Home » The source of Democrat/leftist rage is the demand for power

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The source of Democrat/leftist rage is the <i>demand</i> for power — 33 Comments

  1. It is often argued that it is compassion for the less privileged and an idealistic longing for justice and equality which animates leftists, but I would agree that is primarily a sense of entitlement (because they perceive themselves to be more qualified as well as more ethical), not to mention the desire to exercise control and to enjoy privilege while appearing to be selfless and morally superior. The young, mostly animated by passion and by ignorance of history and human nature, are easily manipulated into moral crusades and into the support of persons and causes about which they know little.

  2. Frankly and realistically–while we were far too complacent, none of us was paying enough attention, being anywhere near alarmed enough, or anywhere near proactive enough in militant defense of traditional society and culture–the Left has been able to wage a very patient and skillful campaign of subversion and replacement that has succeeded in those on the Left gaining a monopoly on so many of the positions of power in our society and culture that they have won the battle for dominance and control over virtually every important aspect of that society and culture.

    I wish I could be optimistic but, although more and more people are waking up to this situation–absent some apocalyptic event which comprehensively rearranges the landscape of institutions, influence, power, and control–it’s just too late to do anything meaningful to reverse this Leftist dominance, which is closing in on total control.

  3. j e…”the desire to exercise control and to enjoy privilege while appearing to be selfless and morally superior”…also, I think, the ability to *denounce people outside the in-group*, while feeling justified in so doing. The writer Milan Kundera has used the term ‘circle dancing’, quoted and explicated here by Neo in recent posts.

    See my post Conformity, Cruelty, and Political Activism for thoughts on the psychology of all this:

    https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/57600.html

  4. If you study Congressional history in terms of party control (see this important chart)…. I put that chart up years ago here… glad someone took a look at it… How can republicans be responsible for the ills if they had no power to implement the ills? which was my point on looking at that chart…

    But as you asked me over a decade ago…
    I said we were going to lose… it was only a matter of time…
    after all, that march has not been by itself and natural, there are two other countries whose agencies have taken advantage of our open side and have placed operatives here and expanded them and like willi munzenberg used our own monies to fund them… we made the rope which we are being hanged… the USSR was not a change, but a reorganization and acceleration of the change in the US by removing the defining opposite… without that opposite we no longer had a measure of how far in any direction we moved… but this is all well known, except among the average people who have not read the NY times article on how the CIA started the conspiracy theory trope as a way to neuter any ideas of things not being perfectly neutral.

    no real loss..
    no one cares enough to keep what they dont value enough to care

  5. Oh please, the left has always been lying SOBs. They lust for a totalitarian state where they can send millions to gulags and execute them after they no longer can provide labor. Bottom line, they want you dead. Act accordingly.

  6. I don’t think they are lying SOBs. I think they actually believe what they are saying. The leftists believe they are intellectually and morally superior people so if you disagree with them you are obviously stupid and evil, Killing you would be virtuous.

  7. Earlier this year, my wife and I took the on-line course from Hillsdale called “Constitution 101: The Meaning and History of the Constitution”. It’s a 12 lesson course and is offered free to whomever wants to take it. We found it wonderfully revealing, and made sense of the entire Progressive Movement. Back in my University days, I majored in History and took a class titled “Introduction to the Philosophy and Discipline of History” (mandatory for all History Majors). I remember studying how the understanding and study of history has changed over the centuries–beginning with the ancients who believed that history was cyclical (nations/civilizations grew, committed hubris, then Nemesis stepped in to cut them down to size, and it repeats), to the Judeo/Christian understanding that history was linear (history has a beginning, is progressing along, and will have an end), to the modern understanding of Progress (mankind is slowly pulling himself up from savage beginnings and each iteration is better/higher than the previous). Understanding how Progressives think lets us understand why they believe they are the true heirs to government, and it also explains why they don’t learn anything from history. They actually believe even though none of their ideas has ever worked, it will this time because they are higher and better than all who tried and failed earlier. They refuse to believe that mankind is a flawed creature and they are incapable of believing that Marxism will always end up with the gulag, even though it always has. If you have the time and inclination, I’d suggest anyone who wants this information sign up for the Hillsdale Collage free on-line course.

    Waidmann

    https://online.hillsdale.edu/#home

  8. Neo, I am very glad you posted this.

    I have for some time been trying to post alerts that Progressives have been on the march since the days of Woodrow Wilson. That is a century, 100 years, of winning their ways. “Living Constitution” and “government by experts” were in play back then, in Woodrow’s time. The turning point was passage of the Amendment that allowed the income tax, sold as being applicable only to a handful of robber barons like Rockefeller. That financed the creation of the Beltway Monster as it is today, with Federal expenditures now approximating 20% of GDP and rising. Rising, but with trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see. And 7, or is it 8, of the 10 wealthiest counties in America being D.C. suburbs.

    The inexorable leftward shift among SCOTUS judges once empaneled is something I posted here, I believe, a few days ago. (I do comment elsewhere!) SCOTUS creates “rights” based on emanations and penumbras, as in Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965, which opened the door to the non-Constitutional idea of privacy as a right and speeded deterioration of US society in so many ways.

    As far as SCOTUS is concerned, it is a tyranny, a handful who increasingly dominate 330 million Americans, we who have no recourse when truly terrible decisions are “handed down”. All power corrupts!

  9. Ray,

    No, the foam at the top know they are lying (and they know better). Their lacky dogs just swallow it hook line sinker. Cultural revolution deja vu.

  10. If you look at the record, President Trump has identified and recognized, faced–head on–and taken bold action against more of the Agenda and programs of the Left than any President in U.S. History; he does not care if some people–Democrat or Republican–don’t like his “manner,” or what he has done, or criticize him, and his is not afraid to act; he does what he thinks he needs to do to protect and defend the Republic.

    Looking at the almost universal dominance of the Left in our society and culture, it will take more than one Trump administration of even eight years in length to make any significant headway at all against it.

    Trump, as I think everyone would agree (for very different reasons), is one of a kind, unique, and will not soon—if ever–be duplicated.

    So, the enormous challenge for Conservatives—if they want to have any chance at all of continuing to reverse the tide of Leftist dominance–is to come up with a line of of electable successor candidates who will have the same steely determination to defend the Republic, the same kind of fearless, combative attitude, willingness to defy convention, and to take decisive and often unpopular action.

    And it seems to me that–particularly in this day and age–such people are in extremely short supply.

  11. Everything is turned into proof that Republicans are evil.

    I read some article in a journal for non-profits that said that wealthy Republican voting counties donate much more money to charity than wealthy Democrat voting counties. But that’s can’t be taken as a sign that the Republicans are more generous, or more charitable. Because the Democrats vote for higher taxes that fund public programs that help the poor. (Of course, nothing in it addressed whether those wealthy Democrats found all sorts of tax dodges to avoid paying those higher taxes…)

  12. I’d like to think that those of us who have always paid attention and kept our eyes open have long known what makes the left tick. If I felt that I had an infallible blueprint for society that would make it better (in my definition of “better”), I too would consider anyone who didn’t see it my way to be an obstacle to achieving an important end. When this “end” is about matters of life and death, the obstacle needs to be swept away. The distinction to be made here is that most of us (?) realize that the “better society” blueprint is a pipe dream that will not be accomplished by socialism, so we are not leftists.

  13. They strange thing about all of this is the Republicans with the Grand Army of the Republic, GAR ran this nation for a number of years after the civil war and they were the Northern States, then things started to shift and the Democrats who had a huge conservative base in the South gained some control and they were always for segregation, I grew up in a Southern State and until the mid 1960’s they would vote for conservative Republicans in national but all of the local offices were held by Democrats and if you were not a Democrat your votes in the primaries meant nothing. LBJ changed a lot of that when he decided to bring the black vote into the power of the Democrats, remember MLK was a Republican.

  14. “the left thinks it is entitled to run things and that any impediment to that goal is illegitimate.” neo

    They can ‘think’ what they wish, when they act to impose their thinking upon others is when it gets serious.

    “I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations. Oppressors can tyrannize only when they achieve a standing army, an enslaved press, and a disarmed populace.” ~James Madison

    In order to secure total power, the left must have the backing of the military which can only be achieved under a democrat President. Upon whether the military would follow unlawful orders might well hinge the future of liberty.

    The left long ago secured an enslaved press but at present have failed to disarm the populace. Whenever the left regains the Presidency, disarming the populace will be the necessary next step. Which is why that attempt is the trigger wire for Civil War.

    “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” closing phrase of the 2nd amendment to the US Constitution

    That phrase is the founding father’s last bulwark against tyranny. Its erasure would ensure tyranny. Placing before us a binary choice; 1984 or 1776.

    Fools never see their folly until it is far too late.

  15. When I was a kid trying to follow a layman’s intro to relativity, I read one of those thought experiments: You are in Spaceship A at rest and you see Spaceship B going past you to the right at 100 mph. But how would you know that it’s not Spaceship B at rest and you are blasting to the left at 100 mph? That blew my young brain.

    Relativity aside, that seems to me the problem with the Left these days. They are in Spaceship A hurtling to the left. Meanwhile the Right is Spaceship B at rest, but to A it looks like B is going hard to the right.

    Or something like that.

  16. Here’s an example from the current issue of “Atlantic” about the Supreme Court:
    ____________________________________________

    And while Roberts, like Kennedy before him, has occasionally voted with the liberals—such as in upholding the Affordable Care Act and ruling against the Trump administration in several important cases last term—the Court’s march to the right continues.

    If the Supreme Court has proved itself, time and time again, to be unwilling or incapable of advancing the liberal conception of justice, why have so many liberals, for so long, let themselves be victims of judicial gaslighting?

    Fundamentally, though, many liberals loved the Supreme Court for the same reason they loved the law: a vision of universal harmony and justice brought about by reason and persuasion, not the brute forces of political power.

    The clearest sign that many liberals are giving up their remaining idealism about the Court is that, for many moderate Democrats (not to mention those on the progressive left), court packing has gone from a fringe theory to not just a viable option but a moral imperative if Joe Biden wins in November and the Democrats take back the Senate.

    –“The Great Liberal Reckoning Has Begun”
    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/the-great-liberal-reckoning-has-begun/ar-BB19hX2E

    ____________________________________________

    Note the presumption that the normal and proper direction of the Court is to the left and anything else is a perversion of justice and a triumph of power politics.

  17. “ Everything is turned into proof that Republicans are evil.”

    Heh. Funny but not funny. That pretty much sums up the propaganda situation.

  18. This does appear to more and more like the Weimar Republic. The fear is that at some point there will be a “Freikorps” reaction. At that point all bets are off. Note that the anarchists are moving into white AFFLUENT areas not red neck areas. Ie. areas that are soft on guns. The Soccer moms will demand safety. There will be a hard shift in attitude against BLM and it’s ilk if a soccer mom is killed or injured in a riot in her neighborhood.

    The trouble is for the funders and heads of BLM movement is that the genie is out of the bottle. They can’t tell the people to stop and go home as they have a taste of street power and it is intoxicating. Also criminal elements have joined in.
    They can’t do a kristallnacht to get it under control.

    If the police is powerless or overwhelmed how can they get control of the streets? Barr naming Portland, Seattle and New York as cities in anarchy is a first step to get control. But it takes political will at the local/state level. You know that riots will not happen in Detroit or Florida because those leaders will not have or condone it.

    Note also that the violence is happening in Democratically controlled cities. This is destroying their base of power. Think people will come out and vote when their livelihood and homes are destroyed? That city workers who are furloughed be available to “whip” the vote? I think not. I really think that New York state is in play as NYC rhythms of life is disrupted and the rest of the state is seeing what is going on there and in Rochester NY. There is movement out there that is not being picked up by the national media and parties. I sense out there that normal people are fed up with this nonsense when I talk to people in other parts of the country.

    So when this abates how do we make sure it doesn’t happen again. We have to go after the enablers and funders of this anarchy. I think that Trump and other governors will go after them after the election. But I would suggest a lawfare strategy. In other words pass legislation to allow the citizens and government units to go after the funders of this madness. Florida is doing this and it will be interesting what transpires. Trial lawyers will be salivating at this pot of gold because the sums will be huge. The precedent has been set with the RICO laws used against the Mafia.

    Then have the SEC sanction company executives bonuses that funded anarchy. That will get their attention. In summary, make it painful for the enablers, virtue signalers and funders

    We have to re-examine the concept of sovereign immunity. If Minneapolis or Seattle would have to pay a business to rebuild out of their operating budgets they would very reluctant to allow these riots to get out of hand. But then again the citizens voted for it.

    Make your stand and vote November 3rd. That is a tangible step that you can perform against this lunacy.

  19. The crux of their attitude is _entitlement_. The Democrats are entitled to the black vote. They’re entitled to the Hispanic vote. They’re entitled to the Presidency. They’re entitled to have Hillary win the 2016 election. They’re entitled to lead the nation over that great leftist cliff. They’re entitled to shut down cities and states for COVID, or to allow people to loot and burn with no consequences.

    Oh, and something that really angers me — Democrats are entitled to set the lexicon for all debate about America’s past and future. The New York Times can tell you that the country traces its roots to the arrival of African slaves in 1619, and historians can go pound sand. Now they’re having to back away from the initial claims in the 1619 project, which might just be where this is all headed: having set the agenda by ignoring real experts, they might just be forced to walk a bunch of their craziness back. Or their craziness about COVID, Or about systemic racism. And they can even tell us what we are permitted to debate and what we cannot.

    Just how long will serious people accept the idea that the left wing is entitled to ignore real experts and tell us how to think? I am hopeful that wiser heads will prevail in the coming year or two and we’ll see the pendulum begin to swing back on all this. I can dream, can’t I?

  20. As Neo has pointed out, this shift to socialism has been underway a looong time. If we are lucky, we will end up as Europe; if unlucky, As Venezuela, ruled by a corrupt oppressive minority whose sense of justice is their way or the highway.

    See two Louisville cops shot tonight after the black community there “disapproved” of the indictment announcement of only one cop in the Breonna shooting, and they are rioting, which means looting and arson. The announcer of the indictment was that rara avis, a reasoning and educated black state attorney general. The Kaepernicks and LeBrons, the organizations NBA and NFL–very peopled with blacks– are all endorsing BLM, are all inciting mass unrest, along with Democratic mayors of our biggest cities.
    Of course this all ties in with Democratic “rage”.

  21. Fox News reports “LeBron James on Breonna Taylor case: ‘The most DISRESPECTED person on earth is THE BLACK WOMAN!’ ”
    Hey LeBron, its is black MEN that do the disrespecting. Look in the mirror! Take the beam out of thine own eye so you can see the splinter in mine.

  22. Cicero (11:56 pm) said: “Hey LeBron, it is black MEN that do the disrespecting.”

    *HEAR*, *HEAR* !!

  23. The rage will not only continue but it will ramp up.

    The hate, the violence, the vitriol and the destruction will increase IN DIRECT PROPORTION to what the Obama administration and the Democratic Party have to hide.

    And IN DIRECT PROPORTION to their fears: Biden’s incompetence, Harris’s sheer inappriateness, the upcoming election loss, Judge Ginsberg’s replacement, the “unveiling” of Obama’s—and his adminitration’s—UTTER CORRUPTION (IOW the Durham report), the DNC’s UTTER CORRUPTION, the CLINTONs’ UTTER CORRUPTION.

    Destroying the country is ALL THEY HAVE LEFT to protect themselves and to “persuade” (i.e., EXTORT) the electorate to vote them in.

    But it’s not only a case of extortion. If they can manage to make things so bad that Trump will have to intervene with federal defense of the citizenry and its property, then they will most certainly go at him no-holds-barred with charges of unconstitutional behavior, despotism, opposing freedom of speech—TYRANNY!!!—which has been their wet dream all along.

    They will also—obviously, nothing new here—ride the voting-by-mail tiger for all it’s worth.

    They have nothing to offer except destruction.
    And so destruction is what will be served up.

    Encouraged and fortified by having with their MSCM allies sown HATRED so masterfully and so successfully thus far, they perfectly understand that the obvious next step—sowing CHAOS and violence—is the ONLY WAY they will have a chance come November.

    The fear is that it just might work.

    The latest “scandal” that most of knew about even if it was uncertain that it see the light—and disinfectant—of day…
    Yes, the beloved son, St. Hunter (but note the “interesting” Kerry angle):
    https://www.nationalreview.com/news/senate-report-details-hunter-bidens-extensive-foreign-business-dealings-and-obama-officials-efforts-to-distance-themselves-from-it/

  24. https://oll.libertyfund.org/quotes/187

    The system of banking we have both equally and ever reprobated. I contemplate it as a blot left in all our constitutions, which, if not covered, will end in their destruction, which is already hit by the gamblers in corruption, and is sweeping away in its progress the fortunes and morals of our citizens. Funding I consider as limited, rightfully, to a redemption of the debt within the lives of a majority of the generation contracting it; every generation coming equally, by the laws of the Creator of the world, to the free possession of the earth he made for their subsistence, unincumbered by their predecessors, who, like them, were but tenants for life… And I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.

    The real reason why Soros and BLM/Antifa are unchallenged. Also why Trump had problems with Fed Reserve, which is not under federal control nor is it a reserve. It is a private banking cartel.

    The greatest organized crime syndicate are seen in the banking cartels. People find this hard to believe, just like they thought the Vatican had only a minor child problem.

  25. Leftists are motivated by two central themes; attainment of absolute power and contempt for the average person.
    There has never been any leftist regime that has striven to improve the lot of the common person. In fact, every leftist regime has, on average, worsened the living conditions of the citizenry (while improving the wealth and living conditions of the ruling elites).
    The only reason this has occurred is because the leftist leaders simply do not care about people; they hate them. They consider average folks to be untermensch, subhuman, refuse, and accordingly, treat them as such.

    In their pursuit of power, leftists will resort to mass murder, gulags, torture, whatever, to maintain their power.
    Frankly, they want most folks dead.

    Just listen to Bernie Sanders – “waiting in line for food is good;” that what his response when asked about folks in communist nations always having to wait in line for, literally, scraps of food.
    AOC – worked her magic to ensure that Amazon would not be permitted to open up a branch in Long Island City, NY and employ hundreds or thousands of people.

    And these two communist scum have never had to wait in interminable lines for scraps of food and, for the most part, are living off the taxpayer.
    Communists POS like Sanders, AOC, Pelosi, et. al.., EXPECT and DEMAND to live off the sweat of the citizenry; no different than Royalty of Olde in Europe or like the Castro brothers or the former USSR leaders, etc.

    A telling remark was made by Molotov, one of Stalin’s key advisors and signatory to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (more famously known as the Hitler -Stalin Pact).
    Years after he retired he admitted that there were “excesses” during the Stalinist era.
    Really?
    I guess if 20 to 50 million exterminated by Stalin is an “excess, ” than Hitler’s 12 million victims was just a small bureaucratic error; a decimal place was incorrectly placed in determining how many should be executed.

    ANTIFA , BLM, Sanders, AOC, Pelosi, Obama, Schumer, Harris, etc., are fully aware of the history of leftist regimes.
    That they all support this form of govt., – a tyranny, a govt. of, by and for the ruling elites; a nation whose citizens will be slaves of the ruling elites – tells you everything you need to know what they think of the citizenry and what they have planned if they take power.

    If they should ever take power, let’s hope that tens of thousands of armed citizens assault Washington DC and…….. well, ….. no need to say it; you know, eliminate once and for all the troublemakers.

  26. Yammer:

    The Federal Reserve is a bigger crime syndicate than the Roman Catholic church? (Neither) That is a bridge too far even for you. Keep the comedy coming. 😉

  27. “If you look at the course of 20th Century American history, you can see some back and forth but also a general overall movement ever leftward . . . .” [Neo]

    In his essay at American Greatness (“Breaking the Administrative state”)
    Ned Ryun goes back one hundred years to Woodrow Wilson:

    Read the writings of Woodrow Wilson to understand the Progressive ideal. It is this: to have a massive bureaucracy, an administrative state, filled with unelected, educated elites who would help accelerate “progress” in America.

    [snip]

    The problem with the administrative state approach is that eventually a large and powerful bureaucracy, with little real oversight from elected officials, and no electoral accountability by virtue of which the American people can remove them, thinks that it is in charge. It thinks that it decides all important questions that it can wield its power however it damn well pleases. And isn’t that the case in practice even though they never legitimately overturned the Constitution’s assertion of the sovereignty of the people?

    This is the great tension that has exploded to the surface in the last four years when one Donald J. Trump showed up in D.C. in 2017 saying, essentially, “I’m the duly-elected president of the United States, by the means laid out in the Constitution. I make the decisions about foreign and domestic policy inside of my administration and how the laws will be carried out.”

    In response, the administrative state actors said: ‘We don’t think so. We think we’re the ones who should make those decisions.’

    or, as Neo wrote above: “It’s that the left thinks it is entitled to run things and that any impediment to that goal is illegitimate.”

    The link:

    https://amgreatness.com/2020/09/23/breaking-the-administrative-state-key-to-a-successful-second-term/

  28. Throughout history, there are many stories of the spoiled rich kids. Who think they are better than others because they have more stuff. Who feel entitled to stuff, because they want it – and so often get so much. (Almost?) Always more than average. Often the kids of royalty or other rich parent. My dad’s richer than your dad …

    Riots by poor folk, opportunistically grabbing stuff in their looting orgy, is understandable but still bad. And most looters would agree it’s generally bad, but they think they’ll get away with it this time, and others are doing it – so they don’t want to be suckers.

    But riots by spoiled rich kids?
    Life is unfair – wahhhh!
    WE DEMAND SOCIAL JUSTICE!

    So we can riot.
    Ain’t we moral? More moral than any who don’t riot.
    Moral superiority.

    Most of the rioters are doing virtue signaling to demand recognition as morally superior. Not power for themselves, but moral superiority.

    They know they, the rioters, will mostly not get power. They support (weasel-) politicians who claim to support SJ & SJW actions. Their support for Dem weasels is, for themselves, mostly about moral superiority. The power goes to weasel leaders.

    (Reminds me to visit their site: http://www.watcherofweasels.org/ )

    The weasel Dem leaders are mostly faking the outrage, tho with so much practice wearing the rage mask, maybe underneath they’ve really actually become rage crazed. The (mostly-) college educated enraged Dem supporters are competing for moral superiority thru rage – the ones showing the most outrage are the most superior.

    There’s always competition. Even in showing anti-competition outrage.

  29. Thanks, neo and commenters. The current situation, with mobs rioting with impunity, is plain disgusting.

  30. “Relativity aside, that seems to me the problem with the Left these days. They are in Spaceship A hurtling to the left. Meanwhile the Right is Spaceship B at rest, but to A it looks like B is going hard to the right.” – huxley

    And they are watching different movies too.

  31. In the context of our situation here in the U.S. today–and the thoughts, intimations, and suspicions which I believe are in the backs of a lot of our minds today, things that haunt us–I find this analysis/diagnosis by Victor David Hanson, titled, “Rome’s Fall: Continuation or a New Dark Age,” extremely relevant, and very thought provoking.

    See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDtkyOew_s8

  32. P.S.–VDH finds that there were a number of complex and interrelated causes, but one of the key changes that VDH sees as ultimately being responsible for Rome’s Fall is the decline of the yoeman farmers who were the backbone of the Republic, of public life, and the Legions, and whose ethic had suffused Republican Rome.

    These yoemen flocked to Rome, where the jobs they might have gotten there were filled, instead, by the massive influxes of foreign slaves.

    Increasingly these yeomen ceased to participate in public life, and in the Legions, as they were gradually replaced in the Legions by foreign mercenaries.

    Thus, these disenfranchised and unemployed yoeman often had to be fed and entertained by government provided “bread and circuses” and, meanwhile, there was an extremely consequential shift from a Roman society focused on production to one focused on consumption.

    In additionagricultural production changed from small yoeman owned and operated plots to large farmes owned by absentee landlords, run by an overseer, and usually staffed by slaves which focused not on producing efficient grains, but on producing meat–much more inefficient cattle–horses and in particular cows.

    We too–at our Founding–were a predominantly agricultural society and country whose yoemen’s ideals were the animating ideals of our Revolution and the Formation of our country and we, too, have shifted from production to consumption.

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