SHOULDERING THE BLAME

It appears to me that some of the people who voted for Donald Trump and have supported him since he took office are starting to have second thoughts. They are starting to wonder if they might have made a big mistake. Of course, like the rest of us, they still have their pride and that is probably going to stand in the way of their admitting their mistake and joining with the rest of us in trying to get Donald Trump out of the White House. If this is actually happening, it might be a good time for liberals to step up and take responsibility for the mistakes we made that helped create the nightmare that has become our new reality.

What mistakes? Well... we touchy-feely liberals were the authors and proponents of self-esteem and its evil twin, political correctness, which together, have all but wiped out the concepts of responsibility and accountability. With those expectations out of the way, the stage was set for the abandonment of the moral principles that urged all Americans to always “do the right thing” and opened the door to the new “morality”, which says “whatever works is OK as long as you can get away with it”.

It all started out innocently enough toward the end of the 20^th Century. We wanted the best for our children and believed it was essential for them to have high self-esteem in order to live happy, successful lives. We also believed that by eliminating disappointment, rejection, failure and adversity from their lives they would grow up with self-confidence and a strong sense of self-worth. That led to political correctness, which strongly discouraged people from saying critical or demeaning things to or about other people. We claimed it was about respecting diversity, but it was at least as much about not wanting our children to hear what other people thought of them.

Along the way we decided that any child who wanted to play sports should have the chance to do so, even if they have no athletic ability; and that they should get just as big a trophy if their team never wins a game as the children whose team wins all its games so that no child has to feel bad about losing. If a child wasn’t interested in sports and wanted to eat fast food and sit in front of his or her computer all day and night surfing the web or playing video games or spend endless hours texting with friends (instead of hanging out with friends) while his or her body swelled to obese and extremely unhealthy proportions... that was OK, too. We also came up with “play dates” and saw a surge in home schooling. God forbid a child should have a negative experience. And, of course, there were never any harsh words or punishment. Maybe a little “time out” once in a while, but nothing that could damage the little darlin’s psyche for life.

Here’s the problem. Living a sheltered life free from all adversity doesn’t produce self-esteem. It produces arrogant, self-centered, shallow, compassionless people who believe they are the center of the universe, can do no wrong and are entitled to whatever they want or think they need. Facing challenges and struggling with adversity produces self-esteem. Recognizing our limitations and taking action to overcome those limitations produces self-esteem. We liberals may have meant well, but we got it totally wrong. We created a generation of young people (the Me Generation) who never got called out, dressed down or confronted with the reality of their shortcomings, inadequacies and unacceptable behavior. We never held them responsible or accountable for what they did or didn’t do. Now these 30 to 60 year olds are the largest age group in the country who can vote and who did they chose to be their President? Of course, they chose someone just like them.

I believe it’s time we shouldered our share of the blame. Think of it as extending an olive branch to the folks you know who are starting to have doubts about Donald Trump. The pitch might go something like this:  “Hey, I have to own up to the mistakes we liberals have made that helped put us in the position we are all in today. All that touchy-feely, self-esteem, political correctness stuff was wrong and we now realize that it helped create a Donald Trump. But, you conservatives elected him President. So....we both screwed up. Can we put that behind us now and join together to get this guy out of the White House before he destroys the country we both love?“ Do you think that might work? Do you think it’s worth a try?