The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

‘Their Precious Narrative’

Posted on | January 24, 2019 | Comments Off on ‘Their Precious Narrative’

 

Years ago, Conor (With One “N”) Friedersdorf became a favorite punching bag around here because of his habit of making “conservative” arguments for the liberal agenda, not to mention his absolute lack of cynicism or humor. Friedersdorf craved recognition as a Serious Thinker in a way that struck me as eminently laughable — Mister Sincerity — circa 2009, when the Tea Party was first emerging and Andrew Breitbart was injecting a long-overdue dose of fun into the conservative movement. Well, Conor (With One “N”) is now ensconced at The Atlantic Monthly, where his commentary on the Covington Catholic imbroglio was headlined “This Is How the Left Destroys Itself.”

Writing at Instapundit, David Bernstein remarks:

Conor asks why so many on the left get caught up in politically counter-productive overreaction to the Covington kid. A lot of it is revenge fantasy against some obnoxious jerk from middle or high school. The “smirking” Covington kid (or Brett Kavanaugh before him) becomes a stand-in for the hated adolescent alpha, who probably was as bad as they remember. They couldn’t retaliate properly then, so they publicly join a twitter mob that fantasizes about committing violence, while engaging in doxxing designed to effectuate it. Of course, Nick Sandmann was not actually one’s high school tormentor, and getting caught up in this sort of psychological drama is a good way to alienate those who notice the gap between the vitriol and the evidence purportedly justifying it.

This is exactly right. Liberals perceive themselves as fighting on behalf of the underdog — the victim of oppression — and this gives them a sense of moral authority to inflict punishment on those they identify as villains in what Bernstein rightly calls a “psychological drama.”

So long as you never question the categorical classifications of victims and villains, it is very easy to subscribe to what Andrew Breitbart used to sneeringly call “their precious narrative.” I can still hear Andrew’s voice saying that phrase. The Democrat-Media Complex frames events to achieve its partisan objective, constantly reinforcing the belief that everything is about sexism, racism and homophobia, a televised morality play in which Republicans are cast in the role of Satan.

Because liberalism is so ubiquitous in academia, in Hollywood, and in the news media — all more than 90% Democrat, which is no accident, but the result of deliberate bias — it is possible for such people never to encounter any peer who contradicts their worldview. To them, conservatives are always Those Nasty People Over There, whose opinions (a) are entirely wrong, but (b) don’t really matter, because no Republican has any direct influence within their lives. To see the effect of living within such an ideological cocoon, just tune into CNN for a few hours and you’ll be astonished by the things these people seem to sincerely believe. Not only is there a remarkable absence of balance in their political reporting, but the same liberal bias distorts the way they cover (or don’t cover, as the case may be) everything else in the world. if all you know is what you see on CNN, you might believe that every illegal alien covered by DACA is an aspiring neuroscientist and that the only people who get shot by cops are honor students who were victims of racial profiling.

The transparent selectivity with which the liberal media reports (or doesn’t report) the news is about reinforcing a weltanschauung that serves a partisan purpose: “Vote Democrat, and end this oppression!”

Every day, the producers at CNN wake up and think of six ways to damage Donald Trump before they’ve had their second cup of coffee, and so when they saw the video of these MAGA-hat boys from Kentucky, it was like Santa had finally brought them a pony for Christmas: “This is the hateful face of white male entitlement we warned you about!”

Facts don’t matter to the Left, and all the truth that has emerged since Saturday that contradicts their precious narrative cannot reverse their commitment to their anti-Trump weltanschauung. Merely by existing as white males from Kentucky, these boys deserved to be hated, according to the deranged ideology of the Left, and when you add in the facts that they attend a Catholic school, were in D.C. for a pro-life march, and were wearing red MAGA hats, these kids were the living essence of evil, according to the belief system that prevails at CNN headquarters. Nothing said in defense of the Covington Catholic students can exonerate them in the eyes of the Left, whose implacable hatred of “privileged” white males — “the hated adolescent alpha,” as David Bernstein says — is the emotional root of their psycho-political drama.

They think they are Our Moral Superiors™ and it is therefore impossible for them ever to admit that they’re wrong, about anything. By contrast, I’m willing to admit that I’ve occasionally made a mistake. For example, that time in 1979 when I drank a quart of psilocybin mushroom tea and snorted an 8-ball of Bolivian flake cocaine? An obvious mistake.

Also, it’s possible I misjudged Conor (With One “N”), or maybe he’s just gained some wisdom in the past 10 years. We’ll see.




 

 

Category: Intellectuals, Media Bias

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