Political correctness run amok is a popular topic on the right these days. Indeed, the conservative bookshelf is chock full of best-sellers devoted to the topic. Subject matters vary. One may focus on the hypocrisy of campus speech codes, another on the revisionist attempt to indict our founding fathers, yet another on secular progressivism's relentless campaign against religious freedom.
Still, progressive-inspired changes to our value system have made their mark - most notably during the eight-year reign of Barack Obama - and particularly among the generation popularly known as "Millennials." My response to these unwelcome changes has been two-fold: (1) I chronicle the establishment's tantrums whenever an anti-PC, Trump-inspired "disruptor" event takes place; and (2) I publicize vignettes wherein progressive overreaching boomerangs to the Left's disadvantage.
The former is a daily event. On any particular day, the president may question the "one China" policy, the Paris climate accord, American taxpayer support for the PLO, the Iranian nuclear deal, Chinese theft of our intellectual property, NATO's continued relevance, fair trade at the G7, Obama-era designations of national monuments, and countless other sacred cows. When he does, all hell breaks loose. The establishment (widely defined) is simply unable to reconcile itself to our president's regular habit of challenging assumptions and breaking glass.
Some perspective is due here. Donald Trump has been on the national political stage for two and a half years. He is as unwelcome today as he was that first day he descended the escalators at Trump Tower. In fact, the presumptive resistance to anything and everything Trump continues to grow. Neither side appears willing to change its ways and means. Few believe either party's establishment will seek an accommodation with one Donald J. Trump.
My other preoccupation concerns identifying and spouting off about progressive hypocrisy - situations wherein political correctness comes back to bite the hand that feeds it. I seldom have to look very hard. For context, wrap your mind around some embarrassing tidbits taken from recent media reports.
- For years, progressives have advanced man-made global warming as an article of political faith. This climate-change chorus has constantly warned of a looming environmental Armageddon. (You may remember Barack Obama's inaugural address, wherein he observed that his arrival in the Oval Office would mark the beginning of the end for the rising oceans, etc.) Similar apocalyptic warnings are regularly issued by those emotionally and commercially invested in bringing the fossil-fuel industry to its knees.The storylines herein are endless. Perhaps you have a favorite anecdote along these lines. If you do, publish it. Such stories are educational, therapeutic, even funny. They will make you feel better during what will be an ugly summer run-up to the high stakes midterms.
But two California cities have been caught engaging in what we may charitably label "inconsistent statements," in official documents no less. To wit: The municipalities of Oakland and San Francisco have famously sued various oil companies for contributing to climate change and the projected flooding of those port cities, but simultaneously have sought to minimize the threat in legal representations accompanying their issuance of municipal debt. In plain English, they're trying to scare juries into awarding them huge judgments on the basis of apocalyptic predictions on the one hand, but reassuring the people who hold their debt on the other ("we are unable to predict if . . . impacts of climate change . . . will occur").
- It was not so long ago (2013) that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid suspended the Senate filibuster rule of 60 votes for presidential nominees (except for the Supreme Court, but that is also now repealed) in order to secure three liberal Democrats on the powerful D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Republicans howled; many warned the Democrats would regret this rule change when a GOP president again occupied the White House.
Few human beings (and no Democrats) living outside of Trump Tower envisioned a Trump presidency at that point in time. But the unanticipated transpired, as it often does when people assume that politics is static. And the numbers are historic: 42 confirmed, 81 nominated federal judges in the administration's first 18 months. With the Senate unlikely to flip in November, the GOP is on its way to installing multiple generations of originalists within America's judiciary.
- Modern progressives are all about gender equality. In keeping with this belief, the Pennsylvania Democratic party has imposed gender-based quotas on their convention delegates. Here, everything must be 50/50 in the interest of "fairness" - including when it's not so fair. To wit: You may have read about two female candidates at the Pennsylvania Democratic Committee convention who were not seated because too many women had won delegate seats.Yep, the winning female candidates were declared the losing candidates because of their gender. So much for merit; so much for fairness; so much for democracy. Presumably, said losing women will be awarded participation trophies and a safe space in which to ponder their unexpected exile. Maybe they can use the time to reread George Orwell's 1984.
- The mainstream media have suffered many low moments during the Trump era (recall their frenzied overreaction in the aftermath of the president's annual physical exam). But the post-North Korea summit coverage has set a new standard. Six months ago, the narrative was all about the heavy-handed, war-mongering showman playing nuclear Russian roulette with an unstable dictator, a.k.a. "Little Rocket Man." "We told you he was unfit, unstable, and dangerous" was the oft-recited refrain. Fast forward to the Left's post-summit narrative: "A weak-kneed American president gets outplayed (and out-negotiated)" by that same Little Rocket Man. Interesting how the left-wing alphabet-soup cable-news networks have spent no time on how much safer the world is today compared with two weeks ago.
Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. served as the 60th governor of Maryland from 2003 to 2007. He is the author of the new book, Bet You Didn't See That One Coming: Obama, Trump, and the End of Washington's
Surely Trump is as surprised as the rest of the puppets.... total chaos... regime change American style.... of course things change from locale to locale, but this engineered 'civil war' isn't new.... is it? Isn't it always like this?