The Extremism Ploy

Suppose you wanted to radically remake America.  Suppose you intended to undermine our democratic institutions and replace them with a centralized autocracy.  How would you go about it?  What would you do to convince ordinary citizens that this was in their interest?

Further suppose that a major political party opposed to your agenda.  Add to this the fact that most Americans are moderate.  They do not like radical practices.  How would you get a majority of these folks to ignore your own extremism?

Liberals have, in fact, found several ways to achieve this end.  Thus, for years they sought to discredit conservatives by labeling them “extremists.”  The idea was to frighten ordinary citizens into believing those protecting their heritage were actually wild-eyed revolutionaries.

It didn’t matter what conservatives supported.  Whatever it was, was portrayed as alarming.  Did they want to roll back ObamaCare?  Why this would leave millions of people dying an agonizing death on our streets.  Did they wish to send criminal aliens back home?  This would surely break up families and leave children wailing in misery.

The latest iterations of the extremism charge have, of course, been hurled at president Donald Trump.  With his shock of yellow tinted hair and podium gesticulations, he is a Hollywood casting director’s dream of what a political hooligan might look like.

And so not only do we hear him accused of extremism directly.  We also hear it said that he wants to dismantle the First Amendment.  He is obviously against free speech and freedom of the press.  Given that he is a racist, sexist lout, the only way he can get to torture the weak and helpless is by removing their constitutional protections.

This attack strategy is of ancient vintage.  The original progressives used it against the robber barons.  Franklin Roosevelt trotted it out against business leaders.  Barry Goldwater was accused of wanting to start a nuclear war.  Ronald Reagan evidently hoped to do the same.

Now it is Trump’s turn to get the wild man treatment.  Somehow it is extreme to tell a federal judge that he made a mistake in blocking a presidential order.  Obama railed against many Supreme Court decisions, but Trump cannot be allowed to describe a liberal magistrate as a “so-called” judge.  That is an intemperate strike on the separation of powers.

Nor can Trump accuse journalists of dishonesty.  When he calls them out for months of fake news, this is obviously an assault on the press itself.  By now everybody with half a brain knows the mainstream media are deeply biased, but their minions still pose as aggrieved innocents.

As for sending criminal aliens home, what could be more vicious?  Closing our borders is anti-democratic.  It is an outrageous attempt to deny the third world under class the benefits of American largesse.  Nice countries build bridges, not walls.

The extremism poly is therefore one more liberal con-job.  It has been repeated so often, from so many mouths, that it has begun to sound like a self-evident truth.  In reality, it turns the facts on their head.  It is liberals who are the extremists.  It is they who want to undo the constitution and substitute a benign despotism for our democratic institutions.

Getting rid of private medicine and placing it under federal control; that was extreme.  Enticing millions of Americans onto the dole; that was extreme.  Reducing public schools to dumbed down propaganda vehicles; that was extreme.  Regulating mud puddles on family farms; that was extreme.

Freedom, as they say, is not free.  It has to be defended with our blood and treasure.  But is also has to be defended against deception and manipulation.  The extremism ploy is just one more way to persuade us to let down our guard.  It must thus be seen for what it is and rejected out of hand. 

Goldwater said that extremism in defense of freedom is no vice.  But neither is it extremism.  It is common sense.  The American Dream was once decried as a menace to civilized society.  We Americans ought not be complicit in propagating this canard.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

When Good Meets Bad

Many years ago, when I was seeking tenure at Kennesaw State University, one of my colleagues promised to help me in this process.  She would coach me on what was required and put in a good word on my behalf.  I was grateful and looked forward to a long academic career.

But then I hit a stumbling block.  On an early level of approval, I was turned down.  This came as a shock.  My teaching evaluations were good.  My level of service was above average.  What was more, I was the only member of our department who had written any books.  How could this have happened?

Not long after I discovered that the colleague who had pledged to be of assistance had actually written an evaluation that torpedoed my application.  This was so surprising that I confronted her to seek an explanation.  At this point, she told me that I was “just not fitting in.”

When I asked why she had mischaracterized my achievements, she made several demonstrably untrue claims.  By now I was in a state of disbelief.  Here was someone I had trusted lying to my face.  This could not be.  No decent human would do any such thing.

At this point I decided to shut up.  Suddenly I realized that a purported friend was an enemy.  All I could think of at the time was that it would be unwise to give her further ammunition.

Why have I chosen to write about this now?  It is because I see a similar scenario working out on a larger scale.  The American people have been made numerous promises by liberal politicians.  They were told they would be given social justice, and economic prosperity, as well as hope and change.

When this did not unfold as expected, liberals were on the spot.  How were they to explain why their assurances fell flat?  Honesty would not have worked.  Voters wouldn’t have been placated by an admission that liberal policies were misconceived and incompetently executed.

And so they lied.  And then they lied some more.  They accused everyone and sundry of malfeasance.  It was those darned Republicans.  They were scoundrels to the nth degree.  They were intent on sabotaging programs that would save the nation from ruin.

Now that Donald Trump is president and pledges to undo their handiwork, the lefties have gone apoplectic.  They have not only doubled their lies, they have quadrupled them and then quadrupled them again.  These are no deceptions they are unwilling to propagate.

Trump is said not to have done anything as president when he has done more in a month than his predecessors.  He is accused of undermining the constitution, when it is liberal justices who did so.  His administration is described as chaotic, when Senate Democrats even denied him his cabinet.

The problem is this.  Decent Americans do not know how to handle a blizzard of lies.  For the most part honest, like me they are discombobulated by bald-faced fictions.  They cannot believe that anyone would do such a thing. 

Decent liberals are especially in a quandary.  As good people, they cannot imagine that their allies might be bad.  Good people expect others to be equally good.  When their friends say they are trying to do the right thing, their first impulse is to support them.

And so many liberals believe that the accusations aimed at Trump must be true.  He has to be an anti-democratic tyrant, otherwise their fellow liberals would not have said so.  He must be a racist, sexist bully or they would not have made the allegation.

But liars are liars.  The fact that Trump is condemned even before he does anything is evidence that his detractors care nothing for realities.  Their goal is to bring down a hated foe.  The rest of us must understand this.  We need to see past the over-heated rhetoric to their actual motives.

This is especially the case for good liberals.  They need to be honest with themselves and true to the ideals they have hitherto maintained.  Our democratic principles ought not to be immolated on the funeral pyre of a lost election.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Liberals at the Barricades

During the early nineteenth century, when the French were unhappy with their governments, they went to the barricades.  The Parisians would tear up their streets to use the cobblestones to construct barriers from which they could fight the authorities.  These served as a defense while they sought to defeat the army or police.

Today it is the liberals who are at the barricades.  They hate the Trump administration and hope to overthrow it.  As a consequence, they are using every weapon in their arsenal to prevent him from implementing his policies.

This should not be too surprising.  Although it is unprecedented in American history, it fits in with the socialist agenda.  Lest we forget, liberals are socialists.  As such, they are heirs to a tradition of revolution and unrest.  They see nothing wrong with toppling regimes with which they disagree.

And make no mistake about it; liberals want to depose Trump.  They boast about protesting, but that is not what they are doing.  They are seeking to sabotage and intimidate.  The goal is to wrest the government from Republican hands, so that it does their own bidding.

Liberals are not democrats.  They do not respect traditions of compromise and moderation.  For them, the laws and constitution are tools.  If these enable them to get want they want, they are followed.  If not, they are ignored.

Consider the many ways that liberals are attempting impose their will.  Because they regard themselves the “best and the brightest,” they have no scruples about dictating how others should behave.  As they see it, if they must force foul tasting medicines down our throats, it is for our own good.

This includes ignoring the plain words of the constitution.  One of America’s great strengths is that we are a nation of laws.  We defer to these rather than the whims of arrogant authorities.  Not so, for liberals.  If they conclude that the law might thwart their desires, the law is set aside.

Unelected judges did exactly this when they put a halt to Trump’s temporary pause on immigration from terrorist permeated states.  These magistrates did not apply the law as written.  They simply decided that they knew what was in the country’s interest and enforced it.

Democratic senators behaved in the same way.  Despite a long tradition of allowing presidents to appoint cabinet officers who share their views, they slow-walked the confirmation process.  Although they realized they would lose, they hoped to prevent a conservative administration from governing.

Washington’s entrenched bureaucracy followed suit.  Functionaries with matching socialist leanings refused to obey lawful administrative directives.  They even leaked sensitive information that might disrupt Trump’s foreign policy.  Anything that challenged their technocratic control was fair game.

Then there were the mobs.  They were everywhere.  They prevented speakers from appearing on college campuses.  They interrupted the townhall meetings of legislators.  They attempted to prevent a hated Secretary of Education from visiting a public school.

Next there were the journalists who put a target on the back of Trump and anyone associated with him.  Nothing the new government did met with their approval.  As a consequence, they said whatever was required to make him and his people look bad.  Truth and accuracy had little to do with their stories.

The central aim of socialists is to dominate the government.  They believe in achieving this by any means necessary.  It does not matter to them who won an election.  They don’t care whether this was by fair or foul means.  All that matters is whether they get to pull the strings.

Thus, when the governor the state of Washington did a gig about a court decision that stymied Trump, he was dancing on the grave of the constitution.  Likewise, when Elizabeth Warren got bent out of shape when stopped from violating Senate rules, she was thumbing her nose at institutional integrity.

This is what socialists do.  It is part of their revolutionary heritage.  If you hate America and all it stands for, this makes them heroes.  But if you love our nation and its history, it confirms that they are a threat to our values!

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

A Businessman for President

During the presidential nominating process, several of my colleagues were adamant in their support for Trump.  These folks were not sociologists; they were criminal justice types.  Believers in law and order, they assumed that the Donald would deliver exactly that.

I, however, demurred.  Trump was clearly a pompous fool.  He was a narcissist who would undoubtedly wreck havoc if elected.  Nonetheless, my coworkers persisted.  So far as they were concerned, he would get things done.

For as long as I can remember, conservatives have touted businesspersons for the presidency.  They have argued that these folks are natural leaders; that they are specialists in making things happen.  What is more, successful executives have proven themselves by making a profit.  Had they not been able to meet a payroll, they would have gone out of business.

This always struck me as a juvenile claim.  What had business success to do with running a government or conducting foreign policy?  This was apples and oranges.  Making money and protecting a nation were not the same thing.  Distinctions had to be made.

Now we actually do have a businessman as president.  Depending upon one’s interpretation, this may be for the first time.  Trump is certainly our first billionaire real estate developer.  So the question is: How is he doing?

In many ways, it is too early to tell.  Trump has not yet put most of his policies in place; nor have we seen their consequences.  Nonetheless, some things have come into sharper focus.  We already know a lot about his governing style.

First, Trump is painfully inarticulate.  Even when reading from a teleprompter, his words do not soar.  When extemporaneous, he stammers and repeats a few favored phrases endlessly.  The effect is to make him sound as if he knows less than he does.

Second, Trump is given to hyperbole.  Everything is the best and the greatest.  His programs will not only work, they will work better than anyone else’s.  Moreover, they will take effect immediately.  This propensity for exaggeration is probably a legacy from his days as a salesman.

Third, our president is agonizingly limited in his knowledge of government.  He has been described as intellectually detached.  That is probably true.  Time and again, he simplifies the difficulties he must overcome.

That said; let us switch to the positive side.  Trump has turned out to be a doer.  In a few short weeks, despite relentless opposition, he keeps on churning out new initiatives.  He also makes quick adjustments when necessary.  In other words, he wants to win.  He wants to get the job done.

Contrast this with Obama, who was a man of elegant language.  Nonetheless, Barack accomplished almost nothing in his eight years.  Indeed, his two major policy initiatives were arrant failures.  As an incompetent administrator, both his stimulus plan, with its shovel ready jobs, and ObamaCare, with it lower prices, were bombastic disappointments.

Trump is also a people person.  He talks to everyone.  This includes politicians, business leaders, and foreign leaders.  Unlike Obama, he does not closet himself with close advisors and political allies.  This enables him to learn from others and to enlist their cooperation.

Next, Trump has been straightforward.  Although he is constantly accused of lying, the reverse seems to be true.  Indeed, he appears to be a man of his word.  What he has promised, he is obviously attempting to deliver.  I, for one, am confident that a wall on our southern border will be built and that ObamaCare will be repealed and replaced.

The point I am trying to make is that, much to my surprise, I am finding Donald Trump a breath of fresh air.  Despite his obvious limitations and political awkwardness, he is doing what a business man was alleged to do.  He is attempting to make things happen.

Our last president was a man of words; our current president is a man of action.  Obama sold us on towering ideals he could not achieve; Trump is more down to earth and pragmatic.  I know which of these approaches I prefer.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University