The Excitement, The Hype, and The Refusal to Look at Reality

I was caught up in it, once.

It was in 1972. The Dissident Left of that time was riding high. "Everyone" knew that Richard Nixon was going DOWN!

There was no way "We" weren't going to win. You could feel the energy everywhere I went. The crowd sizes in the marches and protests were incredible. When you attended a protest, it was a thrilling, heart-pounding experience.

All the alternative newspapers said we were going to win. Heck, a lot of the mainstream news was betting on it.

On election day, I cast my vote, then went home to wait for the inevitable outcome. I remember staying up until around 2 am, waiting for the tide to turn.

When I finally woke, I was flabbergasted. There was NO way we hadn't swept the country - EVERYONE I knew voted for McGovern!

Well, that was then, and this is now. And, I understand the frenzied support, the excitement of the process, the dreams of the defeated. And, how crushing it all was.

I've come to see the Watergate hearings as that time's expression of, Hell, NO! This MUST have been some kind of plot against democracy! We will NOT accept a loss! It's amazing just how many of the people responsible for that Abuse of Congress are still hanging around, trying to drum up support for Watergate II (or maybe III, if you count the Impeachment Hearings/Coup).

I don't expect them to quit after the election. This is all part of the on-going effort to Bring Down America. But, a very large landslide would have the effect of peeling off support for the Left - eventually. The Diehards will go to their grave repeating their mantra of Orange Man Bad! Anyone Who Opposes Us is Fascist! ALL Our Guys Are Purehearted and Completely Unmotivated by Money!

But, they're going to lose popular support. They're going to lose the young, who've been hard-hit by the COVID-Economy, student debt, and family dissolution. They're going to lose out when they can no longer depend on imported slave labor to fuel their state's growth. They're going to lose out when taxpayers - both corpporate and individual - leave those states.

It takes time to stamp out a fire - and the Left has been fueled by the Fires they've built in people's frenzied minds. It will take a long time to bring them back to sanity.