Wanna shovel a Biden-ite’s driveway and be insulted for your trouble?
I must confess, it isn’t often I read something that truly animates me in the course of my routine perusal of the news, but it happened the other day when I encountered an opinion piece titled, “What can you do about the Trumpites next door?” No definition of “Trumpite” was included in the column, though one surmises the term describes individuals who supported Donald Trump in the 2020 campaign and election. Therefore, by inference, such people believe in traditional American values like serving their community and also cherish their individual liberties. These folks probably own firearms and who knows, maybe even attend church regularly and pray prior to a Super Bowl meal of salad, pizza and spaghetti. The article was penned by politics and culture-critic Virginia Heffernan and originally published in the Los Angeles Times, the newspaper I looked to as a boy and still wet-behind-the-ears teenager for the latest on sports and current events in the 70’s and 80’s. In its pages I scanned the columns of legendary sportswriters like Jim Murray (I didn’t always agree with Murray but certainly appreciated his unique angle on what are essentially kids’ games) and assumed the publication for which he wrote was at least interested in good commentary. Now, unsurprisingly, the LAT (like the NYT) is a standard boilerplate mouthpiece for the left, a loony California take on things, a platform for small-minded people to pass off feelings as facts and distort even the most basic kindnesses -- such as a Trump-voting neighbor shoveling her driveway without being asked to do it -- as causing unwarranted pain and guilt for the recipient of the gesture. Heffernan scribed:
“[H]ere’s my response to my plowed driveway, for now. Politely, but not profusely, I’ll acknowledge the [Sen. Ben] Sassian move. With a wave and a thanks, a minimal start on building back trust. I’m not ready to knock on the door with a covered dish yet. “I also can’t give my neighbors absolution; it’s not mine to give. Free driveway work, as nice as it is, is just not the same currency as justice and truth. To pretend it is would be to lie, and they probably aren’t looking for absolution anyway. “But I can offer a standing invitation to make amends. Not with a snowplow but by recognizing the truth about the Trump administration and, more important, by working for justice for all those whom the administration harmed. Only when we work shoulder to shoulder to repair the damage of the last four years will we even begin to dig out of this storm.”
My apologies for offering only a small snippet of Heffernan’s blood boiling work, but you’re still able to grasp the gist of it. She basically argued that Trump supporters only tend to live in and execute “free” functions for neighbors who look like themselves (gee, I wonder what that means -- backwards bumpkin white supremacists!) as well as further suggesting that Trumpites who perform kindnesses are not necessarily morally superior to Nazi sympathizers who fondly recall their occupiers as being polite to them in WW II France, etc.
That’s not to mention Heffernan’s recounting of tales of Hezbollah terrorists taking compassionate care of their own kind in their subjugated areas. That’s right… Hezbollah aids children and sick old people who share their Shiite religion and automatically they’re ideological blood brothers to your average next door MAGA hat wearing driveway clearer! Or that buffalo horns QAnon kook was taking a day off from his normal charity routine on January 6 to walk shirtless through the capitol just to get his picture taken for the cable news sensationalists.
The writer does make it sound as though she’s prepared to begin the journey towards forgiveness and reconciliation for the heinous thought crime of supporting someone like Trump, but only if the Trumpite purveyors of benevolence first provide additional evidence of woke conversion to leftist philosophical concepts like “justice” and “truth”.
As would be expected for a self-righteous liberal, Heffernan prominently emphasized how deeply she was impacted by the shocking video images of the United States Capitol Building being infiltrated by (mostly) Trump supporters a month ago. She implies Trump himself directed the throng to march into America’s sacred Holy of Holies to desecrate its idols beyond all recognition.
(It bothers me whenever Nancy Pelosi refers to the Capitol Building as the “Temple of Democracy” because it is neither a religious shrine nor a gathering place for worshippers of any kind. Liberals don’t think “democracy” is so great when they’re in the minority, do they?)
If Trump had actually done as charged -- as this week’s House impeachment managers swear he did -- the rowdy rabble either didn’t listen to him very well or were just darn poor rioters and arsonists, because the building wasn’t set afire and there was comparatively little property damage when measured against your garden-variety leftwing protest. Lest we forget it was an unarmed protester who was shot and killed by police as she entered the building (granted, seemingly unlawfully), not the other way around.
The always emotion-inducing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made headlines recently when she opened-up about how frightened she was during (Heffernan refers to this) the Jan. 6 “mostly peaceful” protest, essentially asserting the congresswoman feared for her own life. Then it was discovered AOC wasn’t even in the building at the time… but you know, fear is such a transcendental thing, isn’t it?
With distortions such as these, it’s curious how liberals expect “unity” to come from nowhere, to the point where they deliberate among themselves about how thankful they could or should be when a Trump supporter does something “polite” for them.
There are other examples of hypocrisy. The other night during the Super Bowl, the powers-that-be hired Republican-trashing lefty rocker Bruce Springsteen to don a cowboy hat and drone on about the “middle” and coming together and stuff like that. The message certainly wouldn’t induce me to buy a Jeep (the sponsor of the spot) but it did make me think twice about how Democrats love telling people to unite… but never bother explaining why it couldn’t happen with America First touting Trump as president.
Somehow, I doubt Heffernan’s Trumpite neighbors will stop shoveling her driveway out of kindness and liberals won’t cease bringing in wrinkled old losers like “The Boss” to do commercials telling everyone that it’s now safe to be in “the middle” because the scary Donald Trump is out of the White House. Human nature is human nature. And opinions don’t mean much in today’s world.
If the left is truly interested in coming together and healing, they’d better jump down off their high horse and quit talking about “justice” and “truth” as if they own the concepts all by themselves. Democrats had numerous opportunities to step back from the current stupid impeachment trial part deux farce. They dropped the ball.
Which begs the question: why would a Trumpite want to shovel a driveway for them anyway?
Donald Trump supporters
unity
impeachment trial
Democrats
Bruce Springsteen ad
shoveling snow
January 6 riot
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez