I

’ve decided that I’m not pro-Trump, but I am anti-anti-Trump.

Do you feel it out there, that tendency to be intolerant, uncivil, and hostile?

It’s getting so bad that I’m actually starting to feel sorry for Mr. Bronze Makeup.

And that can’t be a good thing for the Democrats.

The Forward ran a story the other day with the headline, “Do We Have a Moral Obligation to Break Bread with Trump Supporters?” The article was written by a female member of the liberal Jewish clergy in response to another piece (written by a male member of the liberal Jewish clergy) that encouraged people of different political persuasions to show respect for one another, even love one another, despite their political differences. The “breaking bread” author was having none of it:

I believe that engaging in overt racism, child abuse, family separation and religious discrimination, and permanently kneecapping the poor and stripping the planet of any real chance for survival, is not coherent with acting according to the words of the living G-d.

Conversation: over.

We can no longer simply have a difference of opinion on immigration or abortion or taxes or the environment. One side has to be completely right and the other side has to be completely wrong.

A group of Yale law students recently published a letter decrying their university’s decision to praise Brett Kavanaugh upon his nomination to the US Supreme Court. The Yale Law School press release in question reads, in part:

“I have known Brett Kavanaugh for many years,” said Dean Heather K. Gerken. “I can personally attest that, in addition to his government and judicial service, Judge Kavanaugh has been a longtime friend to many of us in the Yale Law School community. Ever since I joined the faculty, I have admired him for serving as a teacher and mentor to our students and for hiring a diverse set of clerks, in all respects, during his time on the court.”

The Yale students thought the university’s praise of one of its alumni was way out of bounds.

Kavanaugh’s opinions give us grave concern that he will consistently prioritize the beliefs of third parties over the rights of the oppressed… Judge Kavanaugh would also act as a rubber stamp for President Trump’s fraud and abuse… We see in [his] rulings an intellectually and morally bankrupt ideologue intent on rolling back our rights and the rights of our clients…

This for a man who, in the days after his nomination, was roundly praised by liberal colleagues as fair-minded, intellectually curious, values-driven, and humble. He’s so humble, in fact, that the owner of the restaurant where he regularly orders a burger and a beer after coaching his daughter’s basketball team didn’t even know he was a lawyer, much less one of the top legal minds in the country.

David French at National Review said it best. Reacting to all the anti-Kavanaugh verbiage and shrieking, he observed:

Once again, increasingly radicalized Americans confront conventional politics and good-faith legal disputes and react as if the sky is falling — as if no decent human being could possibly disagree with their analysis [emphasis added].

It’s baffling, isn’t it? The left have become the moral arbiters, the bullies who now employ public shaming as a political tool. What’s next, public floggings?

It’s gotten so bad that even longtime members are beginning to leave the party they once loved. There’s a new movement called “Walk Away” that has become an online gathering place for former Democrats. In post after post, average-looking, sane people describe why they’ve left a party that they feel has become too extreme.

For far too long, the left has controlled the narrative in this country within the news media, while the “silent majority” on the right have done what they always do — remain silent. The left has been allowed for too long to reinforce the narrative that everybody on the right is a bigot, a racist, a homophobe, a misogynist, etc. The left has become so extreme and hateful that it is now time to fight back! We want people on the right to use their voices and tell the world the truth about who they are by making videos telling everyone what it means to be a conservative in America and what your values really are.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the movement has been tarred as yet the latest Russian effort to subvert American democracy. The online news site Salon called it a “Kremlin operation” fueled by online Russian trolls. “This is neither the first nor the last example of Russia’s pro-Trump, pro-Republican agitprop this election season,” Salon writes, “especially now that Trump himself appears more steadfast than ever in his support for Putin through his endless screeching about the so-called ‘Russia hoax.’ ”

Meanwhile, back on earth, the Russian-plant Trump’s Supreme Court pick Brett Kavanaugh is likely to be confirmed, and the Real Clear Politics poll shows Republicans winning the House, the Senate, and a majority of the governors’ chairs. Something tells me the Democrats’ shame campaign isn’t working out. (Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 719)