Outspoken atheist Sam Harris made waves in a recent interview where he essentially admitted that there was a Democrat/media conspiracy that used lies and fake news, as well as cover-ups of legitimate Biden corruption to keep Trump from being democratically re-elected. But while others were sitting slack-jawed at Harris's lack of guilty conscience, it was another remark that drew my attention.
Harris: "If there was an asteroid hurtling toward earth, and we got in a room together with all of our friends and had a conversation about what we could do to deflect its course, right? Is that a conspiracy?"
I tend to believe that I am far more open to reasonable objections to Trumpified politics than many of my ideological brethren on the right. While I believe that conservatives who voted for Donald Trump solely on the basis of securing responsible judicial appointments have been completely vindicated in their decision, Trump himself is a populist and entertainer, driven more by the advancement of his personal brand than he is anything remotely resembling conservative principles.
Anyone is free to disagree with me on that point, of course, but the reason I'm making it is to establish the fact that I don't get defensive about attacks on Donald Trump, or look at the world through a set of MAGA glasses that color him as some martyr for my cause. For what it's worth, I don't think we're driven by the same "cause." That said, this type of deranged insanity from supposedly deep, intellectual progressives tells you just how incapable the left is to govern this republic, or properly interpret threats to it.
Criticize Trump all you want for his Twitter trolling, caustic invective, or self-focus. Comparing his presidency – the actual policies, appointments, laws, and orders that emerged from it – to some extinction-level asteroid vaulting its way towards earth is so grossly irresponsible and absurd, those who find it palatable are too far gone to even reasonably engage.
And sadly, it's not just Harris. Edward Luce is an editor at the Financial Times who just days ago posted his own version of a Trump-As-Asteroid hot take:
Take the most radical MAGA activist you can think of and compare him to an agent of Boko Haram, ISIS, or al Qaeda, the animals that dress their "political opposition" in orange jumpsuits, take them down to a beach, and film themselves beheading their victims slowly with a dull knife. That helps give you a perspective on just how insulting Luce's wild stupidity is here.
But that wasn't the worst of it. Those remarks, which should have been roundly shouted down and mocked with such withering scorn that he felt compelled to issue an appropriate apology for letting his political passions carry him away, were quote tweeted by the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Michael Hayden:
It seems fitting at a time when many in the Democrat/Media Complex are scoffing at the notion of a "deep state" – that is, high level bureaucrats, firmly entrenched in unjustly powerful regulative positions – that exerts far too much partisan, weaponized influence over the direction and functioning of our civilization, that General Hayden would say something this over the top.
Hayden served not only as director of the CIA, but also as director of the National Security Agency, meaning he has had intimate interactions and confrontations with the most vile ideologies that infect the world – from communist dictators that enslave and starve their people, to Taliban warlords who rape and oppress women for sport.
Yet he is so blindly partisan that his hatred of the modern Republican Party prompts his affirmation of such a batty partisan jab as Luce's.
What's noteworthy is that the vast majority of conservatives aren't MAGA loyalists, or Proud Boys, or extremists in any sense. In fact, a very significant percentage of Trump voters in both 2016 and 2020 were individuals making a pragmatic choice between him and the individual representing modern progressivism.
Ironically, with voices like Luce, Hayden, and Harris defining the latter, no one should be surprised that rational people would prefer taking their chances with the former.
