It’s a tough time to be a an Old White Liberal, watching an impending train wreck as ideals of youth, accelerated by arrogance and intolerance, crash into the landslide of skeptical individualism of mainstream America.
Democrat Terry McAuliffe lost his second bid to be governor of Virginia, a state where Biden beat Trump by ten points a year ago. There are many post mortems out there, but most point to a statement McAuliffe made in a debate, basically that parents should not dictate to schools what their children can learn.
I personally defended the teaching of Toni Morrison’s book “Beloved” when I was on the local school board. I thought high school students would benefit from exposure to the horrors of slavery as depicted. Plus, “Beloved” was beautifully written.
But… those are their children. Even if I believe they deprive their kids of important education, I don’t have the right to overrule what a parent wants their child to see.
For reasons that are opaque to me, except for the above mentioned arrogance and intolerance, Progressives and other Liberals don’t grasp that pushing people to abandon their values results in them pushing back, and the loss of what may have been a chance to create real change.
The list goes on: a baker in Colorado refuses to bake a cake for a gay couple. He wins in the Supreme Court. As a Liberal, I support the couple’s right to marry (why is government involved in the marriage business, anyway?). I might even refuse to buy a slice of carrot cake from that baker. But government forcing a man to bake a cake for a celebration that violates his religion? Will Liberals be forced to bake MAGA cookies when Trump wins the next election?
Free college: My family would like a refund. So would everyone who sacrificed a little here and there in the last 30 years who paid tuition. And let’s face it: a significant number of people view creation of an education entitlement as an unearned gift to the education establishment, untethered to national benefit.
Racism and sexism: Of course they exist, and they are ugly. But Liberalism has come to represent breathless outrage at stupid men and the stupid things we say, cancel culture, “safe places” where college students flee from different points of view, manipulation of news by CNN, the Washington Post and the New York Times, and not just fighting bigotry but saying any who argue against reparations are not entitled to an opinion because they are White.
The tragedy in all this that there is so much real work to do, and we Liberals are losing what may be our last chance in a generation to get it done.
Universal Health Care: It’s probably too late, but our local medical practices and hospitals are being bought up by the same kind of corporate interests that run the pharmaceutical industry. Treating the sick is more profitable than keeping people healthy, and medicine works poorly when the emphasis is on the bottom line.
Climate change: The argument over whether we are killing the planet has been won. Now we have to figure out what to do about it. Let’s abandon the phrase “Green New Deal” and just call it what it really is: creating jobs by rebuilding our infrastructure.
The future of labor: Have you heard? There are more jobs than workers! Help wanted signs are everywhere! Short term that means somebody may get a raise, although corporate America is already siphoning off wage increases by jacking up prices. Inflation is here and not going anywhere until a recession hits workers first and hardest.
Even more frightening? There’s a good chance that the “COVID” inspired labor shortage will simply hasten automation everywhere and anywhere a machine or software can replace a man or woman.
That’s how the labor shortage will be resolved. Which will mean that those now refusing to return to work may soon find that the job they wanted as well as the job they had simply no longer exist. We know how this plays out. Labor is a commodity of decreasing value, even without competition from China, Mexico, Viet Nam, or India.
But instead of an honest appraisal of these very real threats to the health and welfare of the American People, Liberals are telling parents that they have no say in the education of their children, find racism or sexism in every offense by a White person, seek to pass laws telling others what to think.
And they’ll lose elections because they somehow convinced themselves that defeating Trump was proof that their ideals are shared by most Americans. That’s not true, regardless of whether those ideals are right or wrong.
This will be a train wreck. The landslide on the tracks is just around the curve.