Don's Tuesday Column

               THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson   Red Bluff Daily News   7/24/2018

      Rage-aholics, hysterics, deranged left

The Chinese curse, that you should “live in interesting times,” suggests that we are accursed; however, it would apply to different people for different reasons. Let’s acknowledge that the segment of voters that went from voting for Barack Obama to Hillary Clinton consider themselves perhaps the most accursed, if their level of consternation and uttered vitriol is to be believed. Obama voters who went to Trump—not so much say the polls and interviews.

I see the former as mostly those who live in political “quiet desperation” for having built their future happiness and fulfillment on a continuation of the leftward trend—so ably-but-fleetingly implemented by Obama—under a just-as-liberal President Clinton. With the “right” legislation and judges signed and appointed, and the wrong ones stymied, with the regulatory branch protected and expanded and with the glorious blossoming of “Hope” across America, all would be as it was destined in perpetuity.

Welcome to the realm of the politically disappointed, most recently occupied by George W. Bush voters consigned to the woe-is-us camp for Barack Obama’s 8 years. If our experience is any guide, you will fill your days bemoaning the utterances from the “clown-in-chief,” be gob smacked that this guy got elected and, worse, is using his pen/phone/appointment power to do what he said he’d do (in Obama’s case, little that he promised). You may find yourself buying devices to protect your teeth from grinding at night.

However, there is a group, either growing or just getting louder, that are quite evidently deranged; hence the Trump Derangement Syndrome label. In their hysterical venting, they’ve morphed into “rage-aholics” and, psychologically, resemble the syndromes that substitute booze, drugs, gambling or other vices for elation and fulfillment. As with those dependencies, unhealthy reliance on self-destructive patterns of anger and rage-filled outbursts alienates those nearby but is often enabled by others’ rationalizations.

Witness the hysterical outbursts and reactions to President Trump on a near daily basis (i.e. Whoopi Goldberg). One revealing example was a demonstration in front of Rep. Maxine Waters’ office in L.A. It was meant to be a “physical” confrontation by Waters-supporting leftists with “Oath Keepers,” who are, depending on your ideology, principled advocates for Trump and America—or racist, right wing Nazis. Given the violence that predictably arises in these confrontations, the Oath Keepers declined to show up.

What did happen, however, served up an example of the radical left’s antics, duplicitous labeling and complicit media air-brushing. They yelled, screamed, stole a flag off a nearby truck, ripped foliage off bushes, added lighter fluid and proceeded to burn it while displaying hand- and pre-printed-signs. The L.A. Times offered a generally positive view of the pro-Waters, anti-Trump crowd, mentioned the burning of the flag but ignored the rest to, apparently, protect their readers from unpleasant reality.

Doing the job that American news media avoid, the British press (Daily Mail) provided a more sullied picture: “Shocking photographs…show the crowd stomping on the flag before circling around the stars and stripes as they cheer when it erupts into flames…they shouted: ‘This is not the American flag, this is their flag.’”

“Many have been appalled that Democrats like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have come out of the closet as socialists. They are sometimes referred to as the far-left wing of the Democratic Party. But given recent events, one is entitled to wonder whether there is any wing to the Democratic Party other than the far-left. At (the rally), some demonstrators carried printed signs produced by a group called RefuseFascism.org” (Powerlineblog.com).

According to Wikipedia: “Refuse Fascism was formed by a group of leftists, including the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) after the 2016 election. The RCP has said they issued the call to action which launched the group.” Get it? Hardcore Communists formed the pro-Waters/anti-Trump group.

“So, to recap: 1) Many Democrats, apparently including the party’s most stalwart supporters, are anti-American. 2) A good number of Democrats are socialists; in fact, but for the DNC having its thumb on the scale, a socialist probably would have won the party’s presidential nomination in 2016. 3) It is fair to wonder how many ‘socialist’ Democrats are Communists who haven’t yet come out of the closet.

“Only two kinds of socialist governments have ever existed, National Socialist (fascist) and International Socialist (Marxist). Has any reporter ever asked a self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist which type of socialism he or she embraces? I don’t think so. The Democrats aren’t really trying to hide who they are, but the liberal press is doing its best to cover up its party’s extremism.” (J. Hinderaker).

Here’s a quick history lesson: The American version of Communism, “Progressivism,” was embraced and advanced in America by Democrats like President Woodrow Wilson. Watered-down Communism, or socialism, was integral to FDR’s New Deal, limited only by the Supreme Court’s rejection of NIRA (National Industrial Recovery Act) as being un-constitutionally broad and intrusive into the free market. Actual Communist spies found undercover homes in some of FDR’s agencies, attempting to steer American foreign and domestic policy in favor of the U.S.S,R (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics).

After the Korean War, fought to resist naked Communist aggression, anti-American/South Vietnam and pro-Communist/North Vietnam agitation was the core of the Democratic Party’s foreign policy, which subsequently favored Communist regimes in Central America and Cuba. At the same time, hard leftist parts of the Democratic Party abandoned the label “Socialist” so as to pursue socialist goals for America from within the Democratic Party. 

Throughout the rest of the Cold War, Democrats like Ted Kennedy, Ron Dellums and many others, spared no effort to undermine President Reagan’s anti-Soviet, pro-missile defense policies; Kennedy’s even conspired with Soviet diplomats to undermine Reagan’s reelection.

Compare the Obama/Clinton “doormat” policies toward Russia with Trump’s harder actions and it puts Trump’s verbal gaffes into perspective. Churchill’s actual quote, “Meeting jaw to jaw is better than war” seems to be Trump’s policy. I can’t disagree.