rise of the dirtbag left

A lot of people remain in denial about the current political environment. Whether it’s a neocon Never Trumper, or a manic Hillary dead-ender, what these people all have in common is they firmly and passionately think their world is somehow coming back. They still don’t understand that the party’s over.

In our foolish apathy, we entrusted the country to these “very smart people” and they handed the entire thing over to crooked oligarchs, while simultaneously cheerleading us into a never-ending stream of reckless, inhumane imperial wars. They hollowed out and feasted on the entire nation and now, incredibly enough, have rebranded themselves as leaders of a toothless resistance to the mess they created. Delusional doesn’t even begin to describe these people. They genuinely think Trump’s rise represents some bizarre historical blip, and once the hideous blemish is removed, things can carry on as they were. That’s not going to happen.

Before I get into the thick of it, I want to revisit something I wrote a couple of weeks ago in the post, The Center Cannot Hold – Decentralize or Die:

In order to understand the long-term implications of these emails on the future of the nation, you need a good understanding of the primary warring factions in American politics today. We have Donald Trump supporters/voters, Hillary Clinton supporters/voters, and a resurgent left inspired and energized by the principles and ideals espoused by Bernie Sanders. The first two have absolutely zero overlap and pretty much hate each other, while the third group can sometimes identify with either camp depending on the issue, but pretty much think they’re both crazy and dangerous. The key point I’m trying to make is that there is no “center” in American politics anymore, and any discussion of this is pure fantasy. Moreover, any remaining center that still exists, is unlikely to exist at all in a year or so as more and more people feel forced to choose sides. When you create an environment as charged as this one where everyone is accusing their political opponents of treason, this is what you get; and it’s only going to get worse. A lot worse…

If what I wrote above rings true to you on any level, it has dire implications for the future of these United States. The first two groups, Trump supporters and Hillary supporters have absolutely nothing in common and that’s not going to change. In fact, it’s probably going to get much, much worse. Trump supporters think the Democrats and the media have been gunning for a way to remove him from office since the day he was elected, while Hillary supporters think he’s a treasonous puppet of Vladimir Putin. How can these two warring factions come to any sort of agreement on anything? The answer is, they can’t and they won’t. Meanwhile, Bernie supporters are likely to largely stay on the sidelines hoping these two sides destroy each other in their madness.

In a gross oversimplification, the above implies that the political environment going forward will be defined by a vicious battle between the Trump faction and the Hillary faction. While I think this will probably be true for much of the rest of 2017, there’s a good chance that a year from now, the union of Hillary donors, Never Trump neocons and the corporate media will find themselves increasingly irrelevant, on their way to being wiped off the political landscape forever. In its place, a more genuine opposition political movement will take form and face off against Trump on real issues.

This movement was first really seen on the national level with the candidacy of Bernie Sanders, but it takes on many different forms. The one aspect I want to discuss today due to its growing influence and potential for explosive growth, is a faction that has become known as the “Dirtbag Left.”

Read more

Follow me on Twitter.