabrina Tavernise entitled, “Are Liberals Helping Trump?” You can pretty much predict where it goes from there:
Every time [a Trump voter] dips into the political debate … he comes away feeling battered by contempt and an attitude of moral superiority.
“[Conservatives/Trump voters are] backed into a corner … [Liberals] are saying, ‘Agree with us 100 percent or you are morally bankrupt. You’re an idiot if you support any part of Trump.”
…
In recent interviews, conservative voters said they felt assaulted by what they said was a kind of moral Bolshevism — the belief that the liberal vision for the country was the only right one. Disagreeing meant being publicly shamed.
…
[M]oderate conservatives say [that liberal protests and righteous indignation against Trump in rallies, on social media and from Hollywood are] chipping away at their middle ground and pushing them closer to Mr. Trump.
”The name calling from the Left is crazy,” …..
Before we move on, let’s review…
The Daily Show — GOP: Special Victims Unit (July 27, 2011)
Unfortunately I can’t embed, as this video is not on YouTube, but I’ve been saying ever since this first aired that it should be on a continuous repeating loop somewhere, 24/7, and if you haven’t seen it lately I think it would really behoove you to watch it again.
I’ve written already about how we just had what I will always refer to as the Jan Brady Election, a massive national primal cry of “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!!” And I’m not really here to make a “both sides” or false-equivalency argument, or to deflect what Tavernise is describing by showing this video or the picture at the top of the diary. What I’m interested in today is not so much both-siderism or false equivalence or the Right’s rhetorical excesses as it is a painfully obvious, yet even-more-painfully unacknowledged, double standard.
From what Ms. Tavernise would have us understand — along the lines of what S.E. Cupp told us a year and a half ago — “moderate” conservatives are being “push[ed] closer to Mr. Trump” by what they regard as the mean and obnoxious behavior of “liberals” vis-à-vis the latter’s opinions and feelings about the Electoral College winner and those who provided him with that victory. We, the “liberals,” are scolded and instructed to not be so mean or so annoying, but to “listen” to and “engage” with and have “respect” for Trump voters’ pain and fear and “economic anxiety” and “concerns” about the direction of the country. Otherwise, “moderate” voters will continue to be driven into the arms of the GOP, along with all that that entails.
Yet, as I’ve written before, I’ve never heard anyone admonish “conservatives” to stop being so mean to “liberals” and start “listening” and “engaging” and “respecting” and fairly considering, acknowledging as valid, and caring about our concerns, positions, opinions, fears or anxieties, lest “moderate” voters be driven away from the GOP and toward Democrats. Not in 1992, not in 1996, not in 2006, not in 2008, not in 2012. No one wrote an Op-Ed in 2008-09 or 2012-13 saying that Obama won election or re-election because conservatives had been so insufferably mean to liberals that the Republican Party had alienated “moderate” voters.
Let’s take a quick look at The Daily Show’s 2011 rundown of the conservative greatest-hits list:
“Liberals do not believe in free speech.”
“Liberals don’t care about blacks, they don’t care about women, they don’t care about gays.”
“Liberals are godless people. They don’t believe in God.”
“Liberals love dictators.”
“[Sarah Palin] has five kids. Liberals don’t have five kids.”
“On the far left, those kooks, they’re insane.”
“The Left is uniting with Islamists.”
“The secular socialist Left...”
“Far Left-wing reptiles...”
“Progressivism is a cancer...”
“The radical, liberal Left...”
“Far-Left hate machine...”
“The ‘Blame America First’ crowd...”
“The totalitarian tactics of the Left...”
“So vicious, it’s so mean, it’s so cruel… and I don’t hear this coming from conservatives about liberals.”
Let that last one sink in as The Daily Show parouses the conservative best-seller list:
UNHINGED: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild
LIBERAL FASCISM: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to Hillary Clinton the Politics of Meaning*
ARGUING WITH IDIOTS: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government
GODLESS: The Church of Liberalism
THE GRAND JIHAD: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America
HOW THE LEFT SWIFTBOATED AMERICA: The Liberal Conspiracy to Make You Think George Bush Was the Worst President in History
YOUR TEACHER SAID WHAT? Defending Our Kids from the Liberal Assault on Capitalism
CELEBUTARDS: The Hollywood Hacks, Limousine Liberals, and Pandering Politicians Who Are Destroying America
UNHOLY ALLIANCE: Radical Islam and the American Left
LEFT TURN: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind
48 LIBERAL LIES ABOUT AMERICAN HISTORY [That You Probably Learned in School]
GUILTY: Liberal “Victims” and Their Assault on America
DEMONIC: How the Liberal Mind is Endangering America
LOSING OUR RELIGION: The Liberal Media’s Attack on Christianity
CONTROL FREAKS: 7 Ways Liberals Plan to Ruin Your Life
ONE-PARTY CLASSROOM: How Radical Professors at America’s Top Colleges Indoctrinate Students and Undermine Our Democracy
[* — Title changed after Clinton lost 2008 primary.]
Again, I’m not here to talk about false equivalence or posit that “both sides are just as bad,” nor am I here to argue quid pro quo that the abuse conservatives feel like they are getting from liberals since Trump took office pales in comparison to (and/or is justified by) the abuse to which the latter has been subjected by the former for the past quarter-century or so. I’m here to talk about a double standard, and it is simply this:
I have never seen, heard or read an Op-Ed, or a commentary on TV or radio, that any of the behavior described in and transcribed from that Daily Show segment, or the picture at the top of the diary, or anything similar thereto, is driving “moderate” voters away from the GOP and toward the Democratic Party. This sort of thing always and only hurts Democrats and helps the GOP, no matter which “side” it comes from. Why is that? Why are we constantly hearing, since the moment the election was decided, that “liberal” indifference to (and/or contempt for) “conservative” issues, values, concerns, “economic anxiety,” “religious faith” or whatever, or the fact that liberals can sometimes be obnoxious or annoying, is driving “moderates” to vote for and support a demented fascist man-baby and his self-evidently cruel, vicious, unprincipled, perfidious, power-mad political party — but we’ve never, ever been told by anyone when the shoe is on the other foot that any of the above or anything like it is making anyone vote for Democrats?
I remember a segment on Bill Maher’s show way back in 2008; one of his conservative guests kept saying, with a big smug grin on his face, [paraphrasing] “Keep it up, Bill. Keep saying mean things about Sarah Palin. That only makes us love her more. That’s how liberals lose elections.” We heard it again just last week, when comedian Jim Jefferies was sparring with Piers Morgan; the former told the latter to “Fuck off” when he said there was no Muslim ban, and Morgan replied by saying, “See? That’s what I’m talking about. You’re losing your audience… You’re being unpleasant...” (Jefferies was having none of it; neither, fortunately, was the actual audience.) After the Mike Pence/”Hamilton” incident last fall, some conservative pundit admonished the Democratic Party that it will keep losing elections so long as Broadway audiences cheer when actors are rude to Christian conservatives.
WTF is this? This strikes me as a very serious mental disorder. In what sane universe does random people saying mean things about a politician — let alone one who is self-evidently ridiculous — make you “love her more” and align yourself even more closely with her party? In what sane universe does it make sense to vote against your own interests, or vote for self-evidently cruel and vicious people, because you find some random celebrity annoying, or random person on the Internet obnoxious, because a Broadway cast criticized an elected official, or because you can’t handle having your own cohort being ridiculed whether they (or you) deserve it or not? And why is the GOP always the beneficiary of this kind of behavior (and why are Democrats always hurt by it), irrespective of who is perpetrating it?
Moreover, I categorically reject the idea that “we,” as “liberals,” as a whole, should bear responsibility for the behavior to which these aggrieved “conservative voters” feel they are being subjected. Why should any of us feel complicit in behavior of which we are not personally guilty? The whole point of Tavernise’s article is that “conservative voters” feel that they are being unfairly accused of the exact same sort of complicity, unfairly associated with and unjustly accused of the worst rhetorical excesses of their own political cohort (and the man they elected). Again, why does that particular street have to run only one way?
As noted above, I’ve written about this before:
I think maybe the short version of what this all means is that liberals and Democrats always have to be the adults — let’s face it, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are pretty good analogues to Mike and Carol Brady — while everyone else gets to be the anxious, needy middle children whose feelings and desires must be acknowledged, respected, and attended to, with the GOP being the beneficiary (intended or unintended) of any failure (real or imagined) to do so.
And:
Why are “liberals” now responsible for acknowledging, assuaging and dispelling anyone’s “inner pain and fear,” let alone the “inner pain and fear” of those who have never acknowledged or cared about the “inner pain and fear” of anyone other than themselves? If you have “inner pain and fear,” why are you taking it into the voting booth instead of your therapist? Why can’t you deal with your “inner pain and fear” unless “liberals” publicly and explicitly acknowledge it? And why is that a failure on our part and not yours?
And as I’ve acknowledged, I sometimes feel like I’m doing the “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!!” thing by pointing this out and asking these questions. But I really would like to know: Why is it that annoying celebrities and obnoxious Facebook memes that target, ridicule or criticize the Right are enough to make “moderate” people vote Republican, but none of the material pictured, transcribed or cited above makes “moderate” people vote Democratic? Why was there never an Op-Ed between 2008 and 2016 admonishing conservatives that the Right’s rhetorical excesses were driving “moderate” voters away from the GOP and into the arms of the Democrats? Why is this particular shoe never on the other foot?
