8
0

Why the Left Is Consumed With Hate - Shelby Steele WSJ


 invite response                
2018 Sep 25, 9:20am   7,970 views  30 comments

by NDrLoR   ➕follow (3)   💰tip   ignore  

Comments 1 - 30 of 30        Search these comments

1   FortWayne   2018 Sep 25, 9:25am  

Well written
2   Patrick   2018 Sep 25, 9:33am  

Even before President Trump’s election, hatred had begun to emerge on the American left—counterintuitively, as an assertion of guilelessness and moral superiority. At the Women’s March in Washington the weekend after Mr. Trump’s inauguration, the pop star Madonna said, “I have thought an awful lot of blowing up the White House.” Here hatred was a vanity, a braggadocio meant to signal her innocence of the sort of evil that, in her mind, the White House represented. (She later said the comment was “taken wildly out of context.”)

For many on the left a hateful anti-Americanism has become a self-congratulatory lifestyle. “America was never that great,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently said. For radical groups like Black Lives Matter, hatred of America is a theme of identity, a display of racial pride.

For other leftists, hate is a license. Conservative speakers can be shouted down, even assaulted, on university campuses. Republican officials can be harassed in restaurants, in the street, in front of their homes. Certain leaders of the left—Rep. Maxine Waters comes to mind—are self-appointed practitioners of hate, urging their followers to think of hatred as power itself.

How did the American left—conceived to bring more compassion and justice to the world—become so given to hate? It began in the 1960s, when America finally accepted that slavery and segregation were profound moral failings. That acceptance changed America forever. It imposed a new moral imperative: America would have to show itself redeemed of these immoralities in order to stand as a legitimate democracy.

The genius of the left in the ’60s was simply to perceive the new moral imperative, and then to identify itself with it. Thus the labor of redeeming the nation from its immoral past would fall on the left. This is how the left put itself in charge of America’s moral legitimacy. The left, not the right—not conservatism—would set the terms of this legitimacy and deliver America from shame to decency.

This bestowed enormous political and cultural power on the American left, and led to the greatest array of government-sponsored social programs in history—at an expense, by some estimates, of more than $22 trillion. But for the left to wield this power, there had to be a great menace to fight against—a tenacious menace that kept America uncertain of its legitimacy, afraid for its good name.

This amounted to a formula for power: The greater the menace to the nation’s moral legitimacy, the more power redounded to the left. And the ’60s handed the left a laundry list of menaces to be defeated. If racism was necessarily at the top of the list, it was quickly followed by a litany of bigotries ending in “ism” and “phobia.”

The left had important achievements. It did rescue America from an unsustainable moral illegitimacy. It also established the great menace of racism as America’s most intolerable disgrace. But the left’s success has plunged it into its greatest crisis since the ’60s. The Achilles’ heel of the left has been its dependence on menace for power. Think of all the things it can ask for in the name of fighting menaces like “systemic racism” and “structural inequality.” But what happens when the evils that menace us begin to fade, and then keep fading?

It is undeniable that America has achieved since the ’60s one of the greatest moral evolutions ever. That is a profound problem for the left, whose existence is threatened by the diminishment of racial oppression. The left’s unspoken terror is that racism is no longer menacing enough to support its own power. The great crisis for the left today—the source of its angst and hatefulness—is its own encroaching obsolescence. Today the left looks to be slowly dying from lack of racial menace.

A single white-on-black shooting in Ferguson, Mo., four years ago resulted in a prolonged media blitz and the involvement of the president of the United States. In that same four-year period, thousands of black-on-black shootings took place in Chicago, hometown of the then-president, yet they inspired very little media coverage and no serious presidential commentary.

White-on-black shootings evoke America’s history of racism and so carry an iconic payload of menace. Black-on-black shootings carry no such payload, although they are truly menacing to the black community. They evoke only despair. And the left gets power from fighting white evil, not black despair.

Today’s left lacks worthy menaces to fight. It is driven to find a replacement for racism, some sweeping historical wrongdoing that morally empowers those who oppose it. (Climate change?) Failing this, only hatred is left.

Hatred is a transformative power. It can make the innocuous into the menacing. So it has become a weapon of choice. The left has used hate to transform President Trump into a symbol of the new racism, not a flawed president but a systemic evil. And he must be opposed as one opposes racism, with a scorched-earth absolutism.

For Martin Luther King Jr., hatred was not necessary as a means to power. The actual details of oppression were enough. Power came to him because he rejected hate as a method of resisting menace. He called on blacks not to be defined by what menaced them. Today, because menace provides moral empowerment, blacks and their ostensible allies indulge in it. The menace of black victimization becomes the unarguable truth of the black identity. And here we are again, forever victims.

Yet the left is still stalked by obsolescence. There is simply not enough menace to service its demands for power. The voices that speak for the left have never been less convincing. It is hard for people to see the menace that drives millionaire football players to kneel before the flag. And then there is the failure of virtually every program the left has ever espoused—welfare, public housing, school busing, affirmative action, diversity programs, and so on.

For the American left today, the indulgence in hate is a death rattle.

Mr. Steele, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, is author of “Shame: How America’s Past Sins Have Polarized Our Country” (Basic Books, 2015).
3   Patrick   2018 Sep 25, 9:35am  

An insightful essay.

The point is clearly true: the left needs to find witches to burn even when none exist, in order to justify their own dictatorial power to defeat witches.

Without witches, they have no power.
4   FuckTheMainstreamMedia   2018 Sep 25, 9:45am  

Patrick says
An insightful essay.

The point is clearly true: the left needs to find witches to burn even when none exist, in order to justify their own dictatorial power to defeat witches.

Without witches, they have no power.


Straight out of the Democrat playbook Rules for Radicals.
5   Ceffer   2018 Sep 25, 1:22pm  

The Left proves that brainwashing works.
6   mell   2018 Sep 25, 2:33pm  

jazz_music says
America is and was founded on the values of equality and even so, the vast and increasing inequality of America today injures us all, meaning inequality narrows our horizons, shortens our lives, steals our freedoms, etc.


That's fundamentally wrong, America was founded on the pursuit of happiness, equal opportunity, certainly not on equality (of outcome). It was though founded on the belief that everybody can hold their own core tenets, beliefs and political and religious views without going at each other like belligerent cry-babys.

jazz_music says
There is nothing on the right except relentless pursuit of cheaper labor, return on investments, shareholder value, all you need to crucify our country with. These false gods have captured our representation and turned it against us all. We must all correct this travesty before we lose ownership of the government. (and that time seems to be coming fast)


The current economic, employment and wage data is diametrically opposed to your doomsday scenario. Americans are prospering right now like they haven't in 20 years.
7   Shaman   2018 Sep 25, 2:36pm  

Old communists like Jazz can never comprehend how their failed systems could fail or how the much decried system of capitalism with all its ugliness always succeeds.

Move to Venezuela. People there are pretty equal now! You might even lose some weight!
8   NDrLoR   2018 Sep 25, 2:39pm  

jazz_music says
pursuit of cheaper labor, return on investments, shareholder valu
Sounds like a plan.
9   FortWayne   2018 Sep 25, 3:20pm  

Funny how Trump said “hire Americans “ and the left screamed “omg our diversity is under attack!!!”

P N Dr Lo R says
jazz_music says
pursuit of cheaper labor, return on investments, shareholder valu
Sounds like a plan.
10   FortWayne   2018 Sep 25, 3:36pm  

If Al Sharpton can’t make a living from screaming “racism”, there isn’t another job he can do.
11   Automan Empire   2018 Sep 25, 5:23pm  

CovfefeButDeadly says
Straight out of the Democrat playbook Rules for Radicals.


I've been familiar with that book for over 30 years, having lucked upon a hardcover copy for $1 while passing a yard sale as a tourist in San Francisco. It was relatively obscure until the Tea Party rose to prominence, around the time at least one right wing author reworked Rules for Radicals for modern right leaning activists. Suddenly, the name Saul Alinsky was spat out like a pejorative, and the book title used as an insult by association.

The book contains very powerful material about how large groups with no power can confront existing power structures effectively. It's very obvious that powerful, entrenched interests consider the book and its ideas dangerous to their self-interest, and hilarious to watch conservatives repeat the talking points pushed out by said interests about a book they've obviously never read.
12   Automan Empire   2018 Sep 25, 5:33pm  

Patrick says
the left needs to find witches to burn even when none exist


So... the people on The_Donald aren't actual trump supporters, but left wing activists saying hateful things about gays, mexicans, and others not like themselves to make Trump supporters look bad?

Nope... they're actual Trump supporters, and they really do think they're degenerate, subhuman etc. Boy, do they ever hate being called out on it, though!

So... do you REALLY think "the left" is making up issues out of whole cloth, or is this your own defense mechanism dismissing their concerns without even superficially considering them?
13   MisdemeanorRebel   2018 Sep 26, 12:34pm  

P N Dr Lo R says
https://outline.com/TXW6L8


Because in High School they didn't get invited to the Gang Rape Parties where the Punch was spiked with 'ludes.
14   NDrLoR   2018 Sep 26, 12:53pm  

Automan Empire says
So... do you REALLY think "the left" is making up issues out of whole cloth,
Yes, whatever works, doesn't matter. It's Saul--patron saint of losers--Alinsky in action.
15   CBOEtrader   2018 Sep 26, 1:13pm  

jazz_music says
... because the working people of this country matter and they shall not be relegated to poverty and death.


The working class agrees w you. Which is why Trump is in office. Also why the left calls Trump every word in the book when he says things like "America is run by Americans. We reject globalism". Also why the left loves Obama who in the same situation says things like "the average person is too small minded to govern themselves. In order to have globalism we must all give up sovereign rights."

Who do you think the working class will vote for?
16   komputodo   2018 Sep 26, 2:41pm  

jazz_music says
The love of money

It disables both eyes and ears, and makes men worse to deal with than a wild beast, allowing a man to consider neither conscience nor friendship nor fellowship nor salvation.

This love of money is the curse of an American, and for the sake of it men will sell honor and honesty, till we don't know whom to trust.


Go ahead, laugh. Hahaha


The love of money...It disables both eyes and ears, and makes people worse to deal with than a wild beast, allowing a person to consider neither conscience nor friendship nor fellowship nor salvation...This love of money is the curse of an American, and for the sake of it people will sell honor and honesty, till we don't know whom to trust.

fixed
17   clambo   2018 Sep 30, 8:55pm  

If you look at the really motivated liberal bleeding hearts, they often fall into the category of constantly upset about something.

I have a neighbor who is like this; however, I don't blame her for being unhappy. She is a widow, and before that her father passed away. Today she works out of her home and is a slave to a small business which barely supports her with a good lifestyle. I assume the husband didn't have life insurance.

Anyway, she's always negative but I sometimes enjoy her company since she is alone much of the time. I go eat lunch with her and she thanks me for my time. I don't mind her complaining but she is absolutely a liberal.

I've known several people like her; she has a difficult life and she's angry so she hates guys like Trump and others. She hates Brett Kavenaugh of course.

Santa Cruz is full of the unhappiest and craziest people who are also the most liberal around. It's almost amazing to me the self-loathing and low self esteem of some, and the cluelessness of the UCSC dimwit students.

I remember before Global Warming became later Climate Change, there was the "nuclear freeze" and before that the Sandinistas in El Salvador ; we had lots of "sandalistas"=people who went to El Salvador to help the revolution by picking coffee or something. We had Miss California pageant at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium shut down by feminists or lesbians protesting "Judge meat, not women!"

It's ever thus, now they are angry at the "mean whites who are racists and bigots" who want to stop the foreign invasion.
18   marcus   2018 Sep 30, 9:33pm  

Automan Empire says
Patrick says
the left needs to find witches to burn even when none exist


The right taught them everything they know.

After all, it was "the moral majority" and fundamentalist Christians with their virtue signaling that succeeded in taking government power away from the democrats, decades ago.
19   NDrLoR   2018 Sep 30, 9:35pm  

clambo says
"sandalistas"=people who went to El Salvador to help the revolution by picking coffee or something.
Before that it was trips to Cuba to help harvest the sugar cane. Diana Oughton, Billy Ayers' GF made one of those trips before she blew herself and two other bomb makers up in the New York townhouse as they fashioned a bomb to set off at a Naval Reserve dance that night. I'm sure they wanted to free Tibet as well.
20   marcus   2018 Sep 30, 9:38pm  

CBOEtrader says
Also why the left loves Obama who in the same situation says things like "the average person is too small minded to govern themselves. In order to have globalism we must all give up sovereign rights."


You really need to lay off the dishonest propaganda. It's basically the opposite of what Obama said. Do you have no pride whatsoever in telling the truth ?

Please do some research. Contrary to what Brietbart and a lot of people around here would tell you, some of the reality oriented sources of information on the internet really do make actual true information available. That is if you can handle the truth.

Newflash - There are right wing morons out there - or Russians - that love making doctored videos that they know the most gullible low bandwidth republitards will believe, becasue they really are THAT stupid. This is way different than the media, which simply quotes Trump.
21   marcus   2018 Sep 30, 9:42pm  

personal
22   marcus   2018 Sep 30, 9:54pm  

FortWayne says
Funny how Trump said “hire Americans “ and the left screamed “omg our diversity is under attack!!!

More outright fantasies and lies. The usual.
23   NDrLoR   2018 Oct 1, 7:45am  

ThreeBays says
income inequality
When have we not had income inequality?

ThreeBays says
high military spending
The main purpose of government.
24   NDrLoR   2018 Oct 1, 7:53am  

ThreeBays says
climate change
Environmentalism/Global Warming, call it what you like, it's the bandwagon on which the orphaned Marxists from the collapsed Soviet Union have been clambering for the past 25 years. We defeated communism on the national level, but we didn't eliminate the impulses of envy and resentment that animated it for 70 plus years. Those impulses live on in individuals who still believe the state is the highest source of human good and they intend to make it prevail one way or another.
25   Shaman   2018 Oct 1, 8:21am  

marcus says
After all, it was "the moral majority" and fundamentalist Christians with their virtue signaling that succeeded in taking government power away from the democrats, decades ago.
26   Goran_K   2018 Oct 1, 8:23am  

The leftist racism is on full public display.

One man is the primary catalyst (although the left has always been inherently racist and vile).

27   curious2   2018 Oct 1, 4:12pm  

marcus says
Dumbass.


Is that an attack or a confession?
28   CBOEtrader   2018 Oct 1, 5:05pm  

marcus says
You really need to lay off the dishonest propaganda. It's basically the opposite of what Obama said. Do you have no pride whatsoever in telling the truth ?


Ok go ahead and show us your pride in truth telling w the exact quote. Otherwise, I'll assume you lost any grasp of reality or facts when you went ad hom on me.

Dumbass.
29   marcus   2018 Oct 4, 6:15am  

CBOEtrader says
Ok go ahead and show us your pride in truth telling w the exact quote


Let me get this straight. Are you telling me you don't know how to fact check a doctored video that right wingers send each other ?

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/jun/23/chain-email/video-barack-obama-speech-circulating-internet-was/

CBOEtrader says
Dumbass.
30   lostand confused   2018 Oct 4, 6:48am  

Liberals have become a caricature of themselves-that si their problem-empty vessels make the most noise.

Please register to comment:

api   best comments   contact   latest images   memes   one year ago   random   suggestions