It is interesting to scan the comments on the latest column
by Xerxes, my leftist columnist friend. They are a window into the leftward
mind.
The first reader writes, most revealingly, “I cannot see any
MAGA Republicans subscribing to your columns.”
This shows us that leftists only read opinions and columns
with which they agree.
This means they can be easily led about by the nose. They do
not want the truth, they want whatever comforts them. They risk being easily
blindsided.
I am not a “MAGA Republican”: I do not live in the USA. But
I read Xerxes’s columns precisely because I disagree. This is typical of those
on the right; you need to know both sides of an argument.
Next comment:
“I think Biden will go down in history as one of the most
successful Presidents ever. …. He brought in policies that people liked, like
increases in health care and forgiveness of student loans. He got things done.”
It does not occur to this commentator that these policies
could have been disliked by anyone. Another artifact of selective reading. After
all, it’s free money. Right?
Instead, of course, it has to be taken in taxes. The
government takes it from one pocket, deducts some of it as operating expenses,
and returns the remainder to the other pocket.
Apparently the left does not grasp or want to grasp this
simple dynamic. “Free money” is more comforting.
“I think
that most Americans were tired of the drama and divisiveness of Politics. They voted for quiet efficiency and national
unity instead. I think they’re telling their politicians to scrap the divisive
rhetoric and get on with the job they were elected to do.”
The shambolic evacuation of Afghanistan does not look like quiet
efficiency. Neither does a government that boosts spending to unprecedented levels
during a supply chain crisis, and denies that inflation is possible. Wars, fuel
shortages, and recessions do not seem quiet or efficient.
As for national unity, it is not much helped along by
pitting ethnic group against ethnic group, gender against gender, class against
class; or by declaring those who support your chief opponent a “threat to
democracy.”
Spending endless time and resources on impeachments and collusion
investigations against your opponent, all of which turn out to be based on
false accounts and trivialities, instead of spending that time on legislation,
does not look like getting on with the job they were elected to do.
Another reader writes: “I don’t understand why so many on
this planet continue in awe of a nation that is so destructive, that pretends
to have other nations’ well-being at heart when it is the exact opposite. We need to realize that, even without the
U.S., the world continues to rotate.”
This is akin to the leftist drive to “Defund the police.”
For the sake of world peace and prosperity, it is a good thing for one power to
be dominant, for the same reason it is better to have any government than
anarchy. A dominant power enforces peace: Pax Romana, Pax Britannica, Pax
Americana.
Given one dominant power, there is no luckier choice than the
USA: a nation uniquely founded on the principles of human rights and human
equality. With no modern territorial ambitions.
As Leonard Cohen observed, “You’re not going to like what
comes after America.”
Another respondent wrote of Trump’s making another run, “Trump
isn’t interested in anything except himself. Any political operative would seek
other’s opinions before announcing a run for office.”
This assumes that Trump asked no one for their opinion
before declaring. Why?
Another artifact of the leftist refusal to read anything
they disagree with. This writer presumes that “everybody” was saying Trump should
not run. Those blinders never come off.