Progressivism is a Medieval religion – snow plow edition
A woman thought it was a good idea to publish this OpEd in the Los Angeles Times (republished in Yahoo News):
Column: What can you do about the Trumpites next door?
Yes, what can you do?
Oh, heck no. The Trumpites next door to our pandemic getaway, who seem as devoted to the ex-president as you can get without being Q fans, just plowed our driveway without being asked and did a great job.
How am I going to resist demands for unity in the face of this act of aggressive niceness?
Aggressive niceness?
Trump supporters are evil and therefore there is no way they could just be nice. Their niceness has to be an assault of some kind.
Of course, on some level, I realize I owe them thanks — and, man, it really looks like the guy back-dragged the driveway like a pro — but how much thanks?
She realizes that out of human decency she must be thankful, but she also knows that she cannot be magnanimous to heathens.
This is also kind of weird. Back in the city, people don’t sweep other people’s walkways for nothing.
See, Progressivism is a religion that believes in salvation by faith alone. You do not have to do good works to be a good progressive. In fact, you can’t be a really shitty person as long as you believe all the right things and occasionally donate to the right causes.
If Bill Clinton, Jeffery Epistine, Harvey Weinstein, and a host of other men have shown, you can be a rapist and pedophile as long as you donate sufficient funds to the DNC and Planned Parenthood.
Hezbollah, the Shiite Islamist political party in Lebanon, also gives things away for free. The favors Hezbollah does for people in the cities Tyre and Sidon probably don’t involve snowplows, but, like other mafias, Hezbollah tends to its own — the Shiite sick, elderly and hungry. They offer protection and hospitality and win loyalty that way. And they also demand devotion to their brutal, us-versus-them anti-Sunni cause. Some of us are family, the favors say; the rest are infidels.
That’s it. Trumpers are evil, therefore they plowed her driveway, not out of neighborly kindness but to be manipulative.
When someone helps you when you’re down, or snowed in, it’s almost impossible to regard them as a blight on the world. In fact, you’re more likely to be overwhelmed with gratitude and convinced of the person’s inherent goodness.
But because they are Trump supporters, she is going to resist that urge to show them gratitite.
So when I accept generosity from my pandemic neighbors, acknowledging the legitimate kindness with a wave or a plate of cookies, am I also sealing us in as fellow travelers who are very polis to each other but not so much to “them”?
Loving your neighbor is evidently much easier when your neighborhood is full of people just like you.
She thinks if she thanks the Trumpers, she will become a Trumper. Moreover, she is convinced that her Trumper neighbors only plowed her driveway because they are all white.
Maybe I should point out that in her diverse, LA neighborhood, nobody helps one-another. So perhaps it’s there that everyone is racist and she’s just projecting.
On Jan. 6, after the insurrection, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) issued an aw-shucks plea for all Americans to love their neighbors. The United States, he said, “isn’t Hatfields and McCoys, this blood feud forever.” And, he added, “You can’t hate someone who shovels your driveway.”
At the time, I seethed; the Capitol had just been desecrated. But maybe my neighbor heard Sasse and was determined to make a bid for reconciliation.
The United States fought a civil war that resulted in the deaths of 620,000 Americans.
When it ended, President Lincoln spoke these words:
“With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan — to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”
That was then, Progressivism is now. There will not be charity for Trump supporters, just perpetual malice.
So here’s my response to my plowed driveway, for now. Politely, but not profusely, I’ll acknowledge the 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.
Absolution is a religious concept. These people supported Trump. She doesn’t ask why because she doesn’t need to know why. It might be that they owned a business that prospered under Trump or some other rational reason. But it doesn’t matter, for her Trump supporters are heretics. Practitioners of another, evil religion. They can’t have absolution for their support of Trump until they convert. That is the magnanimity she is willing to show, to proselytize Progressivism and allow them to come into the fold and seek forgiveness as progressives.
The irony here is that if her neighbors did become Progressives, they would stop plowing her driveway because they don’t need to do good works to be good people.
They would probably also get rid of the big-block V8 or diesel-powered truck they used to plow, for the environment.
Good Progressives will drive a hybrid with a Coexist bumper sticker and then find some illegals to do the plowing for them for cheap, just how they do with their maids and housekeepers.
But at least then she won’t have heretics next door.
I really hope her neighbors see this.
Personally, if I were them, I’d plow her driveway daily, shovel her walk, remove the snow burden from her roof, pull out the chainsaw and trim the branches that threaten her windows. Every little thing, free of charge, just to slowly drive her mad.
