Jim Geraghty of National Review Online explores responses to Donald Trump’s presidential election among those on the political left.
It’s not often that “go die in a fire” is given as an option in an ultimatum, but Professor David Faris, writing in The Week, has urged congressional Democrats to grab a torch:
The Democratic negotiating position on all issues put before them while they are in the House and Senate minority for at least the next two years should be very simple: You will give us Merrick Garland or you may go die in a fire.
Faris’s piece, already rocketing around Facebook, is entitled, “It’s Time for Democrats to Fight Dirty.” There is nothing more reassuring to the members of a political party that just lost an election than the notion that they lost because they were “too nice,” or because the electorate couldn’t grasp the nuances of their message. After 2008 and 2012, some Republicans convinced themselves that they had lost not because of any real flaws in their agenda, message, or candidates, but because they were too high-minded and not tough enough. Democrats told themselves the same after losing in 2004, 2010, and 2014.
The aching pain of defeat is somewhat alleviated by the stretching required to pat oneself on the back. But what are the implications of this particular self-delusion? That it’s time for Democrats to “fight dirty”? It’s hard to imagine fighting dirtier than 2016’s. Donald Trump won while being relentlessly attacked with negative media coverage of his every lie and scandal. He received a variation of every criticism ever thrown at a Republican presidential candidate — the alleged nuclear warmongering of Goldwater, the alleged ignorance of George W. Bush, the alleged erratic temperament of John McCain, the alleged plutocratic greed of Mitt Romney — and was elected anyway.
It’s fascinating to see what infuriated partisans define as “fighting dirty.” Apparently the entire Trump victory can be attributed to this moral flexibility; it couldn’t possibly reflect President Obama’s record, a national appetite for change, or Hillary Clinton’s agenda, character, and record.
Faris’s piece is a fantastic example of the sputtering rage of the Left at this moment, convinced that Obama’s presidency was a phenomenal success, that no Republican opposition to his agenda was ever legitimate, and that an electorate that was so wise and clear-headed in 2008 and 2012 has suddenly become easily fooled.