Clowns

It's fascinating to watch the Left react to the election and presidency of Donald Trump. They have passed through a number of distinct phases, culminating not in acceptance, but in a particularly vicious form of derangement.

Let it be said that Donald Trump has a style that rubs many people (including yours truly) the wrong way. He is grandiose, crass, painfully blunt, argumentative, inexact in his language, brutal with his employees ... you know the list. He is not, as the left and their trained hamsters in the media would have us all believe, a "racist," or a mysogynist" or a xenophobe. What he has turned out to be is an effective president. After only 16 months on the job his real-world accomplishments far exceed those of his predecessor. For the #Resistance, that's a bitter pill indeed.

Trump's style sucks, his effectiveness ... not so much. But I get it, many on the Left value style over accomplishment, not to mention that Trump ruined their dreams of uninterrupted Leftist rule.

The only way to square the circle is for the #Resistance to demonize Trump and everyone who voted for him. That's why they claim that most who voted for him are "racists" ... why women who voted for him are gender traitors, why blacks who dare to note that he has helped their community are Uncle Toms; that's why being against the murderous MS-13 gang and calling them "animals" is characterized as "anti-immigrant." The hatred and derangement runs red hot.

Earlier this week, Rosanne Barr made a racist comment that got her fired from her hit TV show. She deserved it, both for the the offensiveness of the remark and also for her abject stupidity in making it. Of course, the Trump Derangement Syndrome crowd tried hard to connect her to Donald Trump, suggesting repeatedly that somehow Trump has set the stage for Rosanne to be a racist. Because they arrived at that conclusion without rational thought, it is impossible to rebut it, so I won't try.

Last night, continuing Rosanne's tradition of offensive and idiotic tweets, a B-list commedian named Samatha Bee made the following tweet (apologies for the offensive language, but the language is Bee's, not mine]. After viewing an innocuous picture posted by Ivanka Trump with her young son, she tweeted

"Let me just say, one mother to another, do something about your dad’s immigration practices you feckless cunt!”

But in the best tradition of those with TDS, she didn't stop there. She implied with a smile that Trump and his daughter have an incestuous relationship. Gosh ... that's not offensive at all, is it?

Jim Treacher comments on this:

So, Samantha Bee dropped a C-bomb on Ivanka because... um... because she posted a picture of herself holding her baby, at the same time that her dad is... er... continuing the immigration policies of the Obama administration. That's what Samantha Bee is so performatively angry about. That's what one of her writers wrote for her to say, and TBS approved it for broadcast. On a half-hour show that she gets an entire week to put together. That's the best she could do.

Just as Roseanne was held to a different standard because she [actually, her TV character] supports a president she's not supposed to support, Samantha Bee will be held to a different standard because she hates a president she's supposed to hate. It doesn't have to make sense. It doesn't have to be intellectually consistent. Tribalism doesn't work that way. Ms. Bee just has to reinforce her ties to her tribe. She has to remind them that she's one of them, not one of us. She's expected to say certain things, with a certain level of invective. Even if it means she has to throw out that word on national TV.

At the time of this writing, Ms. Bee has suffered no professional consequences. That's okay. Unlike those on the Left who would limit speech they don't like, I think Ms. Bee had every right to make her offensive comments ... and I don't think she should be fired.

Treacher explains why:

Note to our friends on the other side of the aisle: Sorry to indulge the cliché yet again, but this really is how you got Trump. You claim to be righteous. You claim to be above the fray. But then the minute things don't go your way, you leap right into the mud and start slinging. Then you make all the excuses in the world for a member of your own tribe. The benefit of the doubt is for insiders only.

The moral preening of the #Resistance is getting really, really tiresome. And when you add a dollop of sanctimony, a measuring cup of hypocrisy, and blend in a blatant double standard on what is offensive and what is not depending on the political affiliation of the person who made the remark, you get to a point where the "brave" resisters are nothing but clowns.

Update:
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I'm not alone in my feeling that #Resistance has somehow crossed over a line into full blown derangement. Here's Julie Kelly addressing her #Resistance friends on the subject:

Hey, what’s up. Long time no talk.

I think the last civil conversations we had occurred just days before November 8, 2016. You were supremely confident Hillary Clinton would win the presidential election; you voted for her with glee. As a lifelong Republican, I bit down hard and cast my vote for Donald Trump. Then the unimaginable happened. He won.

And you lost your freaking minds.

I knew you would take the loss hard—and personally—since all of you were super jacked-up to elect the first woman president. But I did not imagine you would become totally deranged, attacking anyone who voted for Trump or supported his presidency as a racist, sexist, misogynistic, homophobic Nazi-sympathizer.

The weirdness started on social media late on Election Night, as it became clear Hillary was going to lose. A few of you actually admitted that you were cradling your sleeping children, weeping, wondering what to tell your kindergartner the next morning about Trump’s victory. It continued over the next several days. Some of you seriously expressed fear about modern-day concentration camps. Despite living a privileged lifestyle, you were suddenly a casualty of the white patriarchy. Your daughters were future victims; your sons were predators-in-waiting. You threatened to leave Facebook because you could no longer enjoy the family photos or vacation posts from people who, once friends, became Literal Hitlers to you on November 8 because they voted for Donald Trump.

I admit I was a little hurt at first. The attacks against us Trump voters were so personal and so vicious that I did not think it could be sustained. I thought maybe you would regain your sanity after some turkey and egg nog.

But you did not. You got worse. And I went from sad to angry to where I am today: Amused.

I guess it's hard to be introspective when you're so busy resisting, but honestly, it's way past the time that the intrepid members of #Resistance examine their own language, their over-the-top indictments of their fellow citizens, and their blatant double standards concerning civility.

There is nothing attractive about being a sore loser—nothing at all. And when your derangement stretches from weeks into months and then into years, it becomes ugly and off-putting, but at the same time, oddly amusing.