Nightmare of the Living Liberals

From my primary "I Protest" Substack (January 2023) at donaldjeffries.substack.com

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This is how the dictionary still defines “liberal”: 1. “willing to respect or accept behavior or opinions different from one's own; open to new ideas. 2. relating to or denoting a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise.” Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?

That is the kind of liberal I have been for about fifty years now. But there is no one calling themselves a “liberal” today who fits this definition. The current definition. They should really do an update, like they have on the definition of “vaccine.” I’ll detail that in my upcoming book on the COVID narrative. Today’s Left has zero willingness to “respect or accept” differing opinions. They don’t believe in individual rights or civil liberties, and certainly not free enterprise. They are concerned with Orwellian “hate speech,” not free speech.

So when did this change occur? As a young, long-haired radical in the mid-1970s, I gravitated to the ACLU, which believed in protecting civil liberties then. I thought the Democrats were the good guys. I wanted marijuana legalized, and all drugs decriminalized. We used to refer to drug offenses, and many sex (or moral) charges as “victimless crimes” back then. Sure seems like an antiquated phrase. I strongly opposed capital punishment, and was for massive prison reforms. I already knew about COINTEL, and MKULTRA, and about the huge JFK assassination coverup, so I wanted to abolish our “intelligence” agencies. Long before Mar-a-Lago.

I was excited about the post-Watergate Democratic Party takeover of Congress. As many know, I started my political activism by volunteering with Mark Lane’s Citizens Committee of Inquiry. I cheered on the Church Committee disclosures. But nothing significant happened from the “radical” Democrats taking charge. The CIA got a slap on the wrist, and continued on as always. Nothing happened to the FBI. The House Select Committee on Assassinations, which I helped lobby Congress for, was a monumental disappointment. I started to lose my youthful idealism. Jimmy Carter wasn’t the kind of Democrat I was expecting, and hoping for.

So what happened? As I’ve written before, worthwhile conservatism was transformed under Ronald Reagan, into a rigged market-worshiping, Ayn Rand-inspired monstrosity. Neocons and tax cuts for the rich. “Liberal” became a dirty word. But just as Reagan killed the Right, Bill Clinton absolutely blew up classical liberalism. Now, “liberal” meant to be just as bloodthirsty for senseless war as any right-winger had ever been. Gone were concerns about reform, injustice, and corruption. It became all about virtue signaling once Slick Willie felt our pain. Political correctness started becoming institutionalized.

From there, it was a short journey to Barack Obama’s full-blown Leftist tyranny. The eight years of Dubya’s milquetoast neoconservatism were a laughable “alternative” to the increasingly powerful Identity Politics of the Left. Once Obama entered the White House, “racist” became the most commonly expressed word in the English language. Criticize our first (half) Black president? You’re racist! Fail to fawn over the beauty and elegance of First Lady Michelle? Racist! And at least 200 million Americans would have been a better opponent to Obama then John McCainiac or Mitt Romney. That’s why they call them the Stupid Party.

With Obama, and then especially with the unseen Trump interlude, the Left became full-blown “Woke.” Which means, oddly, not awake. They donned their pussy hats, began tattooing up even more extensively, dyed their hair in various hues, and created the incomprehensible mess that is the “Transgender” movement. And policing speech became a full-time occupation for them. Usually accompanied by calling the police, or contacting some Thought Criminal’s place of work, to demand their arrest or firing. No more talk about ending war, or helping the poor, or demanding better wages and benefits for the working class, or ending the disparity of wealth.

How did we go from Project Innocence to shouting down parents concerned about “Transgender Story Hour” at their child’s elementary school? From antiwar marches to the indiscriminate burning and looting of the Black Lives Matter riots? From Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech to tearing down statues of historical figures? From Bob Dylan’s “Only a Pawn in Their Game” to Cardi B’s “Wet-Ass Pussy?” From Jack Paar to Stephen Colbert? Today’s Left is completely obsessed with taking away rights, not fighting for those who’ve been unfairly denied them.

I feel the same way talking to most Leftists today that I did talking with the hardline conservatives back in the 1970s. Their favorite rebuttal to “radical” talk then was “America- love it or leave it.” That’s pretty much what today’s “Woke” social justice warriors believe. While America 2.0 is an entirely different animal than the America 1.0 of the mid-1970s, as it slowed down and approached the finish line, the attitude towards dissent is all too similar. You don’t like fifty seven genders and Critical Race Theory? Why don’t you go live in Russia, then? Which was, of course, the place that they’d advise you to emigrate to back then as well.

We’ve come full circle politically. The Left now are the ones who defend our out of control, totally corrupt “intelligence” agencies. The Left now loves war. All war. The Left now loves violence. Punch a Nazi in the face and all that. Unless the one getting assaulted is a transgender or otherwise “marginalized person.” Really, it pretty much means anyone nonwhite, or non-heterosexual. They are the “protected” classes, much as the large landowners once were in America 1.0. The Left now absolutely despises the concept of free speech, and scoffs at any accusation of electoral fraud.

As a passionate young radical, sitting in my bedroom, writing way too many songs of protest, I could never have foreseen that this would become the reality fifty years hence. The worst of both worlds. All the goodness of classical liberalism blocked from the corridors of power. And only the worst elements of conservatism melded in with the toxic stew of Identity Politics. Every sensible tenet of the Right smeared, and almost criminalized, as “racist” or “White supremacist.” The “Good Old Boy” Network as strong as ever, with the “old boys” changed dramatically. Maybe we could call it the “Good Old Woke” Network or something.

Consider how the greatest liberal minds of the past would be treated in America 2.0. Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Paine. Patrick Henry. George Mason. Charles Dickens. William Jennings Bryan. Huey Long. H.L. Mencken. John F. Kennedy. None of them would be welcome in today’s Democratic Party. Most would probably be labeled “racist” or “insurrectionist.” They’d be forced into the world of political extremism. My world. Hell, maybe I could book them as guests on “I Protest.” They’d certainly be banned from the biggest platforms.

I’m not sure what I expected to happen in the future, but I know it wasn’t this. Life expectancy actually dropping? Private prisons, which help to house the most prisoners the world has ever seen? Proper grammar and mathematics labeled “racist?” Doctors enthusiastically mutilating young children and calling it “gender reassignment?” Expressing the eminently sensible and true sentiment “all lives matter” being considered “racist?” Human beings changing their “pronouns,” sometimes to “they/them?” An individual can be a plural? Kitty litter boxes in schools for students who “identify” as cats?

I guess I would have thought that maybe we’d really live in harmony by now. That “racist” would be an unknown term, a relic of the past. That the science I once trusted would have made great strides. Cancer cured. Life expectancy doubled. Colonies on the moon and Mars. War outlawed, just as General Douglas MacArthur, of all people, lobbied for. While I didn’t think we could win a “war” on poverty, I didn’t foresee people defecating on the streets of major cities (with no one cleaning it up), or major tent encampments of the homeless. I didn’t expect the illegal immigrant explosion over our always wide open southern border.

The world of the 1970s was a lot quieter, and less crowded. That alone made it seem much better, I suppose. There was nowhere else for a sensitive, politically conscientious soul to gravitate to other than the Left. I was never going to be a Young Republican. I thought the hippies would change things for the better, once they attained power. Boy, was I wrong. Even before instilling the authoritarian “Woke” culture, they instituted a bunch of excess rules and regulations, most of them pointless and counterproductive. No meaningful reform. Just more rules.

The hippies are growing old, or already dead. But the legacy they established has become the foundation of America 2.0. Look at the present college students. You want to try and reason with them? The kids who just desecrated priceless works of art because….well, I don’t have any idea why. I’m sure it had something to do with “racism.” And look at the TikTok teachers who are molding the minds of the younger ones. Abrasive and confrontational. All “feelings” and no reason. Advertising their lunacy in what they hope will become “viral” videos online. Do you think any of them care about FBI corruption or the bombing of innocent civilians?

Today’s “Woke” social justice warriors, with or without the multi-piercings and multi-hair colors, don’t deserve to be called “liberal.” It was once one of the most honorable words in the English language. I wore it as a badge of honor. Now I usually just call myself a populist. It’s much easier. The Left doesn’t want me any more than I want them. I will always care about those who have been dealt a harsh hand in life. And I’ll defend the civil liberties of everyone, even the widest-eyed social justice warrior. Even though I know they might very well want me imprisoned for my own beliefs.