As Roy Moore’s troubles were just getting underway, leftist CNN commentator Van Jones made what has to be one of the least self-aware and yet most revealing comments of the Trumpian Age. Targeting Breitbart firebrand Steve Bannon, who had promoted Moore, Van Jones said, “Bannon is trying to create this sense of an aggrieved identity, frankly, of a white aggrieved identity group that’s under siege by everybody. And this is that in its worse form. So, you’re not supposed to vote as a father, you’re not supposed to vote as a woman. You’re supposed to vote as a member of this identity group against the world. And if that works, that is very, very bad for the Republican Party and it’s very, very bad for our country.”

This comes from the man — from the political party — from the philosophy — that has sold absolutely nothing but aggrieved identities for the last sixty years, ever since it became clear that actual leftist policies don’t work. Blacks, women, people who think they’re women, people who pretend to be black — whatever category you find yourself in, the left has preached that you should ignore the disaster of leftism and focus only on your sweet victimhood, voting your grievances even when it’s against your best interests.

In other words, Van Jones’ only real complaint against Bannon is that Bannon has sunk to the level of Van Jones!

It is the same with those leftists who are attacking the conservatives defending Roy Moore in the face of mounting allegations that he was a sex pest and maybe worse back in the seventies. The left is essentially accusing the right of sinking to the left’s level. Are the Moore defenders any different than the Democrats, Toxic Feminists and journalists (but I repeat and repeat myself) who lined up to back Bill Clinton twenty years ago in the face of mounting allegations that he was a sex pest and maybe worse? And never mind twenty years ago. What about the lefties who rushed to silence Bill’s accusers just last year when their stories of rape and molestation became inconvenient truths ruining Hillary’s hagiography? What about the networks relentlessly suppressing the corruption trial of Senator Bob Menendez?

For a moment this week, Democrats, coming out of their haze of blithe self-ignorance, began to understand that their hypocrisy was showing and started to make noise about how, yeah, maybe Bill was kind of rapey back in the day. Maybe we ought to have a “reckoning,” they said: i.e. throw the priapic bum and his henchwoman under the bus. But, of course, this reckoning came conveniently at the very moment when rapey Bill and Hillary the Bimbo Silencer had little left to offer the Democrats by way of reclaiming power. So it was a cheap display of virtue without consequences. Which, come to think of it, is virtually the definition of leftism in a nutshell.

Enter the clown car carrying Senator Al Franken, who now faces mounting allegations that he was a sex pest and maybe worse. Ruh roh. Suddenly Democrats had something to lose by confessing their own double standard, namely Franken. And just as suddenly, what do you know, the left returned to form. The usual suspects — Democrats, Toxic Feminists and journalists (but I repeat and repeat myself) — have turned out to defend rapey Al just as they did Bill.

It is no surprise that leftists are empty vessels with “Virtue” printed on the side. What is new here is that all CNN’s horses and all the New York Times’ men can’t quite put the Dems’ self-image together again.What’s new is a rebel media and a pugilistic president who call them out for the despicable liars they are. The days when a press monopolized by the left could crown a sick punk like Ted Kennedy the “Lion of the Senate,” and get away with it? Them days are done.

So if leftists really want conservatives to behave like conservatives, they should make sure the networks and the Times and CNN begin to hold everyone to the same standards all the time no matter what’s at stake. Otherwise, if the right does become as hollow as the left, leftists will have no one but themselves to blame. In a two-party winner-take-all system, either the rules apply to both sides equally or both sides are bound to start playing without them.

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