Defensive Indignation

Brace yourselves!  The deluge is coming.  And it will not abate for a year and a half.  Liberal outrage is once more upon us and will not subside until the next presidential election is decided.  In the meantime, we must put up with a rising tide of phony indignation.

Why are liberals always getting so upset?  Why do they see boogey men under every bed even on a bright and sunny morning?  It is because they need to.  The only way they can keep their worldview from falling apart is to invent new barbarities about which to get exercised.

Liberals are like petty tyrants.  Much in the way that North Korean rulers periodically warn about an impending invasion from the South, progressives feel obliged to alert us to the latest depredations of conservatives.

The reason, of course, is the same.  It is not because conservatives are so horrible, but because liberals are in such disarray.  They need to create solidarity among their troops precisely because their reason d’etre is fragile.  Hence they do so by inventing an enemy.

Liberalism has failed in virtually every enterprise in which it has recently been engaged.  Its minions have not saved the economy.  They have not improved educational outcomes.  Nor have they prevented Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons or deterred Russia from invading the Ukraine.

So what do losers do?  They fabricate what they declare to be an even bigger loser.  The logic goes as follows:  We are your friends.  We are trying to save you.  On the other hand, those other fellows hate you.  They want to hurt you.  The only way to protect yourself is therefore to stick with us.  Together we can prevail.

This totally unproven thesis diverts attention from liberal failures while motivating aggression against its adversaries.  If ordinary Americans can be whipped into a frenzy, the progressive generals can lead them into a battle that is, in fact, against their interests.

Consider the recent spate of race bating.  Ever since Ferguson, liberal politicians and their media henchmen have been asserting that the police—and by extension whites—wish to kill all blacks.  “Black lives matter” is their mantra—as if conservatives believe otherwise.

The upshot is that many liberals still will not admit that “hand up, don’t shoot” was dishonest theater.  This dramatic gesture is too potent to be abandoned no matter how much evidence stacks up against it.

And so when a South Carolina police officer shot an unarmed black man in the back, the call for police scalps erupted once again.  The shooter is currently being charged with murder, but that did not matter.  All law enforcement agents must be put in the dock to satisfy the narrative that every one of them is racist.

What too about RFRA?  When Indiana and Arkansas proposed legislation that would protect the rights of the deeply religious, this was reconfigured as an attack on gays.  The verification that homosexuals would in any way be harmed was lacking, but that was not the point.  The goal was to gin up outrage about gay bashing—whether or not it was present.

As a result, governor Mike Pence was probably knocked out of contention for the Republican presidential nomination.  Now demonized, as Governor Chris Christie had earlier been, no defense was admissible. 

So where is the outrage when Coptic Christians are beheaded in Libya?  Or when Muslims toss Christians to their death in the sea?  Or when the Iranians receive concession after concession from a president who cares not one whit about our national safety?

Liberal outrage, when repeated often enough and amplified by the media megaphone, seems real.  Indeed, it drowns out the genuine outrages.  Nonetheless, it is all about pretense and manufactured dudgeon.

Yet how can this be?  Would liberals actually be this deceitful?  Aren’t they too nice to engage in any such mischief?  Or maybe it is time to call them out for their insufferably insincere sanctimony.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University