The Grand Delusion of the Progressive Left

Allen West

I love two genres of music, classical and classic rock. One of my favorite classic rock bands is the group Styx and one of my favorite songs of theirs is “Grand Illusion”. However, in the case of what we have seen post the 2016 presidential election through the inauguration of President Donald Trump, it appears the progressive socialist left is operating under a grand delusion.

In 2009, the progressive left embarked upon an ideological agenda evidencing a serious delusion and disconnection with America. Instead of focusing on two simple issues, economic growth and national security, Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and their acolytes engaged a direction for America that was not rooted in sound policy, but their interpretation of “fairness”.

The first case of delusion was to try and make the American people believe that Keynesian economic policy, tax and spend, was still viable. First thing out of the gate was a massive $1 trillion stimulus package that was centered upon what was termed “shovel ready jobs”. It was a matter of huge embarrassment when Obama sat on a stage with his economic council stating, “I guess shovel ready was not exactly ready”. The fact that Obama did so with a laugh and smirk was a slap in the face of the American taxpayer.

Obama in his eight years focused more on wealth redistribution, you know, we all do better when we “spread the wealth around”. Furthermore, Obama made the seminal statement which presented a window into the mindset of the progressive left when he stated, “if you own a business, you didn’t build that”. There could be no more disrespectful, delusional, assertion directed towards the hard working American and their indomitable entrepreneurial spirit. Obama and his disciples of economic disaster failed to grasp the concept that economic growth emanates not from Washington DC, but rather from the policies that unleash American investment, ingenuity, and innovation…along with production and manufacturing.

Due to his far left intransigent ideology, Obama sought not to get Americans back to work. His design was to expand the welfare nanny state of government dependency. The result of this delusion was our national debt going from $10.67T to $20T. We have exploded our food stamp and poverty rolls, and we have suffered the lowest workforce participation rate in some 40 years.

Second, Obama and the left sought to use effective free market policy to improve the healthcare situation in America. Instead, they believed there was a mandate to do what they had always wanted, push a government-driven healthcare system. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act a.k.a “Obamacare” was nothing more than a domestic wealth redistribution scheme, with some twenty new taxes. It spanned to gamut from increases in capital gains and dividends taxes to creation of an individual and employer mandate tax along with medical device and taxes on health savings accounts.

Obama said that there would be on average $2500 of savings and that you would be able to keep your doctor and insurance. The latter was awarded by Politifact as the “Lie of the Year”, 2013, funny, the year after Obama’s reelection…and he promised Vladimir Putin more flexibility. The American people in October 2016 did not see savings, they saw massive increases in their health insurance premiums, the result of the delusion of redistribution of healthcare. Obamacare turned out to be nothing more than a huge expansion of Medicaid. It proved unaffordable and did not provide protection for patients, but a segment of people got something for free. A rational policy approach would have meant Obama and his team focused on the real issue, but they overreached. And as Nancy Pelosi said, “we have to pass the bill, in order to find out what was in it”, a true example of delusion.

Third, Obama departed the White House trying to have us buy into his delusion by stating that on his watch there had not been a terrorist organization attack. He left still embracing the line that Ft. Hood was the result of “workplace violence”, and he commuted the sentence of one who had leaked over 700,000 classified documents – where some had died as a result of HIS nefarious actions.

Obama and the left could never articulate that the non-state, non-uniform unlawful enemy combatants we face on the 21st-century battlefield are Islamic terrorists and jihadists. Obama was more interested in freeing them under the delusion that their being detained in GITMO was an impetus of their hate and a recruiting tool. Instances of Islamic terrorist attacks on our soil were attributed to the lawful ownership of guns by law-abiding Americans. And the left, aided by the complicit liberal progressive media, tried to castigate those who understood this enemy as “islamophobes” – a moniker created by an Islamic organization with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.

I could go on about other critical issues, like a lack of focus on our border security leading to deaths of Americans like Kate Steinle.

The overarching issue is that we are watching the progressive left continue to wrap themselves in their own delusion. This past weekend there were marches focused on women’s rights. Where were those voices when Christian and Yazidi girls were being raped and sold as sex slaves by ISIS – that group Obama called the JV team, which was not Islamic. If this is about misogyny, where were those voices reference Bill Clinton regularly being welcomed as an “elder statesman” of the Democrat party?

More violence, threats, intimidation, rantings, protests, denigrating, disparaging, and demeaning language from the left will not win folks over to their cause. It will only further distance them from the America that has rejected and repudiated them, the electoral losses of the past eight years is evidence.

The delusion of the progressive left is that they are not conducting a self-analysis or assessment. Their way did not advance economic growth or national security. Albert Einstein said, “The definition of insanity is to continue to do the same thing, and expect different results”. Einstein’s definition certainly befits the grand delusion of the progressive left.

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Is the Age of Violence upon Us?

Today is a day in U.S. political history like no other. The excitement in Washington is like nothing the city has ever before seen. Barack Obama’s inauguration was historic to most Americans, but I would estimate that at least a third of the population knew the truth about the mysterious, unknown young man who seemed to appear out of nowhere. Nevertheless, the anti-Obama people stayed low key through his inauguration and well beyond.

Not so in 2017. A lot of people are concerned about outright violence at today’s presidential inauguration and subsequent presidential balls, and with good reason. As I have repeatedly stated, the Radical Left is comprised of true believers when it comes to employing violence as a justifiable way of overriding the wishes of voters and usurping power.

When I use the term Radical Left, I’m referring not only to those who are committed to an ideology that has brought enormous poverty and suffering to every country where it has been tried, but also to those who support this destructive ideology out of sheer ignorance or stupidity. (The troglodytes in Hollywood are classic examples of the latter.)

As I wrote in my December 17 article titled “My Next Unequivocal Prediction,” Radical Leftists will never let go of their hate-mongering, childish name-calling and mudslinging, and nonstop lying. Nor will they ever change their warped beliefs that racism in America is institutionalized, that manmade global warming has been proven beyond a doubt, and that the use of violence is justified by those who believe that their objectives are morally superior to those of everyone else.

So now, after a year-and-a-half of dirty tricks, criminal behavior, smear tactics, and rioting in an attempt to stop the people’s choice, Donald Trump, from becoming the 45th president of the United States, the standard bearers of malevolence and ignorance are primed and ready to try to tear America apart.

I don’t know what’s going to happen today, nor do I know how much violence there will be over the next four to eight years, but there will be violence, of that you can be certain. That being the case, the important question becomes, what will be the result of the violence?

Because of the heightened security, those who are intent on creating havoc at the inauguration or the events that follow it throughout the afternoon and evening will have a difficult time achieving their ultimate goal — inflicting death on those who dare to take part in Donald Trump’s inauguration. But that doesn’t mean they won’t try.

The issue of violence, however, goes far beyond Inauguration Day. Regardless of what happens today, my concern is how the entire Trump family can be fully protected 24/7 over the next four-to-eight years. Let’s hope the Secret Service finds a way to succeed at this seemingly impossible task.

If, however, those who embrace violence succeed in harming Trump, his wife, his children, or, God forbid, any of his grandchildren, what will that do to America? Because there are millions of people out there with sick minds who would like to see the Trump clan harmed, I’ve given this unpleasant possibility a lot of thought.

What would the result be? There are so many variables that’s it’s hard to know for certain, but here are a few possibilities that come to mind:

It could trigger a sympathetic backlash that could result in a dramatic improvement in Trump’s favorability ratings, perhaps to as high as 60 percent. If Trump delivers quantifiable results in addition to this, it could hasten the total disintegration of the Democratic Party, which I believe will happen anyway after the Republicans swamp the Dirty Dems in the 2018 mid-terms.

Funded by George Soros and other wealthy, far-left evildoers who are masters at profiting from social unrest and national upheaval, it could result in an all-out civil war. Our normalcy biases make it hard to picture such a scenario, but if the far left maims and kills enough people, it’s entirely possible that the intellectually inferior flyover folks who cling to their guns and bibles might just decide to fight back.

It goes without saying that either way, the violence would be blamed on Trump. When the Radical Left goons inflict pain and death, the Lying Left will yell and scream, just as they did at Trump’s rallies, that it is his divisive rhetoric that caused them to be violent. You know the thinking … the Devil made them do it. As the incomparable Chris Plante would say, “Ah, it’s good to be a Democrat, isn’t it?

Trump could back down, which is highly unlikely. However, there are many spineless men and women in the Republican Party — Little Marco, Mush McCain, Gomer Graham, and Paul Ryan, to name but a few — who can be counted on to try to appease the Radical Left and engage in political babble like “We have to all come together as Americans” and “We need a national dialog.”

This could create a knockdown, drag-out fight between Trump loyalists and old-guard Republicans who are intent on preserving the good life to which both Democrats and Republicans have become so accustomed. Which means business as usual and another win for the Dirty Dems.

The Radical Leftists in the Democratic Party could suddenly realize that they are committing political suicide and do an about-face. In other words, they would put aside the phony theatrics and lies and act like adults who really want to work with Republicans for the good of the country. Unfortunately, with the exception of a handful of sane but out of place Democrats (Senator Joe Manchin comes to mind), the chances of that happening are virtually zero.

So, my fellow Americans, we shall see what the lawless Radical Left has in store for us today and from this day forward, and whether or not we can survive it. Just know that violence is a virtual certainty. When and how much are the two big questions. Let’s hope that we’re all pleasantly surprised and that the quantity of violence is much less than some might now be expecting.

P.S. I still believe that splitting America into at least two countries is the best possible solution for everyone. The Radical Left could attack each other with reckless abandon in their own country, while those who believe in liberty could spend their time working to make life better for everyone within their borders.

Just think, the United States of Good Guys and the United States of Bad Guys. Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

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Leftists:  This is why Trump happened

In extremis, normal people found their hero and defender

It happened because you banned super-size sodas. And smoking in parks. And offensive ideas on campus. Because you branded people who oppose gay marriage ‘homophobic’, and people unsure about immigration ‘racist’.

Because you treated owning a gun and never having eaten quinoa as signifiers of fascism. Because you thought correcting people’s attitudes was more important than finding them jobs. Because you turned ‘white man’ from a description into an insult. Because you used slurs like ‘denier’ and ‘dangerous’ against anyone who doesn’t share your eco-pieties.

Because you treated dissent as hate speech and criticism of Obama as extremism. Because you talked more about gender-neutral toilets than about home repossessions. Because you beatified Caitlyn Jenner. Because you policed people’s language, rubbished their parenting skills, took the piss out of their beliefs.

Because you cried when someone mocked the Koran but laughed when they mocked the Bible. Because you said criticising Islam is Islamophobia. Because you kept telling people, ‘You can’t think that, you can’t say that, you can’t do that.’

Because you turned politics from something done by and for people to something done to them, for their own good. Because you treated people like trash. And people don’t like being treated like trash. Trump happened because of you.

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated),  a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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