I'm savoring a quote that's been kicking around for a while
but I only came across lately, reputedly attributed to Robert Frost:
A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a
quarrel.
I'm a liberal, but far from that kind of liberal.
Some liberals I know think we weren't kind enough,
respectful enough to the white working class (its shattered remains), the rural
population, whatever, whomever, wherever, and that's why we lost.
Let me suggest, on the other hand, that those who propose
this are megalomaniacal enough to think it's all on us, that if we'd zigged
instead of zagged Nov. 8 it would have been different.
Because aren't we, basically, when you get down to it, irresistible?
I don't think that way. I think they're out there, really, the
ones who don't know their asses from holes in the ground, who chose not to make
that kind of distinction, think it elitist, and are out to get those of us who
can manage it.
The bad guys won. The Stupids stepped out (great children’s
book, check it out.)
It's their world, at least for now. To fail to register that
fact is to dodge it, is denialism, in other words, a kind of cowardice.
Along with the preening pretension that it all could have
been different, if only we were as seductive as we can be.