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