One of the major problems with liberals and progressives is their live-and-let-live attitude. Not authoritarian by nature, they basically don't care who does or does not agree with them. They don't take knock-downs personally, and they are often willing to forgive and forget all too soon.

Not, apparently, this time. Facebook and other social media are still...a week after the election...alive with progressives reminding obstructionist, protectionist, fearful teabaggers how idiotic some of their beliefs are. And thank goodness.

A New Thought aphorism seems to apply this time:

Go in peace, but go.

About time

Liberals and progressives have been putting up with the harangues of teabaggers, the illogic of mainstream Republicans, and the cruel and unconscionable social behaviors of both for far too long.

If they tried to insult us by saying we were soft on socialism, we attempted to prove that we are not...when, in fact, we are. What we should have done, and finally began doing during this campaign, is pointing out that a preponderance of baggers sucks their sustenance out of one of the world's largest socialist programs, Social Security. So they need to complain about their own entitlements before crabbing about and denying basic entitlements to others.

It they tried to paint us with the brush of murderer because we believe abortion, like any medical choice of any woman anywhere, is her right and not something to be mandated by men who don't know the difference between rape and paid lap time with a bimbo (possibly because those two are their own major recreational formats), we attempted to reason with them about the beginning of life.

Not this time. We didn't reason with them, but to be honest, it wasn't because we took a page from their manual; it was because they were so volubly, visibly and risibly ignorant, we didn't have to. They handed us that gimme through the drooling mouths of their own un-electable poohbahs.

Still, next time, we need to point out (as we finally began to do this time) that if you are going to be such a defender of the rights of a fetus which, left to its own devices might or might not come to term, then you need to be even more concerned that suffering children have a home, food, education. That costs taxpayer money sometimes; banning abortions, they think, less so. (They are wrong, because botched back-street abortions can be incredibly expensive to society in many ways.)

Teaching the unteachable

How do we explain all this to people who are so mired in their own lust for righteousness that the idea of human sovereignty is literally foreign to them?

Any way we can. Possibly by finding out which evangelist's daughter has had abortions, which right-wing politician's daughter/wife/bimbo has had an abortion. And publicizing same. The only way their mindless followers will understand is if the clay feet of their heroes are on exhibit.

The ultimate demise of Sarah Palin's death squads

And then there's health care. This election, liberals did begin to point out that Medicare is socialized medicine, available to anyone who happens to reach age 65 or so despite possibly not having health care before then.

But there is more to do. Treating wingnuts to a constant barrage of the health and happiness statistics of Europe v. the US, Canada v. the US and so on might work. But it will need to be as endless as the right's barrage about costs and communism, state's rights and hatred of the economically disadvantaged.

There are many more issues, of course, from cleaning up the election process---that is, wresting its control from stooges of the Koch Brothers like Doughboy Rove--to getting out of Afghanistan/Iraq to closing down Guantanamo. All those items and more were mentioned during the recent campaign, and the lines of difference of opinion were clear.

But now, in droves, the wingnuts are pretending they never were wingnuts. They disavow their faith, in short, as they removed their names from the list of Romney Facebook likers.

"The former Republican presidential candidate has been bleeding likes since losing the U.S. election last Tuesday, with users unliking Romney’s Facebook page at a rate of 847 an hour, according to mashable.com. (http://mashable.com/2012/11/12/disappearing-romney/)

Too whipped to whine

After four years of endless shouting, stamping their little feet, making ludicrous statements about God being on their side and spouting all the rest of the cockamamie right-wing talking points, it seems a great many are ready to trade in their teabags for a nice cup of compassion. Even the conservative media is refusing to stand by its beliefs, if the fact that they are taking down their pre-election Romney landslide stories from public view is any indication. As just one example, I tried for half an hour--correction, an hour--to open a Washington Times story headlined "Win or lose, Obama faces electoral disaster."

They have mighty thin skins, these Reprobate-publicans who thought nothing of flinging the worst kind of mud at those they disagreed with, even making up stories from whole cloth to attempt to discredit Mr. Obama, Elizabeth Warren, et al.

No dodgers in Brooklyn

There are a couple of Brooklyn sayings that apply here with no way for a wingnut to wriggle out.

One is "don't dish it out if you can't take it." Obviously, not only can they not take it; they aren't even mensch enough to admit they ever dished it out.

Or maybe they are afraid. Afraid of all the weak women, godless LGBTs, and powerless immigrants they have derided since George W. Bushleague entered the White House grounds, riding on the shoulders of the delusionoids who still believed in "trickle down" and thought having a regular guy (albeit one who blew up frogs as a boy and dodged the draft as a young adult) lead the nation was a good idea.

Another Brooklynism that applies is "the smeller is the feller," which explains the Republicans' post-election contention that the Democrats stole votes. It was by and large NOT Democrats who instigated Voter ID laws, not Democrats in charge of elections in states where vote theft was most likely, Ohio and Florida, for example. Nope: The smeller IS the feller.

In essence, it's time for liberals and progressives to demand that the Party of No either live its beliefs--eschewing their own Social Security payments and/or unemployment, whichever applies, and so on--or begin to think in more compassionate terms, terms that leave each adult American of either gender or any persuasion free to pursue happiness in his or her own way, providing that way is neither sociopathic nor psychopathic.

That, of course, presents another problem. The most recent right-wing hero's own wife feared for his mental state if he won, and he displays classic signs of abnormal psychology: ability to lie with no obvious outer signs; willingness to do anything to obtain his desires; delusional thinking about the state of reality in his own surroundings; lack of compassion for other people or animals, and more.

It takes a thief

So how does one reach people who are so credulous as to follow a person clearly unable to lead rationally? Especially since they did it once before by lionizing Dumbya, or twice, if one includes Raygun.

It takes a thief to catch a thief, for only a thief would know what a thief would do. So, the only way to success in converting wingnuts into thinking members of the electorate is by borrowing from the wingnuts' own book. This consists in repeating and repeating and repeating what you want them to understand and accept; in short, telling Big Truths about true democracy as if they were the Big Lies of execrable corporatocracy the wingnuts told for the past two years.

It's disgusting, really, the thought of behaving like a teabagger. But the fact that there are probably five million more progressive/liberal/Democratic votes than were counted (the estimate of those that would have been cast by disenfranchised registered Democrats had the Republicans not succeeded in disenfranchising that number) makes it a mandate.

Before, like a Hydra, the rabid right regrows its heads and launches another attack on human life as we know it, progressives must simultaneously retain the high ground, and stoop to conquer.

What to do, what to do?

In my opinion, it means never again backing down when a wingnut gets in your face, but repeating and repeating and repeating truth. It means letting go of friends who are unable to understand that strong people help others; weak ones bar the door. It means endlessly writing to politicians to keep the progressive ones strong against bagger badgering, and battering the wingnut members with endless verbiage until they realize their greed is no longer sufficient to keep them in their jobs.

In another Chimp blog, Norman Solomon called for both organizing even more than the progressives did this time, but also engaging in the "politics of denunciation."

Nothing more, nothing less. After turning a deaf ear to the lies and hatefulness of the rabid right for at least a dozen years, there is a mandate now for progressives to denounce those lies for what they are, over and over and over as many times as it takes. The shaky wingnuts might be persuaded; the craven. self-centered wingnuts will want to jump on the bandwagon as long as they get to click Like for the winning team.

And some, of course, will remain unteachable, mired in their belief that the wealth of nations will trickle down upon them if only they can get rid of LGBTs, women, immigrants, the fact of evolution, critical thinking (for which see Texas, higher order thinking prohibition), all this talk about global warming (ask a Venetian to comment), and other things reasonable people understand.

_______

Over and out

