What Now?
Posted: 01-12-2021 01:32 AM
Excerpted from Bruce Bawer at FrontPage Magazine:
I've been ranting for years about the perfidy of the left. At times I've been accused of exaggerating. On rare occasions I feared -- or hoped? -- that perhaps I was exaggerating. In fact I can now see that these people are worse than I ever imagined. Worse than most of us ever imagined.
Worse, even, than Donald Trump, with all his insight, imagined.
He went into office determined to clean up the swamp. He was tireless. But not tireless enough. No mere mortal could have been tireless enough. Trump had denounced the swamp in apocalyptic terms, but it proved to be even deeper and more extensive than he knew...
...There's no intrinsic magic about America that protects it from becoming Mao's China or Stalin's Russia. Only utopians believe in the perfectibility of man. People are people. And some of the people who are now, or are about to be, in power in the United States would, if accorded enough power, do far more to those of us who falter in loyalty than merely take away our social-media accounts.
Indeed, as scary as the situation may be right now, one thing's for certain: worse is on its way. The Democrats now control both houses of Congress and are about to be handed the executive branch. The totalitarian-minded elements in that party are on the ascent, backed up by Silicon Valley, the legacy media, and much of corporate America. And they're about to party like it's 1793. In Paris.
The sky's the limit. And therein lies our hope, long-term though it may well be. Without doubt, these people will overreach. Their lists will grow so long, their cancelations so widespread, that, as happened with the Reign of Terror, everyone who isn't clinically insane will finally realize that things have gone too far and will, in one way or another, put an end to the madness.
But how far will things have to go before that happens? How long will it take? And how many lives will be destroyed before it's over? These, alas, are the all too sobering questions that have yet to be answered.
In the meantime, those of us who care about liberty will simply have to do our best to keep enduring the daily tsunami of evil ideology, fake news, and contempt for decent people, and to continue hoping that the true and good will yet prevail.
I've been ranting for years about the perfidy of the left. At times I've been accused of exaggerating. On rare occasions I feared -- or hoped? -- that perhaps I was exaggerating. In fact I can now see that these people are worse than I ever imagined. Worse than most of us ever imagined.
Worse, even, than Donald Trump, with all his insight, imagined.
He went into office determined to clean up the swamp. He was tireless. But not tireless enough. No mere mortal could have been tireless enough. Trump had denounced the swamp in apocalyptic terms, but it proved to be even deeper and more extensive than he knew...
...There's no intrinsic magic about America that protects it from becoming Mao's China or Stalin's Russia. Only utopians believe in the perfectibility of man. People are people. And some of the people who are now, or are about to be, in power in the United States would, if accorded enough power, do far more to those of us who falter in loyalty than merely take away our social-media accounts.
Indeed, as scary as the situation may be right now, one thing's for certain: worse is on its way. The Democrats now control both houses of Congress and are about to be handed the executive branch. The totalitarian-minded elements in that party are on the ascent, backed up by Silicon Valley, the legacy media, and much of corporate America. And they're about to party like it's 1793. In Paris.
The sky's the limit. And therein lies our hope, long-term though it may well be. Without doubt, these people will overreach. Their lists will grow so long, their cancelations so widespread, that, as happened with the Reign of Terror, everyone who isn't clinically insane will finally realize that things have gone too far and will, in one way or another, put an end to the madness.
But how far will things have to go before that happens? How long will it take? And how many lives will be destroyed before it's over? These, alas, are the all too sobering questions that have yet to be answered.
In the meantime, those of us who care about liberty will simply have to do our best to keep enduring the daily tsunami of evil ideology, fake news, and contempt for decent people, and to continue hoping that the true and good will yet prevail.