I generally avoid writing about "timely" issues. Because, frankly, I don't have that many readers. So if I write about an issue that will become moot within a few months, few will read it before it is irrelevant. It might even, gasp!, turn out that what I say was wrong. But that said ...
I think the Democrats are making a huge mistake the way they are fighting Donal Trump. I'm not talking about whether they should or shouldn't fight Mr Trump. I'm talking about their tactics.
When Mr Trump was elected the first time, he was somewhat conservative. But he was willing to work with liberals. For example, he didn't try to purge all liberals out of government positions. The liberals could have played a long game. Just waited him out, held on to everyting they could and waited until his term of office was over. Then get another liberal, or a weak conservative, as president, and return to business as usual.
Instead they totally freaked out. They tried to impeach him twice. When that didn't work they charged him with insane crimes using laws made up just to attack Mr Trump. And when THAT didn't work, they tried to assassinate him. Twice.
So when Trump did survive it all and won re-election, there was no way he was going to "play nice" and just go along with the establishment. He came out swinging. Now liberals are reeling. Trump is cutting off their funding and purging their people from the government. They're reduced to fighting him by spreading silly hoaxes. Like, he ordered a review to see how many people were collecting social security who were not really eligible, like people who have been dead for decades and so who is cashing the checks?, and liberals ran to the media saying Trump was ending social security and leaving all retirees out in the cold. Of course he never did anything of the kind, it was just a lie to gin up fear.
I doubt Trump will be a death blow to liberalism, but he's hurting them badly. By attacking Trump with everything they had, they caused him to fight back hard.
I've heard people say that the evil have an advantage over the good. Because, for example, good people will tell the truth, but evil people will lie when it's to their advantage, but they can also tell the truth when it's to their advantage. This isn't true. Liars get caught up in their own lies. Even when telling the truth would be to their advantage, they'll continue to tell the lie because they are committed to it.
A similar thing is happening now. For example, drag queen story hours for kindergarteners are wildly unpopular with parents. But instead of saying, "That was just some crazy extremists behind that. OF COURSE we don't support that", liberals have doubled down and fought hard to defend it. Similarly on many other issues. I saw one commentator who said that Trump has taken the popular side in a lot of issues where Americans are about 80/20. Then instead of saying, "This is a nonsense attack he's making. Of course we're on the 80% side too. It's just propaganda to claim we're on the other side", liberals have flocked to the 20% side and dug in their heals. Liberals seem to be reflexively opposing anything Mr Trump says. If Mr Trump said he was in favor of finding a cure for cancer, liberals would say no, we don't dare cure cancer! Heck, they just about said exactly that: When Mr Trump introduced a black child who had overcome cancer at his state of the union speech, liberals refused to applaud the brave young man. It would have been an easy point to score. OF COURSE we stand with children who overcome cancer: there are some things we can agree with Mr Trump about. But instead, they stood solidly on the side of children dying from cancer.I guess cancer cells have rights, too.
© 2025 by Jay Johansen
No comments yet.