I linked this to the Reddit section for the New York times and it shouldn't be behind a paywall.
It's a good article it starts off in the right direction but predictably loses its way halfway through and meanders off into apologia, pubescent rationalization and a desperate attempt not to see the realities of our political landscape such as it is today.
Donald Trump is a monstrous narcissist, but there’s something off about an educated class that looks in the mirror of society and sees only itself.
www.nytimes.com
I don't understand what's wrong with just plain old honesty. Why can no one face it? JK Rowling ingeniously invented the mirror of Arissette for her readers.... I wonder if we could hire her to create one for us as a human race?
You have to understand that honesty means also looking in the mirror and being willing to admit that if you see ugliness looking back that's what's actually there. No it's not the silver back reflective paint being co-opted, it's not some evil spell cast on the reflection to distort it.... It's actually you! As a society we simply are not there yet.
The answers to the results of the most recent election are so much more simple than everybody wants them to be.
Some years ago I read an interesting political analysis on the pendulum like swing of political preferences from administration to administration here in the United States.
Yes it's that simple. A lot of our voting public simply don't like to have the same thing twice in a row regardless of what it is. It's an effect on our elections.
There is a certain percentage of voters out there who think to themselves "okay Republicans had four years now it's time to give the Democrats four years"... And vice versa.
There's absolutely no science to this process and no intellectual examination that can dissect it into a better strategy next time around.
Maybe it's an indictment of our voting system in general. One gets the distinct impression that the vote should not be available to every nitwit, moron, hellgrammite, and intellectually hobbled backwards bumpkin...Ahh!!! But that's just it!! It is!!
The average American is a much easier person to get along with than his political masters would have you believe. While every population of humans throughout history has always had it's good citizens, bad citizens and absolute criminal citizens.....The Majority of people by far, regardless of skin color, culture or politic are all interested in the same thing; a reasonably peacefully existence that shows mutual respect the one's neighbor who hopefully is no more than just another human being with other subcategories being completely irrelevant and unnecessary to observe.
I don't think we should fool ourselves into thinking that there are any universal lessons to learn here. But I can put my finger on a couple things done by those purporting to represent the left that probably drove the last few nails into the coffin lid this time around.
Obama's little lecture to black men, I think was a catastrophe. A lot of black men don't see Obama as a true black man. I wonder if he thinks about that?
Joe Biden's garbage comment probably moved the needle a little bit but I think all it really did was unify the conservative vote. None of the people he called garbage we're going to vote for Harris anyway.
For the past 3 years the voices have been shouting from the rooftops Economy! Economy! Economy!
It's one very simple and easy to understand issue.... Pointing to all the parts of the world and trying to tell those complaining about it but they have it better than others.... is not a successful strategy. Telling a person who just had his car towed away by the repo Man that the economic data shows that we are a booming economy.... is not a successful strategy.
If there's one thing that the Democratic left excelled at this time around it was the ability to pack their ears densely full of cotton and to continue to speak up over the voices that would eventually be going to the polls.
