Get your hate on

Victor Davis Hanson, once again, explains the larger forces at play:

[Rick] Wilson was not original in his smear of the 63 million Americans who voted for Trump. He was likely resonating an earlier slander of Politico reporter Marco Caputo. The latter had tweeted of the crowd he saw at a Trump rally: “If you put everyone’s mouths together in this video, you’d get a full set of teeth.”

Was the point of these stereotypes that poor white working-class people who supposedly voted for the controversial Trump understandably ate improperly, did not practice proper dental hygiene, or did not visit dentists—or all three combined?

When challenged, Caputo doubled down on his invective. He snarled, “Oh no! I made fun of garbage people jeering at another person as they falsely accused him of lying and flipped him off. Someone fetch a fainting couch.”

Peel him a grape, too. There's more:

Caputo’s “Garbage people” was also a synonym for the smears that two career FBI agents on separate occasions had called the archetypical Trump voters.

In the released trove of the Department of Justice text communications involving the Clinton email probe, an unidentified FBI employee had texted to another FBI attorney his abject contempt for the proverbial Trump voter and indeed middle America itself: “Trump’s supporters are all poor to middle class, uneducated, lazy POS [“pieces of sh*t”].” In fact, Trump in 2016 received about 90 percent of all Republican votes, about the same ratio as won by both recent presidential candidates John McCain and Mitt Romney.

In the now notorious text communications between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, fired FBI operatives on Robert Mueller’s special counsel team, Strzok right before the 2016 election had texted his paramour Page: “Just went to a southern Virginia Walmart. I could SMELL the Trump support.”

If you want to know why the government shutdown, and the plight of our noble public servants as they struggle with temporary cash flow issues, doesn't seem to be getting much traction, you might want to consider Page and Strzok, and their great love for those they serve.

So if you are a self-proclaimed paragon of tolerance, why the hate? Back to Hanson:

These outbursts were all voiced from highly educated elites (Caputo has a journalism degree from the University of Miami, [Donny] Deutsch graduated from the Wharton School, [Sarah] Jeong from Harvard Law School, Strzok received a master’s degree from Georgetown, Wilson attended George Washington University). And all engaged in vicious and cowardly stereotyping of a demographic in a manner that they assumed involved no downside. Rather, the smears were delivered on the expectation of winning approbation from their peers. And they did in twitter-fueled competitions to find the crudest pejoratives.

 Cue the Dobie Gray:

I'm in with the in crowd 
I go where the in crowd goes 
I'm in with the in crowd 
And I know what the in crowd knows

Hatred can wear academic regalia, or it can wear the cloak of professionalism. But at bottom, it's all the same. Hanson:

Those who slander the deplorables and irredeemables assume that they can say almost anything and expect no pushback, given the white working classes lack the romance of the poor and the supposed panache of the elite. A race to the bottom develops in which the more the hatred, the more the clicks and the media exposure. Minority critics expect their own identity politics affiliations to shield them from criticism. Wealthy white elites virtue-signal their disgust for those without privilege as a way of ensuring that those like themselves, who most certainly enjoy privilege, are rewarded with ideological exemptions for it.

Finally, we are learning that the entire idea of political correctness was never much about universal ideas of tolerance of the other, or insistence that language and protocols must not stigmatize individuals by lumping them into stereotyped and dehumanized collective groups.  What we are witnessing, instead, is that it is fine to demonize millions, from their appearance to their purported hygiene and smell to affinities with feces and apes—if it serves political or cultural agendas.

In sum, cultural progressivism is about raw power, not principle.

It's also the realization that, no matter how many degrees and credentials one obtains, we all will revert to junior high social norms when we can get by with it.

30-Pack of Home Truths

Over at PJ Media, John Hawkins has compiled a list of 30 aphorisms from Thomas Sowell, the brilliant economist. It's a great list and a reminder of why Sowell is one of the best public intellectuals we have had in this nation's history. No. 12 is an excellent question for our woke friends:

"Since this is an era when many people are concerned about 'fairness' and 'social justice,' what is your 'fair share' of what someone else has worked for?"

No. 13 is also exceptionally germane these days:

 “Considering how often throughout history even intelligent people have been proved to be wrong, it is amazing that there are still people who are convinced that the only reason anyone could possibly say something different from what they believe is stupidity or dishonesty.”

Which relates directly to No. 8:

"It is amazing how many people think that they can answer an argument by attributing bad motives to those who disagree with them. Using this kind of reasoning, you can believe or not believe anything about anything, without having to bother to deal with facts or logic."

I don't suspect Sowell is actually amazed by any of it, of course. Which leads us to No. 27:

 "Virtually no idea is too ridiculous to be accepted, even by very intelligent and highly educated people, if it provides a way for them to feel special and important. Some confuse that feeling with idealism."

Go read the rest. Sowell is now 88 years old, so he's not going to be around all that much longer. The shoddy thinking he decries is eternal.

Odd headline of the week

I have heard many writers complain about the headline a publication chooses for their article. This headline from the Star Tribune might be the worst one I've seen in a while:

So what does this mean?

If people in one place feel unsafe, no one else gets to feel safe? Is that what this means? We don't yet know who attacked a mosque in Bloomington over the weekend. I wish people wouldn't attack mosques, or synagogues, or churches of any sort. It happens, though. Being a member of a faith community means you have faith. I'm not sure the headline writers at the Star Tribune understand that.

Bernie's dilemma

The report from the inspector general of the State Department is out and it tells us what we more or less already knew:

Hillary Clinton and her team ignored clear guidance from the State Department that her email setup broke federal standards and could leave sensitive material vulnerable to hackers, a department audit has found. Her aides twice brushed aside concerns, in one case telling technical staff "the matter was not to be discussed further."

If it's up to the praetorian guard that has surrounded Mrs. Clinton from the get-go, the matter won't be discussed further. It's not, however. The Donald will certainly bring the matter up in the upcoming general election campaign. But with Clinton's current adversary, Bernie Sanders, still kinda in the race, will Sanders let it slide?

From the outset, Sanders declared the matter unimportant and off-limits. Does he still feel that way? Should he? Consider some of the key findings:

The 78-page analysis, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, says Clinton ignored clear directives. She never sought approval to conduct government business over private email, and never demonstrated the server or the Blackberry she used while in office "met minimum information security requirements."

Twice in 2010, information management staff at the State Department raised concerns that Clinton's email practices failed to meet federal records-keeping requirements. The staff's director responded that Clinton's personal email system had been reviewed and approved by legal staff, "and that the matter was not to be discussed any further."

The audit found no evidence of a legal staff review or approval. It said any such request would have been denied by senior information officers because of security risks.

So we're faced with the usual Clintonian word games here. Are rules the same thing as laws? And "legal staff" who are not otherwise identified apparently grant an imprimatur to whatever the lady wants. And the matter is not to be discussed any further. Capisce?

It's a target-rich environment. But does Bernie dare to broach the subject? Something worth watching, I'd say.

A voice from exotic Kansas

I recently happened across a blogger out of Kansas named Bud Norman. I think he's very good. A sample:

Drop in on any left-leaning web site or “alternative” newspaper and you’ll notice a proliferation of profanity, of course the movies and television shows that the vast west wing of Hollywood produces are full of foul language, a similar vulgarity seems to pervade the conversations of most of our liberal friends, even the Vice President of the United States felt compelled drop an “F-bomb” to commemorate the passage of Obamacare, and this isn’t the first time that children have been dragged into it. The left regards cussing as authentically proletarian, even though the authentic proletariat is still saying grace before a meal and washing its kids’ mouths out with soap for such outbursts, and it fancies itself bravely defying the stultifying conventions of bourgeois society, even though it’s been a long time since the martyrdom of Lenny Bruce and by now what’s left of bourgeois society is no longer capable of stultifying even the most obnoxious behaviors.

A good observation. Here's even a better one:

Our newly-won freedom to spew curse words might be considered a small and insignificant expansion of liberty, but it’s hardly ample compensation for all the restrictions that the left wants to impose. Everything from %&*# to *+$@ is now allowed in the public square, but all sorts of formerly useful and respectable terms are now forbidden in polite company. “He” is an offensive word if used in reference to men who consider themselves women, “merit” and “hard work” are considered racist code in the more refined quarters of academia, of course “illegal immigrant” is not allowed to describe an immigrant who has entered the country illegally, and in the Democratic presidential race presumptive candidate Hillary Clinton is accusing pesky challenger and self-described socialist — which was formerly a dirty word — Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders of being racist for using the word “urban” in their ongoing gun control debate. Try injecting any honest acknowledgment of the higher rate of criminal activity in certain communities into that debate or the related arguments over the “Black Lives Matter” movement and the police, and you’ll find that the certain points of view are now out of bounds no matter how profanely phrased. Anything having to do with sex, of course, is similarly constrained by the new rules of polite discourse.

I've been known to curse. I'm glad my comments aren't generally recorded for posterity when someone cuts me off on 35W, pretty much an everyday occurrence. I don't feel good about it, though. Norman's larger point about control of the language isn't new, but he states it well. I recommend his work. You can find the link to his blog, Central Standard Times, on the sidebar of this feature.