Denial is a River That Runs Through the Left
Progressives reshape reality to fit their ideology.
By Don Feder
What do the following have in common: tornadoes which wreaked havoc in the Midwest, the Smollett and Rittenhouse verdicts, the crime wave inundating our cities, chaos at the border and the highest inflation rate in 39 years? Each is relevant only if it serves the left’s worldview.
Biden says the twisters which devastated parts of four states are further evidence of what he calls the ‘climate crisis.” Tornadoes in the Midwest? What’s next, hurricanes in Louisiana, blizzards in North Dakota and a heat wave in July?
As her Kansas farmhouse was swept up in a dust cloud, Dorothy Gale was heard to remark: “Damn those Republicans for opposing the Green New Deal!”
Jussie Smollett concocted a hate crime story so preposterous that it strained credulity –white men in MAGA hats wandering around Chicago at 2 AM in the dead of winter looking for minorities to victimize.
But Biden, Harris and most of the left swallowed it to the last absurd detail. Last week, Smollett was convicted on five charges related to the hoax, including lying to the police.
When Kyle Rittenhouse was charged with fatally shooting two people and wounding a third in the course of a 2020 riot in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Biden said it was because of Trump’s alleged refusal to “disavow white supremacy.” At trial, Rittenhouse was found not guilty on all charges.
The difference? Rittenhouse was a white man with a gun protecting property and himself during a BLM riot, so he had to be guilty. Smollett is a gay, black actor, (and a friend of Maxine Waters), so his allegations had to be believable, no matter how fantastic.
A few days ago, Larry Krasner, Philadelphia’s radical DA said there’s no crime crisis in the City of Cain and Able — no crisis of “crime,” “lawlessness” or “violence.”
With three weeks left in the year, as of December 7, Philly had 523 murders, exceeding its previous record of 500 in 1990 and surpassing New York City (approximately six times larger) with 447 on the same date.
Krasner has become a hero of the criminal class for getting them back on the streets almost as soon as they’re booked.
As 2021 comes to a close, 12 big cities (all with Democrat mayors and lefty prosecutors) had record murder rates.
The lame-stream media either pays no notice of this or finds a way to rationalize it. To acknowledge the bloodbath would call into question liberal crime policies, like allowing racial mobs free rein, defunding the police, emptying the jails, reducing many felonies to misdemeanors, and eliminating cash bail.
To evade reality, the excuses become increasingly more implausible.
At a press conference, White House mouthpiece Jen Psaki (a stalwart root-causer) attributed the smash-and-grab crime wave to hit retail districts coast to coast to COVID-19. “Oh, I’m so afraid of contracting the dread virus that I’ll rush right over to Nordstrom and grab a lot of high-end stuff.”
For progressives, there’s no crime wave in the cities and no crisis on the border.
In the fiscal year that ended on September 30, 1.7 million “migrants” were stopped, nearly quadruple the number last year, when you-know who was in office. The number of deportations has fallen to record lows.
Where could the blame lie? Construction of the border wall stopped, bringing back catch-and-release, ending remain-in-Mexico (only recently reinstated by the courts) are a few of the possibilities.
The media will have none of it. A headline in the October 22 New York Times revealed the woke truth – “Illegal Border Crossings, Driven by Pandemic and Natural Disasters, Soar to Record High.” Remember, the same pandemic that sends Nicaraguans to the Rio Grande causes criminal gangs to loot Louis Vuitton stores.
Soaring inflation is generally ignored.
The Consumer Price Index rose 6.8% in November, approaching the previous monthly record of 7.1% in June 1982. The year will close with inflation at 39-year high – energy up 33%, gas 58% and beef up 20%.
But Washington has found a way to fight what isn’t happening (and, if it is, it’s all Trump’s fault anyway) – spend trillions more and build the mountain of debt even higher. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that Good Time Joe’s Build Back Redder Plan will add $3 trillion to the National Debt over the next 10 years.
Better buy hamburger meat while you can still afford it.
The supply chain crisis couldn’t be connected to the rising price of gas or people being paid not to work, could it?
Indeed not. MSNBC host Tiffany Cross has a novel if bizarre explanation: It’s because the trucking industry is “populated by a lot of white men over the age of 55,” a group of people that “overwhelmingly voted for Trump.” Cross babbles on, “Some people have talked about aggressive truck drivers cutting them off and (oh, no) not being helpful.” I think Biden has found his next Secretary of Transportation.
Progressives really believe that they can wish away reality. All they have to do is shut their eyes tightly, click their heels together three times, and keep repeating: “There’s no place like Venezuela.”
Denial is a river – wide and deep (with a fast-moving current) — that runs through the left.