The era of our discontent

Progress and the demand to always be improving create perpetual discontent because the present and the status quo are never good enough. Perfectionism and obsessive control are the unintended consequences, as is the disconnect between contentment and a culture where nothing is ever good enough. Pleasure, entertainment, leisure, and recreation add to progressive mania that is peripatetic America and have become its primary values. The goal of making money and maximizing income for liberals is no longer about economic security, but about overcoming boredom and the fear of boredom; fear of introspection; and, at the deepest level, fear of death. And for financially secure liberals, nothing is ever good enough. Never enough money, never enough pleasure and entertainment, and never enough moralizing from on high how others should act and live. Many liberals are so un-self-reflective that they actually think most of the world agrees with them. This is what happens when all of your basic needs have been met and the most elemental contingencies in life are taken for granted.

They have the luxury of grousing about things like global warming and social justice, not to mention always promoting their narcissistic obsessions with image, health, and eating habits, when they are totally blind to the reality of how the vast majority of Americans live. It explains almost entirely the reason for Trump's election – that the vast majority of the middle and working classes don't care about social justice and identity politics. They are in survival mode, especially when 25% of the population don't even have enough money to pay for a $500 emergency and 50% of the population are living paycheck-to-paycheck. So if you're lucky enough to be taking a luxury vacation this holiday week like many of the political and economic elite, life really is a bowl of cherries, albeit a temporary and chimerical one. They float above the day-to-day miseries of ordinary Americans while they continue to belittle and insult them. Hillary famously called them the "deplorables" during the presidential election. More recently, California's Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown said, "The freeloaders – I've had enough of them" after he raised gasoline taxes 12 cents per gallon and annual automobile fees an additional $50 on the taxpayers in order raise $5 billion for road repairs. From Commentary magazine, "Deplorables for Dummies" reviews a new book called White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America: Despite clear evidence of suffering – stagnant wages, disappearing manufacturing jobs, declining health and well-being – the working class gets only fly-over snobbery at best and, more often, outright loathing. Liberals continue to promote the myth that the high priests of the Church of Government proselytizing with the gospel of the Religion of Progressivism guarantee that life will continue to get better – when, in fact, just the opposite is happening to so many Americans. They have come to realize that the false promises of Progressives are a sham, and they aren't buying what they're selling anymore. "Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?" is no longer working for the Democrats.