America appears to be rapidly falling apart, and progressive politicians, activists, culture warriors, and the groups and individuals that finance them are to blame. As more people wake up to this truth, the left-wing elitist class is starting to run out of scapegoats. Exasperated that regular folks aren’t willing to sacrifice their freedom, happiness, financial well being, religious faith, and common sense for the greater good of the new globalist sustainable gender-fluid progressive utopia, these elitists have decided that those regular folks are, themselves, the problem.
Former MSNBC host Chris Matthews – perhaps the angriest man in America, next to Keith Olbermann – recently doubled down on that sentiment during a Dec. 27 appearance on the network’s Morning Joe program. Reacting to rural America’s distaste for what he described as “the liberal establishment, the coastal elite,” Matthews attributed the animosity to “rural rage.” You may not know what this term means – and that’s because it is entirely meaningless, like most things Matthews says. But, according to him, it is presumably common among “people that didn’t go to college.”
One point of order for Mr. Matthews: There is nothing “liberal” about the modern American left-wing establishment. Too many conservatives also still make the mistake of referring to leftists as “liberals.” They are not. True liberals believe in the free exchange of ideas in a free society where mutual respect trumps ideological differences. How many on the left today truly aspire to such a thing?
Left-Wing Elites Always Hated Us
The horrible truth is that the so-called “liberal establishment” always believed the average American was the real problem. We're the uneducated and unwashed masses (in the elitist’s view) who selfishly focus on working hard, looking after our families, attending church, and celebrating cherished American holidays with our friends. Even more contemptible is that we peons truly believe we have certain unalienable rights. The Declaration of Independence says we do – but that is entirely irrelevant to progressives.
Remember what Barack Obama said in 2008 about working-class Midwesterners? According to him, “They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
Then there’s Eric Holder, formerly Obama’s attorney general who, during a 2009 speech, said: “Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards.”
Since around the time Donald Trump ascended to the White House – or perhaps from around the time he descended that golden escalator to announce his candidacy for president – the progressive left-wing academic and political class has adopted even more chilling and authoritarian language toward those who will not comply. The word “terrorist” has been used far too often – and just once would have been too often – to describe any Americans who defend the Constitution, demand that their rights not be infringed, and refuse to go along with the latest leftist ideological gibberish.
Chris Matthews also made this outrageously inappropriate analogy – but he took it a step further. Referring to ways of responding to or dealing with the rural rage he imagines, Matthews said, “But in a way, it’s like fighting terrorism.” He went on to explain why, and the inference behind his words should not be lost on anyone:
"I mean, you know, we think we just put the army in, or Israel just puts the IDF and they’re going to solve the problem. It never solves the problem. Because you enrage people. And we did it with Afghanistan, and we did it with Iraq. We enrage the enemy to the point where they’re more fiery than ever, and they hate us more than ever. Armies don’t make peace. And we think they do."
Increasingly Dangerous Narratives
Yes, you read this direct quote correctly. Matthews’ only objection to using the US military against rural America seems to be that “it never solves the problem.” Clearly, he was comparing the division between “the liberal establishment” and regular Americans to Israel’s war with Hamas or American’s fight against the Taliban.
The Biden administration has carried the narrative forward, too. We have heard endlessly, over the past three years, about the supposedly growing threat of “domestic violent extremists.” There is no point in rejecting the fact that, although they would never admit such a thing, a great many left-wing journalists, pundits, and politicians today view anyone who opposes their agenda as a potential domestic terrorist. How do we know this? Because they have said as much – or at the very least implied it – on numerous occasions, just as Matthews did.
The current occupant of the White House fails the American people on every issue – and it has become impossible for him to keep blaming his political opponents because nobody is buying that line anymore. Thus, Democrats and the wider left-wing establishment turn on the people. Do you think the economy is bad? Do you believe the southern border is not secure? Is it objectionable to you that your kids are being force-fed “gender ideology”? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, that’s because you’re uneducated or just not paying attention – and you are also probably a danger to decent society.
Things are undeniably bad, but we are all still human and still capable of living side-by-side in something approaching harmony. However, history teaches us that disrespectful speech aimed at those without power and privilege by those who possess it gradually turns incendiary. Soon after that, the language becomes demonizing and dehumanizing and, at that point, the users of that language have convinced themselves that the people they hate are so irredeemably terrible that any and all action taken against them is justified.
