The Party of Denial

“What can you do, thought Winston, against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself; who gives your arguments a fair hearing and simply persists in his lunacy?”— George Orwell

We watched in horror as domestic terrorists stormed the capital. They went at the behest of their dear leader, who urged them on just minutes before. One of his goons talked of a trial by battle. Of course, none of them said to storm the capital outright. They are much too smart for that. Yet, anyone paying attention knew exactly what he wanted them to do.

As overwhelmingly angry as most us are at the events themselves and the president’s behavior surrounding it, it is the behavior by conservatives after the fact that is the most exasperating. Conservatives have gone from the party of personal responsibility to the party of denial.

It was impossible to deny that the event occurred. We saw it on national television with our very eyes. Again, we couldn’t deny how bad it was or how bad it looked. We saw it. So, a number of people (including conservative media) went to the only place they felt they could. They blamed it on Antifa. Yup, you heard me correctly. Antifa.

They were apparently bused in in order to cause disruptions and make you think it was conservative jackasses that did what they did. Earlier on in his presidency, Trump told us we could not believe what we see and we could not believe what we hear. It was a statement ripped almost directly out of George Orwell’s 1984.

Those are mere facts and facts and reality have a liberal bias. So, we didn’t see the rally just hours before. We didn’t hear the president urge them to action. We didn’t see all of the people we knew to be MAGA nuts and Q enthusiasts. None of that really happened. Got it.

On a certain level I get it. Shame is a dreadful feeling. It is particularly dreadful when you feel it for things you did not directly do. No one I know stormed the capital. No one I know has hit a cop in protest. No one I know has cheered at watching a cop go to the hospital or die. No one would brazenly declare that blue lives matter and then act in a way to prove that they don’t. No one I know did any of those things.

Yet, people I know have somehow found a way to say it was Antifa. People I know somehow found a way to talk about violence in protests in the summer as a way to change the subject. People I know tried to distance themselves from this as a way to detach. This is your shame. It is right here and it isn’t going away. You’ll have to deal with it just like the rest of us.

Webster’s dictionary defines conserve as “protect (something, especially an environmentally or culturally important place or thing) from harm or destruction.” We know the environment is not important to most conservatives. So, obviously they are preserving something cultural. They feel it slipping away. What is it exactly that they feel slipping away? What is it that Donald Trump was able to tap into so effectively?

Eventually, all of us have to come to grips with what that is precisely. We all know what it is, but we dare not speak its name. The party of personal responsibility is really the party of denial. They denied science first. Then, they denied facts. Now, they are denying the very shame we all feel. Most importantly, they are denying what is at the heart of it all.

The irony is overwhelming. A party that says they are for personal responsibility has told people that others are responsible for their lot in life. Immigrants in caravans are coming to take away the lifestyle that is rightfully there’s. Socialists in government want to give racial minorities free stuff to buy their vote. Your life is going to hell in a handbasket and you aren’t responsible for one damn bit of it.

So, when a majority of people rejected that narrative they denied that too. Trump couldn’t possibly have lost. Nearly 400,000 people have not died. If they did die they died from something else. He isn’t just lining his own pockets. He really cares about us. Dear Leader loves us. Dear Leader is fighting for us. Dear Leader is preserving the way of life some of us are clinging to in not so quiet desperation.

This is your shame. This is your life. It is all right here and there is no one you can blame for it. There is no one else responsible for it. There is no mysterious group we can pin it on. Whether you want to call them Antifa, the Deep State, Socialists, or any other bogeyman the right wing media talking heads want to call it. They aren’t responsible. We are. Real Americans stormed the capital on Wednesday.

The good news is that unless you were physically there you are not literally responsible. We are only responsible for how we choose to react. Do we hold those that pushed for this ultimately responsible? Do we shun the ideas that begat something like this? That’s the only way we wash away the shame. We can’t just waive a magic wand and pretend it didn’t happen or blame it on a mysterious group like Antifa. That crap won’t fly anymore.