Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield
I listened to 8 years of hysterical whining about Bush from the left that did nothing productive. I listened to 8 more years of hysterical whining about Obama from the right that did nothing productive.
And now, here we go again.
ETA: I'm not suggesting people should stifle their complaints. Just that they should be more useful in their criticism, and less arrogant and self-righteous.
When Bush was in office, the election was "stolen." So he was illegitimate. When Obama was in office, the Right's critics argued against him as though he had no right to inhabit the office -- that his was a somehow another illegitimate Presidency because his goals were not in keeping with their "traditionalist" views. Now, the Left is once again using the illegitimate card. "Trump lost the popular vote!" (Nevermind, under that logic, NY, FL, TX, and CA would be the entire country for voting purposes... but hey, who cares about the rubes in flyover land being disenfranchised? They don't count, right?) "The [insert Russians, racists, or 'alt-right,' or all three, here] are the causes of his election on which we must always and primarily focus!"
The Left lost. If it wishes to thwart Trump with obstructionism, go for it. The GOP deserves such treatment. If the Dems wish to blow the GOP out in the 2018 mid-terms bu mobilizing voters, go for it. These are worthwhile strategies against Trumpism.
What is not a worthwhile strategy, and what is on display day-in, day-out, both here, in the media, and in every the Facebook feed of everyone talking politics, is self-righteous indignation. From the left or the right, you are not entitled to be indignant that a majority of the voters in certain states rejected your politics. Your views are not the exclusively correct ones. You do not get to assert that you are aggrieved because you are on the side of good and people who disagree with you on the side of evil. You do not get to paint your opponents on the Left as socialists, or secret Islamists. You do not get to paint your opponents on the Right as largely or even significantly racists and xenophobes.
You can do these things, of course... It's a free country. But understand. This haughty moralizing - this know-it-all-ness, and this ludicrous indignation? This is exactly the kind of stuff that loses elections.
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