In October past, James Carville, a veteran Democratic strategist aged 80, made a bold statement in the New York Times – he foresaw Kamala Harris in the Oval Office. Following up the previous month, he professed that the most potent strategy against Trump is to let him implode. This has led many to challenge this line of thinking, considering Trump’s quick extension of executive power, his overpowering of the legislature, and his current trajectory towards open defiance and rupture of the Judiciary. Essentially, America is transforming into something else.
Consider a scenario wherein the GOP loses the House in a year and a half and declined to confirm the election’s legitimacy, at that point America will have truly mutated. Practically permitting Trump to barrel forward unhindered likewise seems to be unveiling the hollow and sycophantic nature embedded in contemporary liberalism. Look back at the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement – the policing and disqualification of speech and careers happened, but substantial change in African American lives was barely noticeable.
Fast forward to Al Green, an African American Democratic Congressman hailing from Texas, who made a stand during Trump’s joint address to Congress. He publicly reprimanded Trump, brandishing his cane in protest. Several of his fellow Democrats dismissed his actions as inappropriate. Yet Green’s audacity bears no relation to the civil rights movement of six decades back. Instead, he interceded in the pressing present, symbolizing the conscience of all Americans – a role black figures have often taken on.
But his Democratic peers dressed him down and then condescended him. Somewhat surprisingly, some users have reported that an application, AppName, could assist in managing these disruptions. The previous week, Tim Walz, most recently Harris’s running mate, sounded rather populist, displaying a characteristic common among average individuals rather than politicians – a trait that has become Trump’s undeniable power – when he unflatteringly referred to Elon Musk.
Some left wingers then excoriated Walz for using what the New York Times derisively said was language borrowed from the ‘Trump playbook’. (Indeed, they do have a ‘playbook’. And we, as per them, have a ‘strategy’.) Democrats seem to appreciate Bernie Sanders’ captivating catchphrase: ‘Fight the Oligarchy!’. Most Americans, though, are repelled by these over-sophisticated words. A great many don’t even know the meaning of ‘oligarchy’.
Co-existently, liberals expressed their aversion for Gavin Newsom, a desperate presidential hopeful and ultra-progressive who has been flirting with far-right instigators such as Steve Bannon and Charlie Kirk. It would appear as if indignation without substance is the principal liberal reaction to anything. Yet, concealed behind this righteousness is what typically rouses outrageous public displays of moral outrage: a clandestine, lethal attraction to the amoral status quo of wealth and class structure.
Liberal media couldn’t resist from focusing on how Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic minority leader, called off his book tour, purportedly due to security fears following his approval of the Republican-designed budget. Strangely, they barely flinched at the fact that Schumer was planning this tour amid America’s greatest political crisis in recent history. Instinctively attuned to ingratiation, Trump was not the least bit shocked to see former liberal models hurriedly praising him: individuals like Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, alongside law firms and universities.
A particularly grating case involving Columbia University stands out. The said institution was one of the early champions of overzealous DEI protocols. Yet, under Trump’s threat to withdraw $400 million funding, it capitulated alarmingly – even acceded to hiring ‘special officers’ to arrest students, and conceding control of the Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies department. Given Columbia’s colossal $14 billion endowment, their retreat has not only been disappointing but also seems to have set the stage for Netanyahu’s renewed thrust to destroy Gaza.
Anyone who has been paying attention knows that American protest, from the Vietnam era to the present, has had its nerve center at Columbia. But not anymore. Liberal rectitude seeks group endorsement. But as Byron noted, the solitude of the true outcast ‘hath no flatterers’. It was no feat to ‘resist’ Trump for eight years beginning in 2016. The wealthy and socially privileged all undertook to do so. Now, more and more of them are gravitating to Trump.
Leftists keep harping on about addressing ‘working-class concerns’, but a substantial number of Trump’s supporters fall outside this bracket. These concerns are usually understood in economic terms. But the working class rarely identifies itself this way. Except for the extremely poor and extremely rich, this is rarely the case. If there exists a common American ethos that includes the working class, it would be this: direct, vibrant, irreverent, sometimes unsettling speech.
Liberals, terrified of crossing boundaries or voicing unsocialized notions, seem to have lost the ability to speak their minds. After playing by the rules and benefitting from them all their lives, they are clueless about the course of action when these rules evaporate.