The Smug Style in American Liberalism

[LegendKiller]

Someone else being smug doesn't make them wrong and you right.

No, facts make them wrong. The same facts you so smugly avoided. You fail to recognize the Left's explicit allowance of the raping of this economy. Eliminate the smug denial and you may begin to acknowledge the UniParty's hand in the whole thing.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

If a person has demonstrated an immunity to reason, the only remaining response to their insanity is derision.

 

[Subyman]

No, facts make them wrong. The same facts you so smugly avoided. You fail to recognize the Left's explicit allowance of the raping of this economy. Eliminate the smug denial and you may begin to acknowledge the UniParty's hand in the whole thing.

Incorrect, facts = smug.

 

[Moonbeam]

The phenomena that I describe as the CBD is a scientific fact. Conservatives practice a bubble reality denial more than liberals do. If I seem smug not to be infected by this defect, it's because I'm fucking glad the condition applies less to me than many conservatives that post here. It's not my fault that I am mentally superior. I paid a huge price for my vision. It's the poor dickheads who hate themselves at the thought they might have some tiny flaw that are to blame for trying to source their feelings of inferiority to me. I only tell those folks the facts so they have a chance to get better.

 

[trenchfoot]

The point is white working class can either keep waiting for it to trickle down, or wake up.
Hating Hillary more or less won't make any difference.

That well known conundrum that a lot of working class conservatives have to reconcile within themselves whereby being loyal to Party also requires being loyal to those who own and operate that Party is THE sticking point for them.

Those "owner/operators" have every intention of keeping their working class party faithful as well as every other member of the working class economically indentured to them so as to keep them poor,controllable and a non-threat to their......possessions.

Their working class' reaction? Resort to single issue talking points and ignore the economic sacrifices they have to make in order to stay faithful.

I wouldn't mind that at all except for one thing: their being faithful is taking the rest of the middle class and the poor down with them.

 

[Jhhnn]

To be honest, I find the article/author to be rather smug.

It oozes smug certainty in a style that only the right wing uses. It's an overly long harangue in the style of El Rushbo himself.

 

[brycejones]

If using facts and evidence to prove a point is considered smug then I have very little hope for the US.

Agreed, this thread follows the long and distinguished history of anti-intellectualism that seems to have taken hold in this country.

 

[LegendKiller]

That well known conundrum that a lot of working class conservatives have to reconcile within themselves whereby being loyal to Party also requires being loyal to those who own and operate that Party is THE sticking point for them.

Those "owner/operators" have every intention of keeping their working class party faithful as well as every other member of the working class economically indentured to them so as to keep them poor,controllable and a non-threat to their......possessions.

Their working class' reaction? Resort to single issue talking points and ignore the economic sacrifices they have to make in order to stay faithful.

I wouldn't mind that at all except for one thing: their being faithful is taking the rest of the middle class and the poor down with them.

Funny, the only way the left reconciles this is to call the right stupid, then go Full Retard into socialism, as if there was no middle ground in which to meet the right and eliminate the UniParty. Because the left's own politicians are complicit in these actions, indeed, the UniParty has sold the left and right out, using different tools.

Hence the Smug party's embracing of Billary, who was signed NAFTA, MFN, GLB, MFMA, and was for TPP before they were against it.

You toss blame at the working class right as if they were these cheap trinkets that you can lay at their feet, solely, when it was your politicians who also signed it, and the head of your party, who now roots for more. Your party deserves just as much blame.

That you can't admit it and all of you dodge your own responsibility, is the height of smugness.

 

[Moonbeam]

Funny, the only way the left reconciles this is to call the right stupid, then go Full Retard into socialism, as if there was no middle ground in which to meet the right and eliminate the UniParty. Because the left's own politicians are complicit in these actions, indeed, the UniParty has sold the left and right out, using different tools.

Hence the Smug party's embracing of Billary, who was signed NAFTA, MFN, GLB, MFMA, and was for TPP before they were against it.

You toss blame at the working class right as if they were these cheap trinkets that you can lay at their feet, solely, when it was your politicians who also signed it, and the head of your party, who now roots for more. Your party deserves just as much blame.

That you can't admit it and all of you dodge your own responsibility, is the height of smugness.

Liberals have their own brain defect. Lacking the ability to deny reality to the extent conservatives can, they cannot credit the fact that people can reject the obvious without being incredible stupid. They can't see that conservatives use their intellect to be successful at this. And don't forget that the capacity to deny reality is dangerous to the people around you. Conservatives are an obvious threat to anybody who can see the facts with reason. You can understand why liberals react with fear to psychopaths.

 

[theeedude]

No, facts make them wrong. The same facts you so smugly avoided. You fail to recognize the Left's explicit allowance of the raping of this economy. Eliminate the smug denial and you may begin to acknowledge the UniParty's hand in the whole thing.

It's not the left's fault that trickle down is not working for the useful idiots who voted for it.

 

[woolfe9998]

"Smug" is no different than "elitist." It is merely an attempt to beg the question and avoid the real discussion. If, for example, a liberal says that conservatives tend to live in a bubble and expose themselves only to like minded viewpoints, the correct response is to either a) admit that this is true, or b) argue against the observation. If instead of doing either of these things, the response is to say, "you are being smug" then I think we have a pretty good idea why. The threshold question is whether that person is right, not how you perceive their attitude in delivering the argument. "Smug" is just an ad hominem which doesn't even address what is being argued. How about we first determine if the liberal in question is actually right? The OP's article is long on condemnation of liberal attitudes and short on refutation of liberal arguments.

If you find yourself disgruntled by an opponent's apparent "smugness," quit whining and acting so traumatized. If you want to put that person in his place, defeat his argument, then the smugness will go away promptly, and even if it doesn't, so what. You will have accomplished everything and anything that matters.

 

[theeedude]

"Smug" is no different than "elitist."

Voting for trickle down economics against your own self interest, but for the benefit of the elites, is "elitist." "Smug" is just smug.
If a bum tells you watch where you are going, and you ignore him and step in a pile of shit, and then he smugly says, "told ya," that doesn't make him an "elitist" bum, just a smug one.

 

[Triloby]

"Smug"
"Elitist"
"Liberals"
"Left"
"Cuck"
"Brain defect"
"Politically correct"

Who the hell comes up with these words? A bunch of geriatrics trying to sound young, hip, and cool? Is that what all the cool and hip geriatrics are doing nowadays?

Keep on pissing and moaning about liberals. It's only going to get worse (for you, hopefully :sneaky as time goes on.

 

[bradly1101]

The issue is all about feeling right, which in turn means someone else is wrong who therefore feels put down.

It's all just grist for our egos.

 

[umbrella39]

Damn you intelligence and your far left leaning liberal bias!!!!

/shakesfist

 

[woolfe9998]

Voting for trickle down economics against your own self interest, but for the benefit of the elites, is "elitist." "Smug" is just smug.
If a bum tells you watch where you are going, and you ignore him and step in a pile of shit, and then he smugly says, "told ya," that doesn't make him an "elitist" bum, just a smug one.

I didn't mean the precise dictionary definitions are the same. I just mean that in this context, the one is just a repackaged version of the other.

 

[flexy]

You get called smug (or in a similar context accused of 'snarky' comments) when the other one cannot counter your arguments. It's basically whining.

Because as already pointed out by others, nothing speaks against the other one refuting what I say. (I for my part am old enough that I a openly admit I am wrong if the other guy can show me or has a better argument.) Those whoever who always cry "smug" or "snarky" are almost NEVER counter-arguing. They are not because (well, how SMUG to say this!) they usually can't.

*

I just came back from a site with a report about this recent bike path crash in Brazil where two died.

In the comments there were mainly obviously "right" folks who ranted below the article about liberals, socialists, Obama, communism etc. Something which didn't have THE SLIGHTEST to do with a fricking bike path crash in Brazil.

So, smug fucker like I am I commented something like that I think those people are mentally handicapped and they need to take their meds when they somehow see a relationship between liberalism and Brazilian bike paths.

I didn't comment this because I felt "cool and smug" and just like to insult rightwingers, I commented this because they are REALLY mentally handicapped and need to take their meds <-- How smug

 

[IGBT]

The Plantation Party has always been smug..it's in their DNA.

 

[woolfe9998]

It oozes smug certainty in a style that only the right wing uses. It's an overly long harangue in the style of El Rushbo himself.

Perhaps, though after reading the entire article, I'm not so sure the author is conservative. The website - Vox - is liberal. And the author doesn't have much of a public profile which would shed light on his ideology. Then again, his intentional hiding the ball is also part of the numerous problems with the article.

Some of his observations about liberals are correct so far as it goes, but the whole thing is de-contextualized, to where conservatives are the object in the sentence and nothing more. As if they have no agency of their own. The fact is, it is impossible to understand liberal "smugness" without understanding what is happening on the other side. So the author criticizes liberals for condescension, particularly towards poor white people. What he fails to mention is that many of these poor white people have been stuffing their heads with the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Ann Coulter going on decades now, and that this message they are stuffing into their heads is not just a conservative ideology - that is actually secondary to people like Limbaugh - but rather, a vicious and hateful de-humanization of liberals. And while Limbaugh does have some analogues on the left, the difference is that these analogues capture nowhere near the attention of liberals that the Limbaughs capture of conservatives.

I find it strange that one can write an article about smug and condescending attitudes of liberals and not even discuss the phenomena of conservative talk radio and conservative media, its popularity among conservatives, and how liberals are portrayed in said media. Any serious treatment of this subject requires a much more thorough, and bilateral treatment, than is offered by this author. If the author wants to argue that it is liberal smugness which created the phenomenon of hateful conservative punditry, much as he argues that liberal smugness has created the monster of Donald Trump, then he is free to do so. He'd be incorrect, but at least he'd be addressing the entire complexity of the issue, instead of presenting this bizarro world where liberals seem to be driving everything, and are the only ones actually doing or saying anything, while conservatives are just passively reacting.

This odd asymmetry which places liberals as the sole drivers of pretty much everything in our political culture is also what makes me wonder if the author is himself a liberal. If so, another thing he has failed to mention about liberals is that we tend to write articles criticizing each other more often than conservatives do. Case in point.

 

[trenchfoot]

Funny, the only way the left reconciles this is to call the right stupid, then go Full Retard into socialism, as if there was no middle ground in which to meet the right and eliminate the UniParty. Because the left's own politicians are complicit in these actions, indeed, the UniParty has sold the left and right out, using different tools.

Hence the Smug party's embracing of Billary, who was signed NAFTA, MFN, GLB, MFMA, and was for TPP before they were against it.

You toss blame at the working class right as if they were these cheap trinkets that you can lay at their feet, solely, when it was your politicians who also signed it, and the head of your party, who now roots for more. Your party deserves just as much blame.

That you can't admit it and all of you dodge your own responsibility, is the height of smugness.

There's a couple of things that you mentioned that I totally agree with. That's why I had wished that Bernie Sanders could have somehow overcome Hillary's chances at being nominated and why I am sadly disappointed at Obama's attempts to get another trade deal signed and sealed.

That being said, from an ideological point of view, I don't see in any way, shape or form that I was in error with what I offered up in my post that you quoted.

Obviously, the Dem Party's ideology speaks to championing the cause of the middle class and the poor and the labor unions that in fact created the middle class itself. The welfare of the working class people of the nation is at the very heart of the Dem ideological goals.

The Repub Party's ideology however, as witnessed by the profuse legislation they pass and/or attempt to pass that almost exclusively favors Big Business, Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Banks, Wall Street, the Insurance Companies and the very wealthy that own and operate those businesses, is plainly in stark contrast to the Dem's ideological goals.

As well, for the fact that the Repub ideology favors small gov't, the destruction and/or privatization of any and all gov't programs that benefit the middle class and the poor and the total annihilation of the unions whose purpose is to protect the ever eroding gains that the unions fought for and won in the name of the working class is, quite undeniably, damning proof of whose interests the Repub Party REALLY want to represent.

 

[1prophet]

There is a saying, one can become so wise in their own eyes they end up making fools of themselves.

And so it goes with the democrat liberals who changed their goals to doing whatever it takes to win even if it means compromising their core beliefs, neglecting the very middle class that was their backbone for corporate America, while conveniently pointing the finger at the other guy not realizing they have become the other guy with few exceptions like Bernie Sanders.

Meanwhile their Koolaid drinking parrots lap it up like it's a good thing, as evident by the pretend liberals on this forum.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/...-of-pushing-the-democratic-party-to-the-right

But before all of these events shaped public opinion, the party was largely guided by the ideas of the Democratic Leadership Council. Founded by Southern Democrats in 1985, the group sought to transform the party by pushing it to embrace more conservative positions and win support from big business.

The DLC's goal was to advance "a message that was less tilted toward minorities and welfare, less radical on social issues like abortion and gays, more pro-defense, and more conservative on economic issues," wrote Robert Dreyfuss in a 2001 article in The American Prospect. "The DLC thundered against the 'liberal fundamentalism' of the party's base - unionists, blacks, feminists, Greens, and cause groups generally."
Within the DLC, populism was not merely out of favor; it was militantly opposed.

The organization had virtually no grassroots supporters; it was funded almost entirely by corporate donors. Its executive council, Dreyfuss reported, was made up of companies that donated at least $25,000 and included Enron and Koch Industries. A list of its known donors includes scores of the United States' most powerful corporations, all of whom benefit from a Democratic Party that embraces big business and is less reliant on labor unions and the grassroots for support.

The organization's influence was significant, especially in the 1990s. The New York Times reported that during that era "the Democratic Leadership Council was a maker of presidents." Its influence continued into the post-Clinton years. Al Gore, Joe Lieberman, John Kerry, John Edwards, Dick Gephardt and countless others all lent their names in support of the organization.

The DLC and its think tank, the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), were well financed and published a seemingly endless barrage of policy papers, op-eds and declarations in their numerous publications.

"It is almost hard to find anyone who wasn't involved with [the DLC]" said Mark Schmitt, a staffer for the nonpartisan New America Foundation think tank, in an interview with Truthout. "This was before there were a lot of organizations, and the DLC provided a way for politicians to get involved and to be in the same room with important people."

The height of the DLC's triumph may well have been in the 1990s, when it claimed President Bill Clinton as its most prominent advocate, celebrating his disastrous welfare cuts (which were supported by Hillary Clinton as the first lady), his support for the North American Free Trade Agreement and his speech declaring that the "era of big government is over." These initiatives had the DLC's footprint all over them.

The DLC's prescribed Third Way also found a home on Downing Street in England. Tony Blair, a major Clinton ally, was a staunch advocate of the DLC, adopted its strategies and lent his name to its website. According to the book Clinton and Blair: The Political Economy of the Third Way, he said in 1998 that it "is a third way because it moves decisively beyond an Old Left preoccupied by state control, high taxation and producer interests."
As recently as 2014, Blair has continued to urge the UK's Labour Party to remain committed to these ideals. "Former UK prime minister Tony Blair has urged Labour leader Ed Miliband to stick to the political centre ground, warning that the public has not 'fallen back in love with the state' despite the global financial crisis," according to the Financial Times, which noted that the left-wing base of his party has rejected his centrist leanings. "His decision as prime minister to join the US in its invasion of Iraq - as well as his free-market leanings - have made him a hate figure among the most leftwing Labour activists."

Hillary Clinton as a New Democrat
When Bill Clinton left the White House, Hillary Clinton entered the Senate. She quickly became a major player for the DLC, serving as a prominent member of the New Democratic Caucus in the Senate, speaking at conferences on multiple occasions and serving as chair of a key initiative for the 2006 and 2008 elections.

She was even promoted as the DLC's "New Dem of the Week" on its website. (It would be remiss not to note that Martin O'Malley also served as a "New Dem of the Week," and even co-wrote an op-ed on behalf of the DLC with its then-chair, Harold Ford Jr.)

More importantly, Clinton adopted the DLC strategy in the way she governed. She tried to portray herself as a crusader for family values when she introduced legislation to ban violent video games and flag burning in 2005. She also adopted the DLC's hawkish military stance. The DLC was feverishly in favor of Bush's "war on terror" and his invasion of Iraq. Will Marshall, one of the group's founders, was a signatory of many of the now infamous documents from the Project for the New American Century, which urged the United States to radically increase its use of force in Iraq and beyond.

The DLC led efforts to take down Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign, citing his opposition to the war in Iraq as an example of his weakness. Two years later, the organization played a similar role against Ned Lamont's antiwar challenge to Sen. Joe Lieberman, which the DLC decried as "The Return of Liberal Fundamentalism."

However, the DLC's influence eventually waned. A formal affiliation with the organization became something of a deal breaker for some progressive voters. When Barack Obama first ran for the Senate in 2004, he had no affiliation with the DLC. So, when they wrongly included him in their directory of New Democrats, he asked the DLC to remove his name. In explaining this, he also publicly shunned the organization in an interview with Black Commentator. "You are undoubtedly correct that these positions make me an unlikely candidate for membership in the DLC," he wrote when pressed by the magazine. "That is why I am not currently, nor have I ever been, a member of the DLC."

The DLC's decline continued: A growing sense of discontent among progressives, Clinton's loss in 2008 and the economic crisis that followed turned the DLC into something of a political liability. And in 2011, the Democratic Leadership Council shuttered its doors.

When the DLC closed, it records were acquired by the Clinton Foundation, which DLC founder Al From called an "appropriate and fitting repository." To this day, the Clinton Foundation continues to promote the work of the DLC's founding members. In September 2015, the foundation hosted an event to promote From's book The New Democrats and the Return to Power. Amazingly, O'Malley provided a favorable blurb for the book, praising it as a "reminder of the core principles that still drive Democratic success today."

 

[michal1980]

There's a couple of things that you mentioned that I totally agree with. That's why I had wished that Bernie Sanders could have somehow overcome Hillary's chances at being nominated and why I am sadly disappointed at Obama's attempts to get another trade deal signed and sealed.

That being said, from an ideological point of view, I don't see in any way, shape or form that I was in error with what I offered up in my post that you quoted.

Obviously, the Dem Party's ideology speaks to championing the cause of the middle class and the poor and the labor unions that in fact created the middle class itself. The welfare of the working class people of the nation is at the very heart of the Dem ideological goals.

The Repub Party's ideology however, as witnessed by the profuse legislation they pass and/or attempt to pass that almost exclusively favors Big Business, Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Banks, Wall Street, the Insurance Companies and the very wealthy that own and operate those businesses, is plainly in stark contrast to the Dem's ideological goals.

As well, for the fact that the Repub ideology favors small gov't, the destruction and/or privatization of any and all gov't programs that benefit the middle class and the poor and the total annihilation of the unions whose purpose is to protect the ever eroding gains that the unions fought for and won in the name of the working class is, quite undeniably, damning proof of whose interests the Repub Party REALLY want to represent.

Your lying to yourself.

The dems claim they are for the middle class but they don't do shit for the middle class.


NAFTA helped the middle class?
TPP will help the middle class?

Wall Street backs liberals. Who did better under Obama? The middle class or wall street class? Who owns Hillary?

Since when do liberals stand with unions? And I don't mean in that superficial way, I mean really stand with unions? I'll grant you that with public unions the left is all in. But again how did NAFTA help private unions? How will TPP help? How does the support of illegals help unions?

Hilary supports more H1B visas how the fuck those that help the middle class?

Smug liberals like you 'know' your for the middle class, but your too stuck in your stupid bubble to realize that its just a grand delusion.

 

[Hugo Drax]

Incorrect, facts = smug.

Replying with math symbols is Smug.

 

[trenchfoot]

Your lying to yourself.

The dems claim they are for the middle class but they don't do shit for the middle class.


NAFTA helped the middle class?
TPP will help the middle class?

Wall Street backs liberals. Who did better under Obama? The middle class or wall street class? Who owns Hillary?

Since when do liberals stand with unions? And I don't mean in that superficial way, I mean really stand with unions? I'll grant you that with public unions the left is all in. But again how did NAFTA help private unions? How will TPP help? How does the support of illegals help unions?

Hilary supports more H1B visas how the fuck those that help the middle class?

Smug liberals like you 'know' your for the middle class, but your too stuck in your stupid bubble to realize that its just a grand delusion.

Like I said, those trade deals are a sell out sore spot for me, and something that IMO, alludes to the idea that our gov't is so corrupt to the point where to get even a little crumb off the table of wealth and into the hands of the working class takes making deals with the devil.

However, to reiterate, there is still that ideological abyss that exists between the two parties, and Dems like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren stand in opposition to the corruption that pervades the halls of gov't in D.C.

Surely, folks like that would never ever exist in a Repub Camp that produce and support freak fundamentalist zealots like Cruz and Rubio.

And then there are those millions of Dems like the young ones, the minorities, the poor who wish for a better life, the middle class who see how their status is dwindling as the status of the very wealthy sail away to new heights, those who saw a glimmer of hope that change could happen in the form of Bernie Sanders and who have realized that there are millions of others who feel the same way and that their emergence as a movement will yield rewards in the near future.

Those are the Dems that will lead the way in future elections, whereas those middle class and poor folks in the Repub Party will have to stay the course and staunchly defend the status quo in order to remain faithful to the Party.

It's that same Party that gives them nothing in return except more of the same propagandistic worthless tripe that keeps them from doing anything for themselves yet faithfully give up anything and everything that the very wealthy demands from them.

This idea that the Dems in Congress are just as willing as the Repubs to keep things just the way they are is absolutely debunked when all one has to mention is how the Repubs in Congress devised and deployed their operational plan of total obstruction against the Dems that wanted change, that wanted to rein in Wall Street, that wanted to kill Citizens United in the worst way.

And of course, there's those eight years where Bush and Cheney had a chance to prove what a Repub controlled gov't could do for the nation, and we all know how well that experiment in trickle down economics worked, now don't we?

 

[umbrella39]

The Plantation Party has always been smug..it's in their DNA.

The Derp Party has always been derp..it's in their DNA. You have demonstrated this 17,292 times...