December 12, 2016
Source: Bigstock
It’s difficult to know which part of me to trust these days: my intuition or my own lying eyes.
The glut of “fake news“ filling the web doesn”t make it any easier. America’s insatiable appetite for quick headlines and prior-confirming news feeds has made it all but impossible to identity that pesky thing we like to call “truth.”
This is especially so when it comes to the progressive penchant for histrionics.
Take a recent Huffington Post confessional for instance. “How I Ended Up in a Psych Ward on Election Night,” written by 38-year-old science journalist and Hillary superfan Benjamin Ryan, details how political fandom can go awry. Ryan, who looks so insanely metro even gays would call him a faggot, actually experienced suicidal thoughts on Election Day when his queen was felled by the gruff man’s-man Donald Trump.
Ryan was present at Hillary’s expected celebration at the Javits Center in Manhattan. But when things went south and it became apparent the assumed heir to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was not to be, the little snowflake went into full meltdown mode. He writes: “I got a text from a worried friend who had spotted me on MSNBC. “Are you alright?” he asked.”
Ryan responded with all the angst of a teenage girl turned down for prom: “I want to die.” A crying session in the venue stairwell and a trip to the emergency room later, he ended up in the psych ward of an NYC hospital.
It all seems a little crazy, right? A grown man so distraught after seeing a woman denied the White House, he has an actual breakdown and checks into the loony bin? I know people were upset Hillary lost, but suicide? Really?
I have doubts about Ryan’s recollection. His casual mention of his Ivy League education and his boasting about the world needing his voice (it doesn”t) and his life mattering (to friends and family, sure, but not to anyone else) make the piece read like a joke dreamt up by an alt-right basement-dweller.
My suspicion is also piqued because of Godfrey Elfwick’s recent trolling of the liberal Guardian with his “Alt-Right Nearly Turned Me Racist” column. I have no idea if Elfwick, a brilliant provocateur in his own right, actually wrote the piece and played the Guardian editors like a pair of castanets. But it does seem possible, given the quality of crap the outlet has been publishing.
And therein lies the question: Who’s to know if these tales of lefty bed-wetting are true? Liberal outrage over Trump, combined with a cultlike devotion to identity politics, makes even the most far-fetched story believable. It’s like I”m Will Ferrell and this is Zoolander and the whole world’s taking crazy pills.
A single mom of two just penned a column in The Washington Post explaining how she’s lost the lust for a mate because of Trump’s triumph. “There is no room for dating in this place of grief. Dating means hope. I”ve lost that hope in seeing the words “President-elect Trump,”” she sobs. One author is urging the 65 million Americans who voted for Hillary to refuse to pay federal taxes in Time magazine. Jamelle Bouie, a regular on CBS” Face the Nation, claims “There Is No Such Thing as a Good Trump Voter.”
Something about Trump’s election has brought the worst out in the left. For liberals, politics is no longer about agreeing to disagree for the common good. It’s a winner-take-all sport, where second place is the equivalent of being a filthy untouchable. To the winner go the spoils, and to the losers only rot.
