Rage

Donald Trump's State of the Union address wasn't extraordinary, but few SOTU addresses are. He touted his many significant economic accomplishments and possibly surprised a few viewers who haven't heard much about them given the main stream media blackout on anything positive associated with Trump. But that wasn't the story.

In the view of many, the story was the Democrats in the Chamber—sullen and angry—the perfect image for the #Resistance. Peggy Noonan, a keen observer of the American scene, comments:

The Democrats in the chamber were slumped, glowery. They had chosen to act out unbroken disdain so as to please the rising left of their party, which was watching and would review their faces. Some of them were poorly lit and seemed not resolute but Draculaic. The women of the party mostly dressed in black, because nothing says moral seriousness like coordinating your outfits.

Here it should be said of the rising left of the Democratic Party that they are numerous, committed, and have all the energy—it’s true. But they operate at a disadvantage they cannot see, and it is that they are loveless. The social justice warriors, the advancers of identity politics and gender politics, the young who’ve just discovered socialism—they run on rage.

But rage is a poor fuel in politics. It produces a heavy, sulfurous exhaust and pollutes the air. It’s also gets few miles per gallon. It has many powers but not the power to persuade, and if anything does them in it will be that. Their temperament is no better than Mr. Trump’s. It’s worse. But yes, they are intimidating the Democratic establishment, which robs itself of its dignity trying to please them. It won’t succeed.

Trump Derangement Syndrome is a real thing and it's fueled by rage—rage at losing an election they were certain they would win, rage that 60+ million citizens rejected their leftist world view, rage that their allies in the media couldn't swing the election, rage that they, their trained hamsters in the media, and the denizens of the deep state couldn't derail Trump presidency in its first year, rage that the Hollywood glitterati couldn't convince the common people to follow their lead ... rage, rage, rage.

Noonan is right. At the end of the day, "rage is a poor fuel in politics. It produces a heavy, sulfurous exhaust and pollutes the air."

But rage is so much easier to do than developing pragmatic policies that offer a path to economic prosperity and strength in the world; policies that are different than the tired and failed tropes that the rage-mongers have been offering since the 1960s; policies that would actually improve the lot of minorities and poor people and move them out of dependency and into self-reliance. As crass and off-putting as Donald Trump can be, he has done exactly that, and the left responds to his success with rage and delusional accusations of collusion or obstruction. It's toxic for the country, but like small children who insist on throwing a tantrum, the Left simply doesn't care.