Daily Kos Founder Tells Readers – ‘Be Happy for Coal Miners Losing Their Health Insurance’

On Monday, Markos “kos” Moulitsas, founder of the highly trafficked Daily Kos website penned an article that many have found deeply offensive titled, Be Happy for Coal Miners Losing Their Health Insurance. They’re Getting Exactly What They Voted for. Here’s some of what he wrote:

Hillary Clinton won the election, but a system designed to let a powerful minority override the will of the majority selected some asshole. For now, we have to deal with that bullshit reality, and lots of good people will suffer serious consequences. But don’t feel sorry for the ones who enabled this nightmare by voting for the incoming Trump-Putin administration. For example, why should we weep for the retired coal miners who will now lose their health insurance thanks to the GOP majority—despite the best efforts of coal-state Democrats to change the outcome? 

Don’t weep for these coal miners, now abandoned by their GOP patrons. They are getting exactly the government that they voted for. Democrats can no longer offer unrequited love and cover for them. And isn’t this what democracy is all about? They won the election! This is what they wanted!

While I’m as concerned as anyone that Trump is a fake populist who is likely to betray those who voted for him, I find the above extraordinarily offensive and devoid of all human compassion. After all, isn’t being a “liberal” supposed to be about compassion for others no matter the cause of their suffering?

That is what “liberalism” used to be about, perhaps 40 years ago, but it is no longer. As I explained in yesterday’s post, Video of the Day – The ‘Fake Left’ Has Lost Its Mind, there is nothing “liberal” about today’s self-proclaimed liberals; rather, they are a cohort of fake leftists and petty, status quo-fawning authoritarians.

Moreover, Mr. Moulitsas’ condescending, insensitive rant works under the assumption that the logical choice for destitute coal miners was to support a corrupt, war-mongering, compulsive liar, who openly demonstrated disdain for the coal industry.

In case you forgot about the famous clip…

If you were a coal miner, or involved in that industry in any capacity, how would those comments have made you feel? Isn’t the liberal thing to do to try to put yourself in others’ shoes?

At the end of the day, it’s truly incredible how all it took was one election loss for the fake left to show its true colors for all of America to see — arrogant, insensitive, authoritarian. It’s a disturbing display that should be soundly rejected by all Americans.

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In Liberty,
Michael Krieger

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21 thoughts on “Daily Kos Founder Tells Readers – ‘Be Happy for Coal Miners Losing Their Health Insurance’”

  1. Lefties of all stripe are frequently and seriously devoid of compassion for their fellow humans. If some else on the other side of the political spectrum has difficulties, the lefties and progressives take real pleasure in their trouble. To say it’s mean spirited is like saying a scorpion likes to sting its prey to death. They usually hide it well, mouthing moist platitudes about how ‘They feel your pain’

    Today, however, the scab is torn from from the festering sore of progressivism, revealing the ugliness of these types, apparently happy only when someone else is in pain. If they can be part of creating pain in those who don’t accept their heterodoxy, then so much the better. They revel in the pain of others, whether it comes about from other sources or created by the lefty’s own actions. This veers deeply into narcissistic sociopathy and even to real psychopathology. There is evil in the world and it seems to have taken root in the left.

    Reply
    • No, the entire left is not like that and no, not everyone you don’t like is a sociopath. We are seeing the true face of the fake left, not to be confused with legitimate progressivism, which is inherently neither good nor bad, it’s how you use it. There are assholes and powermongers on all sides of the spectrum and to put the “evil” squarely on the Left is the same partisan hysteria we are trying to evolve past. We have real enemy, and it’s not each other,

  2. I consider myself a progressive.

    While I don’t condone what he wrote – I fully understand what he meant.

    Very simply – It comes down to H.L. Mencken’s famous quote on the democratic process.

    Democracy – a process where the common man votes for what he wants – and gets it good and hard.

    It’s hard to feel sorry for someone who got exactly what they asked for.

    That’s commonsense – not elitism

    Reply
    • You really believe that the coal miners deserve to lose their health insurance because they voted for someone who sounded sincere but wasn’t, or because they distrusted Hillary more? Half of the voters voted for Trump for those reasons. Trump’s advantage was that he was running as a big unknown against someone who was too well known to fool enough people to vote for her.
      If Hillary still manages to wangle her way into the White House, she will sign the TPP. Using your idea of common sense, if you subsequently lose your livelihood because of it, I should believe that you and the rest of the Hillary voters got exactly what you asked for.
      The fact is you and the rest did get exactly what you asked for by voting for Hillary in the primaries. It was clear to anyone who was objective that she was stealing the nomination. You could have gotten Bernie Sanders, a real progressive who would have easily beat Trump. But obviously that’s not what you all wanted; it was more important to have a woman President than an honest one.
      Also, since you believe that Trump is worse than Hillary, I suggest you watch “Clinton Cash” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LYRUOd_QoM. And that’s just for starters.
      BTW, I did not vote for Trump.

    • Right after I posted the above, I read your comments further down. So I take back my statement that you wanted Hillary over Bernie. But you really do need to watch “Clinton Cash”. She and Bill have done far worse than Trump has done.

  3. Modern day liberalism has basically become a cult. Admittedly I don’t know how many on the left are deluded cultists but I would gather it is probably the majority of them now because of the brainwashing these super crazies have done to them..

    I’m no fan of the right but at least conservatives don’t try and act like they are all about tolerance and bettering the lives of everyone then try and destroy anyone who dares to disagree with them and call everyone a bigot who has a different view.

    Reply
  4. Albert Einstein – Defined crazy as repeating the same action – expecting a different result.

    Yes my compassion has limits.

    these are voters keep voting for people who continually act against that voters self interest – in the hope that someone else will be the one to be screwed.

    Yes my compassion has limits – to people who aren’t complicit in their own misery.

    Reply
    • First of all, then you don’t really have compassion, which is fine.

      Secondly, given her statements, it was not totally crazy for coal industry people to reject Clinton.

      If it had been Trump vs. Sanders, and Sanders was rejected, then I could see your point. But Clinton is a whole other ballgame, and everyone knows that.

    • You being generous with other people’s money to give others handouts to help them and then getting mad when they don’t vote how you think they should doesn’t make you a noble or compassionate person

  5. I can’t argue your point on Clinton. I am not now nor ever have been a fan of the Clinton’s. (And, I backed Bernie from the day he announced)

    And, I do see one good thing to come out of this election. It’s like an alcoholic – you got to hit a bottom before you can get better. I hope we have finally hit a bottom.

    Yes Clinton Vs Trump was a whole different ballgame.

    That said – when you vote for some one who brags about grabbing women by their P***Y because they can get away with it, Or, someone who thinks that the best thing about a disability is that you can mock them. Or, i can go on but I’m sure you get my point.

    Reply
    • I completely agree with Michael that so many of the ‘left’ are fake progressives. Unfortunately the numbers of true progressives are always going to be small, because it takes courage and wisdom to be honest about one’s own complicity in any imperfect system and have the humility to want to change yourself first rather than simply point fingers elsewhere. In that sense ‘progressives’ can come from the left or the right, as both sides have something valuable to contribute.
      Clearly the fake left are not genuinely progressive because their hatred and spite makes them intransigent and politically toxic. They may have their favoured hobby-horses (and of course identity politics are the plat du jour) but they just use them as vehicles for their pettiness and violence. In any case they are so obsessed with personal politics that they fail to see that the real policy driver is always economic policy. The notion that the Democrats are economically progressive is a sick joke.

  6. On a personal level the left can often seem uncaring, but they’re not, they just don’t wear it on their sleeves. They support policies that are full of compassion for others, and this is the important part.

    Republicans and conservative on the other hand are often personally very nice, but I often joke that they’d vote to put you in a concentration camp tomorrow if they could. They’d even bake you a pie for the bus ride! All kidding aside, conservatives may be personally pleasant but the vote for and support the single most uncompassionate agenda. They show absolutely no caring for anyone different, and that is a million times worse.

    Sorry Michael….nice try though.

    Reply
    • Not sure why you tried to make this about me defending “conservatives or Republicans.” I am neither, and don’t defend either.

      I was merely pointing out the obvious toxicity of the fake left.

  7. You are demanding that people have compassion for those they really, really, don’t like. Good luck with that. It’s like asking a devout Christian to have compassion for a Muslim suspected (but not proven) to be a terrorist. Human nature is the way it is, and often falls rather short of ideals. Don’t waste your time ranting against that, it doesn’t achieve anything.

    As for the logical choice for a coal miner, or anybody else, who had one issue they cared about more than anything else, is to vote based exclusively on that issue. I think if, after analyzing the situation, you conclude that your best chances of keeping healthcare that you absolutely need is to vote for a known liar, well, it makes perfect logical sense to vote for a known liar. Lots of people have said that in this election they didn’t like any of the candidates, and that included the third-party ones. So, given the poor choice, the only logical option was to vote based on the issues that you cared about, or not vote if you didn’t care enough about any of the issues. What I don’t understand is that apparently, many people didn’t do exactly that. Democracy doesn’t work too well when people forget that they are supposed to vote about what they care about.

    Reply
  8. Wow jr when you say so and so is voting against their own what you really mean is you don’t like people voting against your own interests. It is condescending

    FYI you and liberals like kos appear to only care for people if they do what you want them to do. That isn’t caring at all. You want to be worshipped amd have control. Not really my cup of tea but have at it

    Also there is more to life than health insurance

    Reply
  9. Am I the only one who finds it obscene that with over half of eligible voters either not voting or voting third party, that this guy is starting off with the assumption that coal miners all voted for Trump to begin with? I mean, what a whopper of a stereotype!

    Reply

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