Sunday, February 16, 2025

Opinions Are Like Assholes

 

This isn’t what I thought my first blog post would be about. The insane clown posse running the new administration is trying to take a hammer to the liberal consensus of the 20th century, endangering people’s lives without care, and there is an almost infinite supply of topics to rail against, but I want to level my first broadside against my allies.

I was hanging out with half a dozen fellow Ultimate players yesterday during a pickup game, and the talk turned to politics (I lie, it never left politics, this is Washington DC). We agreed that it is was likely nobody in our pickup group was a Trump supporter, and we all hated what was happening. Paul, a player I don’t know well, then told us, with heat, that the Democrats screwed up the election. The Democrats should have dumped Biden in the primary season, should have arranged a snap convention after Biden dropped out, and made a huge a mistake by backing trans rights and using “pronouns.” The only people expressing an opinion on his opinion agreed, except me (but nobody (literally) listened to me).

I object on a factual basis to the first two points of his thesis, but that’s not the reason for this post.

The Democrats are a big tent party. Their strengths and shortcomings are a product of the coalition of disparate interests, none with sufficient political clout to advance their goals (an overstatement, but bear with me). If a guiding philosophy comes out of this, it seems to me that it should be this: Democrats will work to protect and support the disadvantaged. I think this ought to work because many Americans end up disadvantaged by our system at one point or another in their lives, whether they realize it or not, and 90+ years of mostly Democratic lawmaking has helped make our lives more secure.

This is why I am enraged, incandescent, that such a large share of election post-mortems has focused on exactly who the Democrats should have thrown under the bus to secure a victory. If only they had admitted how awful trans people are (my sister is trans) they would have won easily. Maybe to be sure they needed to agree that all illegal immigrants should be deported. And nobody wants unqualified women and minorities getting jobs ahead of white males.

It is trivial to carve out a minority in the Democratic coalition with which a majority is uncomfortable. What’s left when they finish jettisoning undesirables?[i]

If you find it easy to look at a group and say, “I don’t want to fight for them,” you’re on the road to joining the fascist program. And somebody might be looking at your group.

 

 



[i] Even though none of our three readers will do this, I’m going to go ahead and respond to the wiseass who comments “what about child molesters? Should the Democrats support NAMBLA?” My response is go fuck yourself.

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