{"id":68679,"date":"2018-12-06T11:00:59","date_gmt":"2018-12-06T17:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=68679"},"modified":"2018-12-02T12:26:43","modified_gmt":"2018-12-02T18:26:43","slug":"how-the-other-half-fumes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=68679","title":{"rendered":"How The Other Half Fumes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many years ago, I went out on a date with a woman who was a pretty “out” DFLer.\u00a0 Public employee union member, second generation DFL activist (at least), and predictably emotion-driven in her approach to all things political.<\/p>\n

We went out 3-4 times – “dates” that almost always involved being out with quite a number of her friends, and an amazing paucity of one on one conversation.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, when “fish or cut bait” time came along, she said “I’m just not sure I can trust you to be kind”.<\/p>\n

Bear in mind, nothing about me or my senses and practice of kindness, charity or anything of the sort had ever come up.\u00a0 But my conservatism had.\u00a0 Literally, the only thing she knew about me was the stereotypes she had of conservatives.<\/p>\n

It was, if unwittingly, one of the nastiest things anyone’s ever said to me.<\/p>\n

I thought about that when reading this\u00a0New York Magazine\u00a0<\/em>piece about women who are abandoning relationships and marriages in a flurry of “Lifetime Network”-caliber pique and huff…<\/p>\n

…Because Trump.<\/p>\n

David Thompson fisks one of the interview subjects to a fine sheen – go and read it<\/a> – but that was by no means all:<\/p>\n

[the writer]<\/em> goes on to share other tales of bedlamite sorrow. A woman named Samantha complains that her husband of 25 years, a fellow lefty, has \u201cmuch less rage\u201d than she does, specifically about \u201cwhite privileged men,\u201d and doesn\u2019t wish to spend every evening equally infuriated by the existence of people whose politics differ somewhat. \u201cAnger,\u201d says Samantha, is her \u201cde facto mode.\u201d Though she\u2019s trying to \u201cget rid of it through therapy.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Brooklynite named Betsy boasts that \u201ccultural change is like a steamroller. It flattens distinctions, and some people will get hurt,\u201d by which she means men falsely and maliciously accused of rape, before adding, \u201cand I\u2019m okay with that.\u201d Betsy and her husband are currently in counselling.<\/p>\n

Another lady named Sarah tells us that her marriage became unsustainable \u201cafter the 2016 election, when I ramped up my political activism.\u201d Sarah\u2019s husband is described as \u201ccompletely aligned\u201d politically, a feminist, even, albeit one who doesn\u2019t care to spend every waking hour raging about politics.\u00a0\u201cTalking about the Trump election,\u201d says Sarah, \u201cmakes me more emotional than the end of my marriage.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0And presumably, more emotional than the thought of her children losing the stability and reassurance of a family structure. But hey,\u00a0priorities<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s not a new, original observation to say that progressivism is to the left what faith is to the cultural right.\u00a0 Far from it.<\/p>\n

But some parts of “progressivism” are becoming downright cult-like.<\/p>\n

SIDE NOTE to Minnesota Republicans fussing about “Sharia Law”:\u00a0 \u00a0Progressivism will destroy this nation long, long before anything else will.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many years ago, I went out on a date with a woman who was a pretty “out” DFLer.\u00a0 Public employee union member, second generation DFL activist (at least), and predictably emotion-driven in her approach to all things political. We went out 3-4 times – “dates” that almost always involved being out with quite a number […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,29,377],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-war","category-family-law","category-the-second-civil-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=68679"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68680,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68679\/revisions\/68680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=68679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=68679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=68679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}