The Consequences of Willful Blindness

Mo

A healthy segment of the Republican population has spent the last year or so watching in horror as Trump and Trumpism took over the party. With so many qualified, truly conservative candidates from which to choose, how did we end up with Trump? Trump is a carnival-barking con-man with no discernible conservative principles or instincts. He’s also an awful person who publicly mocks and humiliates veterans, the disabled, women, and anyone else who refuses to worship him. He’s an embarrassment, and it’s been difficult to accept him as the head of the Republican party.

Throughout the primaries, Republicans have done quite a bit of soul searching, looking for explanations for what led to this. It’s quite clear that a significant chunk of the electorate on the Right is deeply dissatisfied with the politics of the past decade or two. We’ve been demonized, mischaracterized, repeatedly lied to, and marginalized by Democrats and the press. Tea partiers mounting polite and peaceful protests were painted as mouth-breathing racists simply for demanding adherence to the Constitution and scaling back the scope of the Federal government. Objecting to Obama’s disastrous policies was deemed per se “racist” without regard to the merits of the objections. Multiple scandals—IRS targeting, Fast and Furious, Benghazi, Iran ransom payments, Clinton’s emails—have been either ignored or excused by Democrats and the press. Moreover, whether fair or not, Republican politicians were seen as too passive, and sometimes even complicit, in the face of this onslaught. Trump is partly a result of all this.

Now, it’s the Democrats' turn to come to grips with Trumpism and, in addition, how awful their own candidate was. Perhaps some self-reflection and soul-searching are in order? Maybe they could take a look at the significant part they played in this mess? Nah. Instead, we get protests over a valid election. We get politicians actively refusing to accept the results of the election. CEOs emailing their employees to declare that employees who support Trump or Trumpism need to resign. People purging their friends and family on Facebook or in real life simply because of a Trump vote. People wearing safety pins as a symbol of a “safe space” to talk about your Trump feelings.
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Those of us who were NeverTrump or reluctant Trump voters could be understanding and sympathetic, right? After all, we’ve already been through it and had time to process it. Nope. The problems have been there all along for Democrats to see. They refuse to. Instead, they continue to demonize the Right, the Red states, and “flyover country” as a bunch of dumb hicks, and call to “take back” the country that doesn’t just belong to them. They keep doing the same thing that contributed to the election of Trump. It’s willful blindness and, God-willing, they will continue to pay at the ballot box for it.