The Disdain of the Left for the American People

From The American Thinker:

From the left's perspective, the Trump presidency is illegitimate not because it lacked a plurality of votes or because of the supposed Russian connection.  It is illegitimate because it gives voice to those who do not deserve representation.  Hillary Clinton let it slip when she mocked the "basket of deplorables," those whom she accused of racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and Islamophobia.  Having at first insisted that "half" of Trump voters fall into these categories, she then retreated from that figure: it was somewhat less than half who are deplorable.

Rarely has a presidential candidate been so candid and so obtuse at the same time, for "deplorable" is exactly what the left thinks of average Americans.  And for that reason, Trump's presidency cannot be allowed to succeed, even if sinking Trump means sinking the country.  The left is willing to savage our economy, trash health care, weaken our national defense, and lose the fight against terrorism just to see that the deplorables are kept in their place.  That is the central motive of the anti-Trump forces.

That sort of disdain for the heartland has a long history stretching back to John Quincy Adams, with his determination not to see Jackson achieve the presidency.  After the Era of Jackson and the Civil War that followed, it continued with the political dominance of the Northeast, the victory of McKinley over William Jennings Bryan, Wilson's expansion of government powers during WWI (including the Sedition Act of 1918), FDR's reversal of Coolidge's small-government policies, Johnson's disastrous anti-poverty programs, and Obama's governance by executive order in defiance of the people's elected representatives.  Ordinary Americans have always had to struggle against the ambitions of a political elite that assumes it has the right to govern in their place. (Read more.)

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