On a recent trip to the beach in Delaware with my family, my wife pointed out something I didn’t realize I’d noticed too: just how unhinged liberals are. I’m not talking about the clowns you see on TV, it’s hard not to notice how far past the edge of sane they’ve gone. I’m talking about otherwise seemingly normal people infected by what cable news has done to them.
It’s easy to dismiss CNN and MSNBC as fringe outfits preaching to the progressive choir because their ratings are an embarrassment compared to Fox News. But it’s important to remember that the media is much larger than 2 substandard left-wing activist cable networks. While Fox dominates cable news, it is dwarfed by everything else. And it’s what’s going on in everything else that is bleeding into everywhere else.
Living inside the Beltway of Washington, DC, it’s good to get outside that bubble and visit “real America” as often as possible. It’s not only healthy to relax every once in a while, it’s necessary to see what the people who pay the bills are talking about and important to note the differences between those topics and what people inside the bubble are talking about.
On that trip to the ocean, we’d gone to dinner on the boardwalk with the kids at dusk. Nice place. By the time we’d finished, it was after sunset and were walking back to our hotel. The boardwalk was still a little crowded, even for a Monday night. As we were approaching our street with the 11-month-old in the stroller and the 2-year-old on my shoulders, a pair of couples came walking up behind us, talking as couples do. But one of the guys was loud.
They had to be in their mid-50s and didn’t seem drunk, at least by how they were all able to walk a straight line and weren’t slurring their speech. But the guy who was loud was angry too. “These f*#king Nazi rallies on TV, I f*#king hate these people,” he bellowed.
After a few more f-bombs and references to President Trump and Republicans, he then called just about everyone a racist. “They had all these f*#king crackers in Georgia f*#king everything up,” not noting the irony of his own middle-aged whiteness.
I thought about doing what I’d always done in situations like that – saying something snarky loud enough for him to hear – even something as simple as pointing out how he needs to diversify his obscenity portfolio – but with a child wrapped around my head, I thought better of it. It’s not a good look to get arrested with your kids. So I shot him an eye-rolling, head-shaking look and we turned the corner.
Immediately after, my wife asked me something that hadn’t occurred to me before, but was telling, “Have you ever randomly overheard a Trump supporter angrily talking about any Democrat?”
I haven’t. Not just a Trump supporter, but I don’t recall ever overhearing any Republican heatedly attacking a liberal politician or policy. My friends and I have done it, certainly, but either at parties or some other private setting. Never just walking around or sitting in a restaurant.
Yet Democrats are so filled with rage that it’s not uncommon, even in the real world outside the beltway, even at the beach.
It’s not just my experience, people have been physically attacked for wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat. And it’s not just Trump supporters, people deemed to be insufficiently “woke” have come under assault from coast to coast.
Politics has always evoked emotional responses from people, but rarely has it brought on psychosis. The election of Donald Trump crossed the Rubicon for the activist left, from the towers of power to the boardwalk at the beach. Many are now acting on instinct, almost a Pavlovian response, a “Trump Tourette Syndrome” that causes a loss of decency and self-awareness.
After attacking any and every conservative they possibly could over old speeches, writings, and tweets, The New York Times published a piece decrying Trump supporters holding journalists to the same standards. They actually wrote, in a “news” story, “But using journalistic techniques to target journalists and news organizations as retribution for — or as a warning not to pursue — coverage critical of the president is fundamentally different from the well-established role of the news media in scrutinizing people in positions of power.”
God forbid they be held to the same standards they hold others to. God forbid they live the way they seek to impose on others.
It’s good to get out of Washington and visit America. It’s just a shame that liberals are bringing Washington to the rest of the country.
Derek is the host of a free daily podcast (subscribe!) and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses.
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