The modern left is built around a trio of laudable principles: protecting the environment is good, racism is bad, and so is demonizing a person over his or her sexual preferences. (In the chapter of his book Intellectuals titled “The Flight from Reason,” Paul Johnson wrote that “At the end of the Second World War, there was a significant change in the predominant aim of secular intellectuals, a shift of emphasis from utopianism to hedonism.” ) But just as the Bircher right began to see communists everywhere, the new Bircher left sees racism, sexism, homophobia, and Koch Brothers everywhere.
They’re lurking around more corners than Gen. Ripper imagined there were commies lurking inside Burpelson Air Force Base. They’re inside your video games! They own NFL teams! They’ll steal your condoms! Disagree with President Obama? Racist! (That goes for you too, Bill, Hillary, and your Democratic supporters.) Not onboard for gender-neutral bathrooms? Not too thrilled with abortion-obsessed candidates like Wendy Davis and “Mark Uterus”? Sexist! Disagree with using global warming as a cudgel to usher in the brave new world of bankrupt coal companies and $10 a gallon gasoline? Climate denier!
And as with the original Birchers, don’t get ‘em started on fluoride.
First, you’ll see his barely-contained contempt for the voters. After the briefest nod to their unhappiness, they’ll be described as angry, disaffected, and easily fooled by dark money and deceptive television ads. If only America was smart enough to understand his vision. If only they had his advantages of godlike wisdom and preternatural intelligence they’d understand what a terrible mistake they’ve just made. He’ll be very sad for them, really.
Next, he’ll punch the Washington media’s buttons with his usual phony construct of “I’m willing to work with anyone, Republican or Democrat, to get things done for this country.” Anyone, that is, except those mouth-breathing, cousin-marrying, snake-handling, slack-jawed, red-state yokels with bad suits and state-college educations. He’ll listen to good ideas, as long as they precisely match his own faculty-lounge vision of technocratic government uber alles. He’ll be open to reforms, except anything to do with the unsullied perfection of Obamacare or any other part of his regulatory overstate. He’ll certainly be willing to talk about the conduct of our foreign and military operations, as long as we remain constrained by his minimalist vision of American interests in the world, and continue to dishearten our allies and comfort our enemies.
What you won’t see in Barack Obama’s eyes or language is real understanding. He’ll say the words the Acela Media expects, and go through the motions at the press conference, but it will be empty of any true realization that this election was a brutal national referendum on his policies and his leadership. This President lacks the fundamental self-awareness of his how his actions (and inaction) brought this day upon him. Obama has always been the student with the gold-star sticker. He’s been told he was brilliant, special, and historic at every inflection point in his life. As a candidate — and as president — he was given every gift, extended every latitude, and cradled in the loving embrace of a media simultaneously enraptured by his charisma and terrified of criticizing the first black President in even the mildest terms.
