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Rufuspetasumphobia — 121 Comments

  1. I have pointed out before that the leftists consider themselves to be intellectually and morally superior people. If you disagree with them, you are not just mistaken, you are a stupid evil person. Of course, this belief in their own superiority is just hubris, one of the seven deadly sins.

  2. I would assume that she would like to sell copies- either digital or hard copy- of her books. She has just alienated half of the potential book-purchasing population.

  3. Makkai: If you’re physically reacting to something that someone is wearing, you need therapy.

    “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” — George Orwell, written on the side of BBC HQ in London.

  4. “careful cultivation by the press and the Democratic Party (especially its leftist wing, which has grown so large as to seem like the main body at this point)”

    What to make of relatives like mine who are yellow dog democrats? They otherwise do not seem like evil people but does providing support in the form of votes for evil like the Democrat Party not make them evil?

    I know Grisham’s law and all that but were the Germans who provided tacit support for the Nazis not complicit in their evil? Remember the character of the German judge in “Judgement at Nuremberg” played by Burt Lancaster who realized his role in the Nazis’ crimes.

    Like you Neo (I think) I just ignore it and we talk about other things. They are not like the woman in your post–they know my views and also ignore them. But it is a sobering experience to see how evil can grow in an otherwise decent society.

    I wish I knew what to do about it. “You cannot change by logic a point of view arrived at by emotion.” They are in the Democrat Party cares about me camp and getting them to even consider Trump would be a bridge way too far.

  5. “Is Makkai sincere and is she really triggered…?”

    I’ve pondered this phenomenon a lot over the years. I think at least a part of the syndrome is similar to kids telling each other ghost stories, working themselves into a state of terror where any noise can make them scream. There’s a definite element of pleasure in it, the pleasure of playing with fear while knowing that you’re actually perfectly safe. And yet if you keep at that continually you can work probably work yourself into a genuinely disturbed state.

  6. “Is Makkai sincere and is she really triggered by something as mild as a red cap at this point? Maybe.”

    A liar or a borderline hysterical person, with an emphasis on the former, I’d say.

  7. Which baseball team is going to be the first to change their uniform colors, colors they’ve had for over a century in some cases, in order to eliminate what is now a new racist symbol?

    The Cincinnati Reds would be an ironic choice, given that one of the reasons you see a lot of Cincinnati Reds hats floating around in cities all across the country is that they have become part of “colors” of the Bloods street gang: https://gothamist.com/news/bloods-flood-queens-court-in-cincinnati-reds-caps

    A well-known affiliation with a street gang hasn’t caused the Reds to ever rethink their ballcaps (nor should it), yet will they bow to the pressure of the left now and scrap their all-red ballcaps for being “racist”?

  8. “Maga hats!? . . . Maga hats on in Chicago? Excuse me one second Mr. Smollett. Frank, come here for a second: Find out where Kanye West was last night.” — sdferr

    That’s from the Dave Chapelle’s new comic routine. The funniest part for me was the fact that Chapelle repeatedly pronounced Jussie Smollett, “Juicy Smollé.”

  9. This example of insane reaction and condemnation shows you why the poles were so wrong in 2016 and why they are so wrong now. Trump supporters stay covert — otherwise some fine, superior, inclusive SOB might take a swing at them in the street or try to get them fired from their job.

    I know that I am careful not to have any pro-Trump clothing on when I walk around, and I do not have a pro-Trump bumper sticker on my car. I see lots of crazy liberal bumper stickers, but no conservative ones. Who wants to be keyed by some POS.

    How many of you respond to polling phone calls? I’ll bet that the infamous Manju is the only one.

  10. She’s triggered where it’s safe to be triggered, when she’s knows she’s surrounded by others who feel the same way. Otherwise, I doubt it.

    Has anyone noticed that if you wistfully express a hope for more politeness and civility in today’s society like there was some decades ago (for those of us over 65), that you get pinned with wanting to bring back everything from those days. Basically, you’re thinking like a white supremacist.

  11. I’m thinking folks should start a “mail in” campaign.
    Fill her blessed mailbox with red hats.

  12. Edward on September 3, 2019 at 3:15 pm said:
    How many of you respond to polling phone calls?

    —-

    If I happen to accidentally pick up and set one off, I absolutely answer and proceed to throw my support to the Democrat (or the worst Democrat if there are several choices). I figure one of the purposes of these polling calls in addition to actual polling is to “out” conservatives and put their names on a list to be used to hurt them later or to use as an “avoid” list for ballot harvesting. The pollers are probably smart enough to realize that a “none of the above” or refusal to answer is now equivalent to admitting that one is a trump supporter, so I make sure to tell them that I’m unequivocally voting D.

  13. the leftists consider themselves to be intellectually and morally superior people.

    Twilight and Pro-Choice… Not all, but in principle. Let us bray to mortal gods.

  14. Remember in middle school that gaggle of giggly girls who went around speaking Pig Latin? Well, they grew up and invented Twitter. The rest of us are waiting for the English language version.

  15. Generally, I see it as part of the ever-more-extreme social preening that leftists engage in, ever more frequently, to prove to themselves and each other they are true members of the club. They have to establish their bona fides with each other with incessant parroting of The Right Things To Say Today and one good way is by somehow getting in an anti-Trump reference, with extra points if you can tie in other lefty concerns (climate change, racism, any resistance at all to the LGBT monster, etc). It’s a social exchange, like a club handshake.

    Thanks to the snowflake generation, which needs constant validation and affirmation of every breath, it’s gone from being just a part of social interaction (like a greeting or farewell) to being the entire purpose of social interaction for some people. We all know people who were normal 10 years ago but who, today, literally tweet or post all day long nothing but leftist memes – a constant obsession which looks like a specific effort to impress their friends, acquaintances and anyone else who comes along of how Good they are.

    Now, it’s not good enough simply to share every lefty meme that comes their way. Everyone’s doing that and has been doing that for years. It’s old news. Now, to really prove to all of your lefty friends that you’re really, really Good, one technique is to project that they are so perfected, so sensitive, so pure and so good, that they are harmed by even the suggestion of us troglodyte conservatives (eg, a plain red hat). Yes, they are pretending to be victims of the fact that you and I exist, and proudly wallowing in it. It’s sick and creepy,

    That said, I am greatly concerned about logical extensions of this behavior. I don’t see how it isn’t coming that harming conservatives will become not just acceptable but praiseworthy and eventually, de rigeur if you want to be a member of the club.

  16. “Is Makkai sincere and is she really triggered by something as mild as a red cap at this point? Maybe.”

    A liar or a borderline hysterical person,

    I think this not sincerity but a knee jerk sort of in-crowd reaction. I doubt any thought occurred.

    Also, how many are old enough to remember when Cincinnati changed the team name from “Reds” to “Redlegs?” In the 1950s. Same phenomenon.

  17. You will pry my Phillies cap from my cold dead hands. FWIW, I checked yesterday’s videos from several MLB teams that favor red caps, and you can see plenty of Reds, Cardinals, Nationals, and Angels as well as Phillies fans wearing red baseball caps in the stands.

    Makkai is a sad and pathetic excuse for a supposedly educated human being. Perhaps someone should offer to take her to a home game for one of the aforementioned teams and see whether she has either a panic attack or a flat-out psychotic break.

  18. I was reading a book about Papua New Guinea a couple of weeks ago. The author has written a series of novels and I have devoured them. He resembles WEB Griffin in his mastery of technical terms and good dialogue. They are mostly about historical periods but one series is about New Guinea in world war 2.

    The author spent ten years as a policeman in New Guinea. He has tales about the tribes in New Guinea who were cannibals and attacked other tribes, the victims of which attacks, they ate. The tribes each had a different language and that made any communication difficult. The war required white men to go into the interior and , hopefully, not be eaten. The police developed a sort of pigeon language that multiple tribes could use.

    The reason for this long story is that we are in this situation with Democrats. They don’t use the same language and will attack us as the first reaction to contact. I don’t know if we can develop a sort of Esperanto that all can understand.

  19. “He has tales about the tribes in New Guinea who were cannibals and attacked other tribes, the victims of which attacks, they ate.”

    Your author probably mentions the Fore people of Papua New Guinea, who were endocannibals– that is, they ate deceased members of their own tribe as part of their funerary customs. The eventual result was kuru, a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) in the same family of prion diseases as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Perhaps the Democrats will start devouring one another; blue-on-blue squabbles are a common topic over at Instapundit and similar blogs. FWIW, a common symptom of kuru is “uncontrolled and sporadic laughter,” a common trait of Dem operatives on Twitter.

  20. “It’s easy to mock a tweet like that. But I’m going to take it seriously, for what it represents.”

    Yes, I think we do need to take this kind of “nonsense” (for lack of a better word) seriously because it leads to all sorts of other nasty stuff.

    In the past what might have been a stupid comment made to like-minded friends, today gets tweeted for everyone to see. And they will often try to outdo each other with their “anger.”

    Most recently, Debra Messing tweeted that she would like to get a list of names of the people who are giving money to Trump’s fundraising – “so the whole world knows who they are.” And then what? Debra Messing wants to shun people who don’t think like her.

    Just ask Spike Lee what his stupid tweet did! Chased innocent folks out of their own home due to death threats.

    And even this one little tweet – about how a red hat causes her to become “uncomfortable.” So, now she calls on “normal” people to not wear red hats? Will that open the way for anyone who doesn’t act or dress “right” to be attacked?

    Ask anyone who lives in the projects where gangbangers rule how wearing the wrong colors can get you killed. Is that what this woman is asking for?

    However, I will admit, I know the feeling that she describes – I felt a similar “sick to my stomach” feeling wherever I saw a Volvo with Obama, and then later, Hillary bumper stickers. But, I didn’t go around telling others to shun them or do them harm!

  21. “Neo ,
    do you talk as well as you write? Id love to see you on shows like Tucker.”

    Avi, Neo did a bunch of podcasts way back when with Dr. Sanity. In fact that’s how I found her. Not sure if those podcast are still available. I’m sure she can tell you or link to them.

  22. I have only two red caps. neither of which has MAGA on them; One has a B-17 and the other has the a Gangrene Gulch (Alaska) Park Ranger patch.
    Howsomever, if I were to get anywhere this woman lives, I’d be happy to wear them. She’s quite the piece of work, she is.

  23. Could anyone outside of an asylum really be that fearful and cowardly?

    Somebody actually that weak, would be ashamed of it.

  24. And let’s not forget about the red Phrygian caps, which were adopted during the French Revolution as a symbol of liberty. Some of the French aristocrats made sure to wear them prominently in order to keep their own heads during the Reign of Terror; this was not always successful. Marianne (the French version of Uncle Sam) still has her red cap.

    Such a red cap is in use today in the United States as well, depicted on various state flags and federal government seals, as it is such an iconic symbol, dating back to ancient Rome.

  25. NewYorkCentral on September 3, 2019 at 1:52 pm said:

    $6 gets you a plain, unadorned red hat on Amazon.

    I think I’m feeling the need to trigger some people.

    Hey, the cap can be personalized. I wonder how the poor sheltered novelist would feel if a bunch of people had the hats stenciled with “MAKKAI” instead of MAGA?

  26. In Venezuela, Chavez and his Socialist movement so completely co-opted the color red, that it became a social faux pas to wear anything red. To a certain extent, we saw the wearers of red as a threat. I know it sounds a little ridiculous. It even sounds that way to me as I am recounting it. But, at the time, it was real.

    Today, the true believers and their worn red tee shirts are a pathetic remnant who inspire nothing more than scorn or even pity. Unfortunately, the dictatorship and police state those true believers voted into existence remains and oppresses and starves Opposition and Chavistas alike.

  27. To PA Cat-
    To learn more about the disease you mentioned, read -Deadly Feasts by Richard Rhodes.

  28. The dishonest nature of this fear reminds me of a relative of mine, my sister’s daughter, who lamented just before the 2016 election that she would be “locked up in a camp if Trump were elected.” You see, she is a lesbian, and the meme going around the gay community at the time was that Trump was not only anti-gay, but vehemently so. To the extent that he would take extra legal action against gays.

    When she said this I was dumbfounded. It was the first I had ever heard that Trump was anti-gay and that his presidency — if he were elected — would result in concentration camps for gay people. It made me realize there are memes out there with wide currency among certain groups, but that are completely unknown to the general public.

    I keep wanting to write and ask her how she’s enjoying her stint in a concentration
    camp, but she would probably ignore me or claim she never said such a stupid thing.

    But the more important lesson for the rest of us is what I alluded to two paragraphs back: we do not have a clue what is being passed around among the members of certain tribes, things that are clearly designed to turn an entire tribe against Trump or his supporters.

    The Democratic candidates this year are not even bothering to posit a platform: they are merely anti-Trump. That is a scary thing to realize. I am not pretending my tribe doesn’t have its own areas of blindness, but I don’t think ours are as widespread, as tailored to specific groups, of as much of a doomsday quality as what the Dems have.

    Makkai sounds downright delusional. But she is not alone. It’s where we are these days, and I, like Neo, think Obama and his administration had a lot to do with bringing this about.

  29. If you are scared by a hat then that’s on you, not the hat wearer. You know who was truly evil? Che Guevara. When I see someone in a t-shirt with Che on it I’m not scared. I just think: this person, wearing this shit, is an ignorant virtue signaling nitwit.

    Makkai is either trying to pump up her social score – to sell more books I suppoe – or an ignorant virtue signaling nitwit.

  30. How about she’s lying like a rug? She knows better but knows she speaks Words of Power and these require us to obey. They’re manipulative.
    Recall the Sbux case a couple of months ago where a customer told a staff member that the presence of uniformed policemen made him afraid. The cops were asked to leave.
    Shamans could wish their words had such power.

  31. Kuru was limited, as I recall, to women as they were the ones who prepared the dead and, as a reward, got to eat the brain. For a while there was some confusion because the women would sometimes give some brain to a favored child.

  32. I don’t people do buy this logic. I was a Never Trumper because I just really dislike him. Then the Dems started to really go nutty with the Russia stuff, the racism, and the fascism. I just don’t buy that. Tweets like this hurt them. If it weren’t for Tweets like this, I’d probably still be a Never Trumper.

    Tweets like this make just make people like me think we’re in a real culture war. I was listening to an article in the Atlantic about the difficulties of black families face creating intergenerational wealth. I thought it was interesting. Then the last sentence is: There is no such thing as an individual. Which basically just made me think, rubbish. Complete rubbish.

    Instead of making me think about things like redlining, she made me think of Hayek and Thatcher and the need to just screw our courage to the sticking place and stick with the party we can trust — even if our leader is a nasty little troll.

  33. Rufuspetasumphobia

    I did a search on that word and got 5 blogs that linked to Neo’s post!
    Does it have a real definiton?

  34. LYNN HARGROVE on September 3, 2019 at 3:29 pm said:
    I have resisted so far in buying a MAGA hat. But I think I will have to buy one.

    Karl Lembke on September 3, 2019 at 5:14 pm said:
    Oh, to market a red baseball cap that reads “FEEL THE BERN”…
    * * *
    Karl – most large towns have shops that make hats and shirts to order.
    Make one for yourself and a few friends.

    And then make some blue MAGA hats, and maybe yellow, pink, orange, green…

    BTW, anybody here remember that RED was the color beloved by Communists, until the MSM pulled a switch-up in one of the US elections and assigned it to the Republicans, because Democrats were trending so far left even then that people were beginning to make the connection.

  35. Who’s gonna tell Ms. Snowflake about the *blue* MAGA hats that are already available from the

  36. Who’s gonna tell Ms. Snowflake about the *blue* MAGA hats that are already available from the Trump campaign?

  37. Is Makkai sincere and is she really triggered by something as mild as a red cap at this point? –neo

    I hear it as revival tent testimony.

    Makkai has some stray feelings on the topic and amplifies them (1) to strengthen her position as a leader in the group, (2) to inspire further testimony from others and (3) to crack over fence-sitters to conversion.

  38. BTW, anybody here remember that RED was the color beloved by Communists, until the MSM pulled a switch-up in one of the US elections and assigned it to the Republicans, because Democrats were trending so far left even then that people were beginning to make the connection.

    AesopFan: Yes! I’m still annoyed with that sleight-of-hand.

  39. Ray on September 3, 2019 at 1:06 pm said:

    I have pointed out before that the leftists consider themselves to be intellectually and morally superior people. If you disagree with them, you are not just mistaken, you are a stupid evil person. Of course, this belief in their own superiority is just hubris, one of the seven deadly sins.

    Neo

    When did it become a virtue to be so frightened of a political point of view held by half of Americans, and to label it as abnormal and actually hateful? It’s been building for decades……

    Münzenberg’s particular genius was to recognize how ostensibly nonpolitical attitudes and impulses among Western intellectuals, clergy, artists, and also society leaders, businessmen, and politicians could be put to use…

    Münzenberg’s goal, Koch writes, was to create for the right-thinking non-Communist West . . . the belief that . . . to criticize or challenge – policy was the unfailing mark of a bad, bigoted, and probably stupid person, while support was equally infallible proof of a forward-looking mind committed to all that was best for humanity and mankind by an uplifting refinement of sensibility.

    Double Lives – Stephen Koch

    and

    As early as the 1920?s, Münzenberg and his people recognized that the principal countermyth to the Soviet Revolution was “the idea of America” (emphasis in original). Thus, sensational events like the Sacco-Vanzetti case or the trial of the Scottsboro boys were seized upon not with a view toward establishing the innocence of the accused, but

    to instill a reflexive loathing of the United States and its people. . . . To undermine the myth of the Land of Opportunity, the United States would be shown as an almost insanely xenophobic place, murderously hostile to foreigners.

    decades long is right Neo…
    fascinating stuff if you know the past enough

  40. “We Are Neither Visionaries Nor Utopian Dreamers”.

    Red Terror in the past meant one thing.
    Fear of a MAGA hat is another form of Red Terror? heh

    YOU may not know this history or the people.. but the people your discussing do!!!!
    the article conveniently leaves out the comiterm, the pact, and gives willi a makeover…

    Counteract racism and turn the tide on rightwing populists
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/27/counteract-racism-and-turn-the-tide-on-rightwing-populists
    Letters

    Mon 27 May 2019 13.10 EDT
    Last modified on Mon 27 May 2019 14.18 EDT

    Racism and fascist ideas have always been present in our society, but for most of the time have been largely contained. However, when a society faces a critical breakdown, as Germany did in the 1930s and the UK is today, these marginalised views are given a blood transfusion.

    Willi Münzenberg, who developed the most effective forms of publicity and propaganda to counter German fascism during the 1930s, bemoaned the fact that the progressive forces in society refused to take Hitler’s and Goebbels’ propaganda and fraudulent promises seriously enough. Münzenberg wrote in detail about how the fascists utilised sophisticated publicity – many of their methods lifted from his pioneering work and perverted – to intoxicate the population with what Karl Marx called “a false consciousness”.

    John Green
    Author of a forthcoming biography of Willi Münzenberg

    I’m not surprised by the current rise of the far right, but it does require explanation. From the Anti-Nazi League in the 1970s to Stand Up To Racism now, I’ve been active in opposing racists and fascists all my adult life. The National Front, the BNP, the EDL and Ukip have largely been seen off, yet now the Brexit party and Stephen Yaxley-Lennon have appeared. Given that every far-right and fascist organization has been defeated by opponents in each generation, the fact that new ones replace them is concerning.

    Perhaps we might consider that it is the operation of free-market capitalism itself, which works on the basis of “haves and have-nots”, that creates the conditions for this to happen, and it is this which we really need to get rid of.

    Keith Flett

    they know the history… and they know that these notions were instilled…
    which is one of many reasons why they look down onthe public that doesnt know…

    the fear of maga and triggering has to do with emotional appeals to a unheeding power you cant actually contact or address… god government…

  41. I think I will have to dig into the closet and find one of my newer un-faded bright red Mount Gay sailing caps. Same red as a MAGA, but with the Mount Gay rum logo on it, and the name of a regatta. I normally wear one of the older ones, dating from the mid-80’s or early 90’s.
    I hope that will trigger someone. (Not likely in Toronto, but you never know…)

    (Mount Gay hats are not for sale: given out at sailing regatta’s only, so if you see one, it’s being worn by a sailor.)

  42. I do machine embroidery. I just ordered some red caps that I’m going to embroider with:

    Triggered?

    &

    Made You
    Look Again

  43. F on September 3, 2019 at 6:32 pm said:
    The dishonest nature of this fear reminds me of a relative of mine, my sister’s daughter, who lamented just before the 2016 election that she would be “locked up in a camp if Trump were elected.” You see, she is a lesbian, and the meme going around the gay community at the time was that Trump was not only anti-gay, but vehemently so. To the extent that he would take extra legal action against gays.
    * * *
    Get her a rainbow MAGA hat.

  44. I think I will have to dig into the closet and find one of my newer un-faded bright red Mount Gay sailing caps.

    I have a closet full. I still recall that the only Trump sticker I saw in Los Angeles in 2016 was on a Tesla. Garlic and vampires.

  45. In the People’s Republic of Puget Sound this sort of thing has been common for a long time. In 2008 we posted a McCain/Palin sign in our yard. The HOA demanded we take it down because it “triggered” some of the neighbors. After consulting a lawyer, I dared the HOA to sue me. Of course they didn’t, but it was plain we were now “those Republicans” in a neighborhood of mostly leftists. Put a McCain/Palin sign on your car and you could bank on it getting keyed within a week. These people are easily offended and care not about the harm they can do to you. It has only gotten worse since Trump’s election.

    How do they claim the moral high ground? The aver that they care about people. Ha, they favor abortion, euthanasia, confiscatory taxes, crippling regulation, open borders, and letting homeless, addicted/mentally ill people live on the streets of our cities. If that is caring about people, it’s a mighty strange way to show it. IMO, they care less about actual human beings than they do about power. Their caring about people claim is phony. Their high regard for their morality is phony. They are hypocrites of the worst kind.

  46. I find these far left useful idiots, runere.ning dog lackeys, both tedious and dangerous. Don’t tread on me, I got “a 38 special on a 45 frame” and I got dead aim. They want us dead, let them start it and we’ll finish it. Idiots. 150 million plus gun owners, who can out shoot LEOs and all but the very, very best military marksmen. What if 10% resist? We got your lackeys out numbered Assuming the military are going to abrogate their oath, are they going to bomb the village, town, or metropolis to save the same? I doubt that.

    Do not be afraid, reload.

    Keep pushing, one day you will meet a shove that will put you on your ass.

  47. steve walsh
    If you are scared by a hat then that’s on you, not the hat wearer. You know who was truly evil? Che Guevara. When I see someone in a t-shirt with Che on it I’m not scared. I just think: this person, wearing this shit, is an ignorant virtue signaling nitwit.

    I have a Che T-shirt, to which I added the following: “Si sos hincha de Che, sos hincha de pelotudo sin cerebro.”
    Translated from Argie-speak, that would be: “If you are a fan of Che, you are a fan of a brainless asshole.”

  48. This is why we can’t have nice things. Like representative government.

    Gerard,
    Once a bear is hooked on garbage…
    Thread Winner!

  49. I was in America for two months, and got both a red MAGA cap and a new camo Trump 2020 cap. I didn’t think I’d be afraid to wear either.

    I chose to never wear the red cap, not wanting the possible hassle to disturb my vacation. I often did wear the camo Trump cap, but also sometimes didn’t.

    It’s terrible that there is no fear of wearing a Che tee, but the violent Dems, all too often not prosecuted by the police, feel they are allowed to physically hurt those wearing red caps they find disagreeable.

    Mentally disturbed Rebecca is trying to virtue signal to her friends, as well as create a new cultural norm.

    She should be laughed at and the famous who support and echo her should be mocked inessentially.

  50. She’s a fake. But this “phobia” gives her the rank of victim, which, if they’re being honest, is something they all desperately desire.

    Status with no real harm.
    Like so many academics these days, status with no real value.

  51. I’m inclined to believe her statements about her sensibilities. However, she needs to reflect on the benefits to the Left of her position:

    If you are a GOOD person, of course you won’t want to wear a color that might ‘trigger’ my fears.
    What also happens if people follow her plea?
    They lose a potent public identification with others whose politics are similar. Lest you think that unimportant, remember the meaning of the Orange Revolution, which bypassed attempts to silence it, with simple use of a color.
    If a person can silence opponents by appealing to their compassion, they have won.

  52. It’s a religion. Hence the magic words of “racist” and “bigot” and “white supremacy”. They are akin to ancient cries of “witch” and “heretic” and “magician”. We are within The Body and you are without, and you must be made to join The Body. (Basing real life on Star Trek episodes is really not a good idea.)

  53. It is a religion. A Calvinist creed. They don’t even have to do things. As long as they believe, as long as they say the right things they get a pass, like Prince Harry.

  54. I’m struck by the sheer immaturity of the original statement. Makkai acknowledges that she sees a great many red caps that are NOT the famous MAGA caps she despises… but she’s triggered by then anyway, and that, somehow, is our problem, not hers.

    She then asks, and then demands, that everyone stop wearing red caps entirely. She doesn’t even pretend that this is for her AND all the silent masses who think like her; no, this is All About Her.

    It’s like someone afraid of heights, who demands that we tear down skyscrapers.

    I’m not sure how one describes an adult who expects the world to change, just to accommodate her own mistaken fears. But I don’t think the word ‘maturity’ applies.

  55. On of my co-workers wore the pink pussycat hat to work for a couple of weeks after President Trump was elected. I didn’t like it, but it was her head and her hat. I knew her well enough to know that I would have gotten an earful if I had worn a Trump pin much less a hat.
    Tolerance is a two way street, Ms Makkai.

  56. JJ, good for you for sticking to your guns on the yard sign! But I’m sorry to hear about the social cost.

    I had a huge Impeach Obama sign on my car for a while. (Magnetic bumper sticker, you can get them in a very large size.) It was fascinating driving around with that, because when I live in New England, I’m right on the edge of a few different demographics. In my town, it’s mostly Democrats but people are polite and nobody ever said anything. In Cambridge, Mass (about a half hour to my south) I got some dirty looks; if I had parked on the street someone would have keyed the car or taken off the sign. But when I drove to Nashua, New Hampshire (about a half hour to the north), I got lots of honks and thumbs up. Rather amusing, I thought.

    On the topic at hand. One thing that makes me sad about this is that I have read this gal’s novels, and they are good.

    I think Mac makes a good point, it starts as a frisson of enjoyable fake fear and then it becomes a real emotion. The pattern is very similar to ghost stories, but there are some obvious unfortunate differences.

    I also agree with the social-preening analysis. A lot of the culture war thing seems to be fueled by the need for belonging, as many have observed.

    But for the most part, I take this tweet at face value. This person probably does believe that Trump is evil, and that people wearing MAGA hats are racists who hate gays, etc., because that is what she has been told for years and years, lately about Trump, and before that about Republicans in general.

    Leftist have a lot of crazy ideas about Republicans, and they finally have someone, in Trump, who seems to prove that they are right. They LOVE that. It feels like validation of a cherished belief.

    In my experience, people on the Left are incredibly misinformed. They just don’t have good sources of information, they still think the mainstream media is giving them roughly the facts. I have quite a few leftist friends, and I am always astonished at what they don’t know.

    I used to just get really mad about all this, but now I have a very different attitude. Maybe it’s because I’m getting so old, but I feel a strong desire to reach out to people and find some common ground. I don’t understand politics; the more I learn about it the more I hate it. And I don’t really understand people, either, but I observe people a lot and think about human behavior a lot and I just think we need to love each other more and pay more attention to what might be going on in each other’s heads and try to give people the benefit of the doubt and not demonize people or imagine the worst.

  57. “…eating away at the fabric of our society” is a feature, not a bug, for our leftist/progressive brethren and sistern.

  58. With the fear, anxiety, hatred and lunacy that is so prevalent among leftists, one must wonder if these people have the fortitude and brains to govern the rest of us who are stronger and more resilient?

    Who wants to be led by weaklings?

  59. If she’s triggered by the color red what happens when she sees a red light while driving? Does she have a meltdown until the light turns green?

  60. Shouldn’t that be kokkinokapelophobia? Most phobia names are based upon Greek (e.g., agoraphobia, acrophobia, necrophobia, etc.), not Latin.

    In any event, there should be a word for this anxiety disorder!

  61. . . . there should be a word for this anxiety disorder!

    A there is!

    The word for this anxiety disorder is “optional”. So formally “optional anxiety disorder” or “bogus anxiety disorder” in the alternative.

  62. JJ said “They are hypocrites of the worst kind.”
    There is an old saying that hypocrites are people that lie to themselves. Naturally, they believe their lies.

  63. “Uh oh, Santa wears a red cap!”

    That reminds me, so do members of the College of Cardinals (not to be confused with fans of a certain NL Central team). The red hat as a symbol of the cardinal’s rank goes back to the pontificate of Innocent IV in 1246, when the color symbolized the cardinal’s willingness to die for the faith. Contemporary cardinals have the choice of a red zucchetto (a close-fitting skullcap resembling a yarmulke) or a red biretta (a square cap with four ridges or peaks). Makkai had better avoid Rome during a papal election or she might be triggered by all those red-hatted ecclesiastics.

  64. I don’t think they are sincere. This is a like basketball and soccer players flopping on the ground to draw a foul. They are flaunting these anxieties as a positional good. They feel it’s necessary in order to social climb. As this guy says, political ideology is as thin as the makeup applied on an actor heading to the set.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH0uW4l2Wkg

    Fortunately, the returns on these goods are getting smaller and smaller. The View of all shows turned against Debra Messing for demanding to out conservatives in Hollywood.

  65. Oh, and by the way my child is allergic to peanuts, so NO OTHER CHILDREN may bring peanut butter and jelly , or ANYTHING with peanuts, to school!!!!!!

  66. Are these hyper-sensitive hysterics attempting to obscure the worthlessness of their terribly expensive degrees?

  67. All of these extreme reactions to innocuous, supposedly “triggering” events, it seems to me are—inadvertently, or very deliberately— going to create an atmosphere in which violence will eventually be justified and directed against those who “trigger” them, or against whatever group they might supposedly might be a part of, or represent.

  68. CBI:

    I believe you are mostly correct, but sometimes Latin is used—for example, claustrophobia is from the Latin laustrum which means “a shut in place”, combined with the Greek phobia. Some other phobia names are Latin and some are Greek (see this).

    I think in the case of red cap phobia the Latin falls more trippingly off the tongue. But neither Latin nor Greek is my forte.

  69. From what I can tell, the red hat hysteria is not exactly an act. It seems the pink hats have worked themselves into a mental condition about red hats.

    I must disagree that it’s the same thing as a child with a severe peanut allergy, though the intensity is similar. But, some children can really die from the slightest exposure to peanuts. Progressives, on the other hand, are really acting like nuts.

  70. I said:

    “Could anyone outside of an asylum really be that fearful and cowardly?

    Somebody actually that weak, would be ashamed of it.”

    Roy Nathanson soon after said:

    Somehow, we are being bludgeoned to death with their weakness and sensitivity.

    It occurred to me sometime after that, that, although researchers have indeed ascribed mental and emotional illness issues to “liberals” at higher rates than normal others, and even asserted that liberal women are objectively less good looking and less sexually dimorphic than conservative women … that that may not be the whole of it.

    Along with that, though it may be causally linked, is the leftist view of existence (“anthropology” may be too narrow a word, and “metaphysics” too broad).

    For example: one of the things I have been berated by liberals over, is my “failure” to appreciate “the human condition”.

    And by that they seem to mean what they take to be an acceptance of the ultimately pessimistic and futile nature of being alive; a condition wherein the only solace to be found is in the commiseration of the collective and the rectification work of the highest levels of social authority: in making the unfairness of social and biological life [inherent inequality] more “fair” through re-distributive and handicapping processes; and making the tragedy of existence itself more tolerable through rendering orgasmic and other distractions less fraught with consequences.

    Now, it may be that this “philosophico-critical” view of life, or maybe “weltanschauung”, is primarily the result of effed up and resentful people making a philosophy out of their personal misery; but it doesn’t take much imagination to project that the spread of this stance to formerly marginally competent cases is likely enough given the right social conditions and the attribution of an aura of sophistication and knowingness to those holding this tragic, nihilistic ultimately, view of life.

    It’s a view in which the only standard of good and acceptable is what is found in an ever changing, essentially mindless, buzzing cloud of acceptance and emotional validation. The consequences of this, of course, we see before us.

  71. Liberals/the Left have been droning on forever about the sin of “othering” someone, marking him as someone outside the “tribe,” as “not on of us,” and that is exactly what those on the Left are doing here, with a lot of historical examples to show us just what can happen to individuals, or even to whole peoples who are “othered.”

  72. The depth to which this attitude I spoke of a moment ago has taken root, is exemplified to my mind, by an offhand comment by a feminist, referring to “the tyranny of biology”.

    I suppose you could as easily read too little into that comment, and take it as jocular, as easily as you could read into it too much, by taking it as a case of Gnosticism, or extreme and garbled Neoplatonism.

    But in the context it meant that having periods and being at risk for pregnancy; essentially the biological definition of a properly developed female, were examples of a natural injustice which inconvenienced a being which wished to use itself in order to achieve an agenda independent of its biology, and which it somehow developed and assumed (in a reflexive application of one of their own terms) as privileged. And not only subjectively privileged and indifferently tolerated by others, but socially privileged and collectively validated. Or else.

    Because … “tolerance is not enough” quoth “The One”

  73. Snow on Pine on September 4, 2019 at 2:32 pm said:

    The Left has been droning on forever about the sin of “othering” someone, marking him as someone outside the “tribe,” as “not on of us,” and that is exactly what those on the Left are doing here, with a lot of historical examples to show us just what can happen to individuals, or even to whole peoples who are “othered.”

    Well try granting them their premise … that we are indeed other and morally alien, and antithetical to one and another, and that there is no way in which social compatibility, or indeed moral reciprocity and exist between such antipathetic forces … and see how they like that.

    They don’t quite know what to do unless they are Antifa types who are predisposed to acting out their violent impulses.

    See, because in granting their premise, you may be “othered” but you are also simultaneously freed of any moral obligation of duty of human fellowship toward them as well.

    This, they seem to find disquieting to the extent that they do not have the upper hand physically; then, they start jabbering on about “us” and a common humanity once again.

    A good example of this curious tactic of theirs has been seen in and in relation to South America, where murderous Reds were kidnapping and slaying citizens; and had basically declared war on the entire moral project of civilization to that time, and not just on the troubled Latin American manifestation of it.

    Yet, when they are caught, beaten, and dumped into a shark infested ocean by people they have othered and would kill if they had the power, their former comrades and parents and other sympathizers strike a pose as if we are all of the sudden members of the same moral community once again.

    You cannot have it both ways my lefty “friends”. Laws of Excluded Middle, Non-Contradiction, and all that.

  74. CBI:

    I believe you are mostly correct, but sometimes Latin is used—for example, claustrophobia is from the Latin laustrum which means “a shut in place”, combined with the Greek phobia. Some other phobia names are Latin and some are Greek (see this).

    I think in the case of red cap phobia the Latin falls more trippingly off the tongue. But neither Latin nor Greek is my forte.

    Ah, I’d forgotten about that. The Greek would have been kleistophobia: not much difference. Anyway, I do think that an English pronunciation of KOH-ki-no-KAP-pel-o-PHO-bi-a is easier, but that requires shifting the Greek accent around a bit. But both work fine. 🙂

    Thanks again.

  75. DNW:

    But “the tyranny of biology” is also a mere statement of fact. I’m not saying that the person you’re describing was using it that way, but it can be used that way.

    For example, the facts you’re talking about—that women are the only ones to have periods and to bear children—are both an inconvenience, a possible grave danger (particularly in earlier times), an enormous responsibility, a great joy, and a great privilege, depending on circumstances. Men don’t share that particular “tyranny of biology”, which can be (depending on circumstances) a relief for a man or a regret for a man. Another male fact of biological life (until recently, anyway) is that they could never be sure of the paternity of a child they were required to support. And it’s still part of the tyranny of biology for males that they tend to die earlier.

    To me, the “tyranny of biology” merely means that biology exerts certain limits. Whether or not a person wants to push against those limits or even try to knock them down is another topic.

  76. Everybody who can be “triggered” by something completely innocent in itself is a neurotic who needs therapy, of worse, a psychopath or nut case. Universe exists not to make you happy or comfortable. If you believe in such nonsense, this is your parents fault: may be, they should have spanked or slap you more hard when you began to throw temper tantrums.

  77. When did it become a virtue to be so frightened and you can stop the sentence right there.

    The same time as it became a virtue to be a victim, to be a weepy non-serious person who can’t speak in declarative sentences (see, e.g. Christine Blasey Ford), to be a person with an “external locus of control” (to use the Psychologese).

    This seems to mostly be an issue among women on the left. I blame 3rd-wave feminism (or are we on 4th now?). I’m with Camille Paglia on this: grow the f*** up.

  78. “To me, the “tyranny of biology” merely means that biology exerts certain limits.”

    Just means certain limits? Such as make definitions and identies possible in the first place? Then why call it “tyranny”? Are they just trying to be funny?

    And what are these materialists (in essence if not acknowledgement) other than their bodies – including the brain? Were they little souls that floated around in a heavenly carousel until descending at random into a “body” which they now inhabit constrained, like some military recruit thrown a set of ill fitting fatigues?

    You on the other hand are, as I read it, referring in the main to frailties, or just the nature of the beast which is experienced subjectively as a limitation.

    But they are their limitation, and they have no identity outside of the definition, though they may qualitatively transcend the limits in some sense. Transcend it very much though and it, the ostensible subject, becomes another thing …

    So where is that subject?

    My point is that the phrase ” “tyranny” of biology” is intellectually dishonest … especially as used by people who are presumably on the basis of their ideology, nothing but it … i.e., their biology. Which goes for most progressives.

    They should call it the oppression the the progressive self; and perhaps seek remedies proper to the more accurate framing.

  79. DNW:

    I think I made it clear that it is only sometimes experienced as a limitation or a frailty. Sometimes it is a real plus.

    To me—not necessarily to them, but to me—the word “tyranny” simply means that we cannot wish it away. It is something imposed by our biological natures. We—men and women—are not exactly equal in all respects.

  80. Oh, my goodness, I feel the need to buy a Chick-fil-A hat: bright screaming red plus bonus lefty freak-outs. Of course the silly lefties already freaked out when a CfA store showed up inside Seattle city limits ….

  81. “I think I made it clear that it is only sometimes experienced as a limitation or a frailty. Sometimes it is a real plus.—not necessarily to them, but to me—the word “tyranny” simply means that we cannot wish it away. It is something imposed by our biological natures. We—men and women—are not exactly equal in all respects.”

    Guess I need to look up the words tyrant and tyranny again and see what I might have missed.

    In any event, I was referring to “them” and to their vision of intrinsic limits and what it meant (if they were forced into logical consistency) for an understanding of the identity and the supposition framework of the thing or being which asserts it is being tyrannized by … what it is.

  82. DNW:

    Yes, you did miss a definition. The word “tyranny” has a political meaning, but that’s not the only meaning. The “tyranny of biology” is not political (although it can be used by politicians or political pundits).

    I am writing this comment on my phone and can’t do a link, but Merriam-Webster’s third defition is the one: “a rigorous condition imposed by some outside agency or force.” The example given is “the tyranny of the clock.” It is in that sense that I am using the word.

  83. “Sparky Anderson…”

    Heh, or maybe even Earl Weaver.

    Red… orange… too close to call.

  84. I really, REALLY like the red ball cap that says on it, in white embroidered letters, “Made You Look”

  85. Here is a story that perhaps parallels Neo’s piece. Alphabet Corp. (Google) has internal message boards that it encourages employees to create and use. But to the shock of management, the amount of time and vitriol invested in these boards has sufficiently impacted the productivity of their workers that they felt compelled to issue the following message to them:

    Don’t troll, name call, or engage in ad hominem attacks—about anyone. This includes making statements that insult, demean, or humiliate.

    While sharing information and ideas with colleagues helps build community, disrupting the workday to have a raging debate over politics or the latest news story does not. Our primary responsibility is to do the work we’ve each been hired to do, not to spend working time on debates about non-work topics.

    Yes, we actually expect you to do your work in between your political posturings on our message boards. Don’t insult your coworkers, unless they’re conservatives, in which case it is OK and helps us locate those folks we need to fire.

    Isn’t interesting that a large number of people working in a group-thinking, near mono-culture, still get irate and exercised over the likely small deviations in opinion. Maybe this is partly a function of the ability of the squeaky wheels to manipulate HR and get people like Mr. Damore fired?

  86. About that othering thing the Left does so well —
    https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/hollywood-othering-red-states/

    Now, two-plus years into the Age of Trump, it’s clear Hollywood is attempting to “other” anyone tied to Trump. That means Fox News, conservative voters, members of his administration and those cutting checks for Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign.

    Earlier this year, Vanity Fair published a brutal expose of scripts circulating around Tinsel Town. Several focused on Internet pioneers Matt Drudge and the late Andrew Breitbart, both right-of-center voices.

    The screenwriters grappled with the subjects in play, though, in ways that are straight from the “othering” textbook.

    It’s shame, then, that some of the industry’s loudest voices want to treat half the country as different, even inferior, for their political choices.

    Is Makkai on some kind of Deep Left Journolist?

  87. More posts “on topic” via Instapundit’s links.

    http://thedeclination.com/leftist-orthodoxy-hate-the-sinner-and-the-sin/

    Cum dilectione hominum et odio vitiorum.

    Saint Augustine tells us (along with Gandhi, many years later) to love the sinner, and hate the sin. Conceptually, it’s easy enough to grasp. Practically, it’s not always an easy task. Drive down the freeway during peak traffic hours and tell me how many folks drive you crazy with poor driving antics. Certainly road rage wouldn’t be so prevalent if most folks managed to live by this rule. However, making the attempt to live this way is worthy even if we cannot always live up to it.

    Social Justice orthodoxy demands that we hate the sinner for the sin.

    Talking to the sinner is forbidden. Forgiveness of the sinner is forbidden. It does not matter if the sin was three years ago, or thirty years ago. It does not matter if the sin was a casually insensitive joke, or a Virginia governor donning blackface in a yearbook. Although we might suspect that Governor Northam may have been given some level of a temporary pass for his Democratic party allegiance. Political expediency may delay your final unpersoning, for a time. Then again, it may not. Courts of public opinion are fickle, prone to whimsy, and as cruel as any schoolyard bully. There is a reason the justice system is not put to popular vote, after all.

    Well, the legal system isn’t supposed to be voted on, but that is changing.
    There’s one GOP sinner who ain’t evuh gonna be forgiven.

    https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/09/texas_judge_officially_admonished_for_draping_courtroom_door_in_black_protesting_confirmation_of_justice_kavanaugh_.html

  88. The “declination” post quotes heavily from an article in The Atlantic about Joe Rogan, and why he is so popular, although the purpose of the writer is to convince you that Rogan is really one of the toxic males who may not be evil himself, but is just too forgiving of people who are (main case in point was Alex Jones).
    The poster did not use this excerpt, which I think probably reflects Makkai’s viewpoint, and that of the Leftist audience to whom The Atlantic directs its wares these days.

    If you don’t think it’s possible to be insightful and obtuse at the same time, just listen to an hour of his podcast with the author and neuroscientist Sam Harris, who raised some fraught but worthwhile questions about how forgiveness works in the age of the #MeToo movement and MAGA.

    “We need to think through the whole process of redemption for people in our society,” Harris argued. “What are the criteria for successful apologies and for forgiveness?” Rogan agreed, hard, and they discussed the case of Liam Neeson, who may have done lasting damage to his career by confessing to racist thoughts in his youth that he is ashamed of now. “They just wanna see him burned alive,” Harris said with real alarm. “And yet … these same people on the left are people who have as a genuine ethical norm the rehabilitation of murderers … There’s no way to square those two things.” These are both good, if imperfect, points to raise, but neither of them seems to grasp that a good point coming out of the wrong mouth doesn’t count for squat.

  89. Remember the media giants complaining about right-wingers digging through old writings to find something with which to “smear” their journalists?

    It’s something they would never do, of course!

    https://victorygirlsblog.com/media-continues-targeted-social-media-tattling/

    Proving once again that the media practices a “rules for thee, not for me” approach to pretty much everything, a Bloomberg reporter apparently got an incoming senior aide at the Department of Labor fired over a Facebook post.

    Again, why were they suprised when “mutually assured destruction” became the rule of the day when this kind of stuff is a bragging point for journalists?

    Bloomberg reporter Ben Penn had a total “gotcha!” post. He went digging through incoming Department of Labor senior aide Leif Olson’s Facebook page to find some dirt, any dirt. What he came up with, he wrote up in an article, claiming anti-Semitism.

    Olson was apparently on the job for 18 days before Penn, with a larger media platform than he has brains, decided to go sifting through his Facebook profile for funsies and a hit job. Why does the media have a credibility problem? It’s a mystery, Charlie Brown.

    The worst part of this is that it seems to be universally agreed that Olson was mocking Paul Nehlen, who is the anti-Semite crazy person who made a media profile for himself trying to primary former Speaker Paul Ryan. Who says so? Other media figures like Jonathan Chait, who pointed out that the sarcasm in Olson’s post is pretty obvious – and that Penn also edited a couple of comments out to make the context less obvious.

    Olson was literally a cog in the Department of Labor’s wheel. They could afford to lose him. It certainly doesn’t affect the DOL to lose a new senior aide as much as it does to have a man’s professional life targeted and ruined because a reporter is either stupid or malicious.

    And those are really the only two options.

    He got a man fired (sure, he “offered his resignation,” sure), and then went to brag about it, thinking he was about to gain some serious journalisming cred. When other media outlets and journalists pointed out that he is an idiot, his only defense is “Well, he quit, didn’t he? HE MUST BE GUILTY.”

    We’re all going to have to take a page from Governor Ralph Northam. Never admit to anything, give vague apologies, ignore the media until they get distracted by something else. It’s a pity that the DOL and Leif Olson couldn’t follow this formula long enough for Ben Penn to be exposed as a giant tool. Honestly, Leif Olson should be talking to a libel lawyer to see what his options are.

    “If Ben Penn is too stupid to know what sarcasm is,” he has a career waiting at Snopes fact-checking the Babylon Bee.

  90. mishu on September 4, 2019 at 1:06 pm said:
    I don’t think they are sincere.
    * * *
    That was a great video on how Leftists ideas spread through the country, and how they can be chalenged. Coincidentally, he mentions the potential damage Joe Rogan can do to the progressive cause if he continues to move (slowly) to the right (5:00). I have no idea what the spider-webs are like, but the Atlantic writer may have been clued in to that very danger, hence his back-handed wrist-slap (Joe claims to be a leftist sort of person, he mentions early in his article).

    In re The View, Goldberg is one of the few people who can see down the road at what happens when the Left “normalizes” their anti-social activities (see above on trawling for career-ending public comments).

    https://pjmedia.com/video/video-the-view-panel-condemns-debra-messings-call-to-publicly-shame-trump-donors/

    Messing has been condoning the call for a modern-day blacklist by saying that donations are a matter of public record, and that she is proud to tell everyone which politicians she donates to. That’s easy for leftists to do because conservatives don’t try to ruin the careers of people we disagree with, which is what she plainly wants to do.

    Add to that the fact that the mainstream American Left has been excusing and normalizing harassment and violence being committed against Trump supporters and Messing’s call to action becomes even more problematic.

    When co-host Sunny Hostin offered a variation of Messing’s justification and added the disclaimer that she’s not calling for violence against anyone, Behar interjects, “but that’s what happens.”

    Whoopi followed that up by noting that “people ended up killing themselves” during the original blacklist days.

  91. You can’t make this stuff up.
    Everybody’s obviously got the right to not be offended by anything!

    SOD OFF, SWAMPY: Vegan woman demands neighbour stop using meat on barbecue due to smell.

    The massage therapist has been embroiled in a battle with Toan Vu, his wife and children since late 2018.

    After her claims were rejected by a tribunal earlier this year on lack of evidence, she applied to the Supreme Court of Western Australia for right of appeal. It was also turned down in July.

    Lawyer John Hammond said going to the Supreme Court was an “extreme option” — but it hadn’t stopped Ms Carden from further appealing the case.

    She told Nine News she believed her neighbours were “absolutely deliberate” in allowing their smells to cross into her yard.

  92. Victory Girls said this: “Never admit to anything, give vague apologies, ignore the media until they get distracted by something else. It’s a pity that the DOL and Leif Olson couldn’t follow this formula long enough for Ben Penn to be exposed as a giant tool.”

    Today the DOL repented their knee-jerk abdication of control to the Left.
    Kinda reminds me of the Covington case, and the racism hoaxes.
    When are people going to think first and act later, IF action is even warranted, which it very often is not.

    https://hotair.com/archives/john-s-2/2019/09/04/labor-department-reinstate-leif-olson-false-allegation-anti-semitism/

    Acting Secretary Patrick Pizzella “personally made this decision after carefully reviewing all the facts and circumstances,” a senior Labor Department official told the DCNF. “He concluded that a correction is much better than an injustice.”

  93. Whoopi was right on about that blacklisting business that Messer was proposing.

    https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2019/09/04/insane-leftists-begin-blacklist-pittsburgh-shut-trump-supporters-businesses/

    Debra Messing would be proud, eh? The effort to destroy the livelihoods of those who do not accept The Approved Groupthink has expanded outside of Hollywood all the way to Pittsburgh. Either oppose Donald Trump in 2020 or get run out of town on a rail, small business owners!

    The boycotts that Broome cites [as an example of allowable political actions] are a withholding of personal custom, aimed at large corporations. This effort takes aim at small businesses, and it’s not to deprive the businesses of personal patronage. They want to chase these people out of business altogether:

  94. https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/09/the_power_of_the_red_hat.html

    The power of the red hat
    By Dave Ball
    Cocklaphobia is the irrational fear of hats. That word tickles me, and I just couldn’t resist commenting when I read about the uber-snowflake who claimed to be triggered by MAGA hats. Rebecca Makkai is, indeed, a Pulitzer Prize–winning short story–writer whom even I, a certified knuckle-dragging conservative NRA member, have heard of.

    Looking at the breadth of Makkai’s writings, she seems to be in touch with many things, excepting her own emotions. All of us are afraid of something. Some people don’t like large hairy spiders. Others aren’t particularly fond of komodo dragons. But to be triggered by a red hat seems a bit much.

    Maybe the red hat reminds her that the whole world does not subscribe to her way of thought. This is really tough for liberals to swallow. I know. Maybe the red hat screams at her that America is great despite the socialist mantra. Maybe she, like most super-liberals, is just so self-centered that the red hat is telling her she’s wrong about being the center of the universe and just about everything else. Maybe we’ll never know what power the red hat holds.

  95. Somebody above mentioned how shockingly uninformed liberals are. I’ve certainly found that to be true. I have a number of highly successful, mostly retired, MD’s in my group of friends who are very liberal and despite being intelligent, are almost willfully ignorant. They exclusively rely on CNN, MSNBC, and especially the NYT for information. Emotion seems to be the basis for most of their positions–they CHOOSE to believe something in the face of all empirical evidence to the contrary.

    Simple examples include believing that wind and solar can just be hooked up to batteries to store the energy they create for times when the wind/sun isn’t sufficient to generate energy. No such battery technology exists, nor is it going to exist.

    Most claim to know nothing about the actual coup attempt staged by Obama’s justice, FBI and intelligence apparatus.

    They actually believe we can discard fossil fuel entirely in 10 years or less, and that if we don’t, the world will be devastated.

    They actually believe Hilary Clinton is not corrupt.

    I could go on, but you get the picture. Despite our diametrically opposed points of view, we remain good friends. Discussing politics is off the agenda. We even hug as we greet or say goodbye to each other after lunches together, and they never say anything when they bump against my concealed carry weapon.

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