As I watch the Left ask “What went wrong?” in the election aftermath, I am reminded of an incident a few years back, in my native Seattle, when some tourist returned from the former Soviet Union with a ten-ton statue of Lenin.
Stupid in Seattle
When the owner of the statue died, the statue somehow wound up in the hands of the city, whose Wise Elders decided it should be erected in a public location for all to admire.
Some protested this, pointing out that Lenin, after all, fathered a system that butchered more innocent people than any other creation of the human mind in all of history. They pointedly suggested that if Seattle is now spending public monies to honor architects of mass murder, perhaps Seattle would also find it doubly cute to erect a statue of Hitler.
At this point, somebody wrote to one of our local papers saying it was ridiculous to compare Lenin with Hitler. After all, Lenin was an intellectual.
This fatuous remark, as much as anything, illustrates the problem which faces the Left in trying to grapple, not just with this election, but with the human race in general. In a nutshell, our liberal elites really and truly deeply believe that they are way smarter than anybody who disagrees with them.
Unenlightened Christians
Illustrations of this from the post-election press abound, but I will limit myself to just a few. One of the most hilarious was the allegedly Catholic Garry Wills, lamenting in the November 4, 2004 New York Times that Election Day 2004 was “the Day the Enlightenment Went Out” and asking (I kid you not) “Can a people that believes more fervently in the Virgin Birth than in evolution still be called an Enlightened nation?” Prescinding from the fact that Wills himself says “He was born of the Virgin Mary” every Sunday at Mass and is therefore either a liar at Mass or a hypocrite in this piece, one has to thank Wills for giving voice to the Silent Scream of We-Are-Way-More-Intelligenter-Than-You Blue America. He does not inform us when the memo was issued by the Church that made the Virgin Birth a legend fit only for mouth-breathers, but then, he doesn't mean to. Rather, he simply means to confirm his fellows on the Left that they are intellectuals, and that those who differ from them are stoopid.
Exploit Those Morons!
In a similar vein, William Saletan wrote a piece for Slate to rally the dispirited Left called “Simple but Effective: Why you keep losing to this idiot”. Once again, the dogmatic faith of the Left in its superior intelligence is in full display. First, Saletan assures the Faithful of the Left of their intellectual superiority:
Now look at your candidate, John Kerry. What quality has he most lacked?… Not brains — he proved that in the debates. What Kerry lacked was simplicity…. If you're a Democrat, here's my advice. Do what the Republicans did in 1998. Get simple. Find a compelling salesman and get him ready to run for president in 2008. Put aside your quibbles about preparation, stature, expertise, nuance, and all that other hyper-sophisticated garbage that caused you to nominate Kerry.
Translation: “The trouble with Our Set is that we are just too darn intelligent. We appreciate the nuances. We are hyper-sophisticated. We are just so utterly brilliant that we can't win the hearts of all those common 'simple' people out there.”
So what does Saletan recommend?:
You just need somebody to win the White House and appoint them to his administration. And that will require all the simplicity, salesmanship, and easygoing humanity they don't have. The good news is, that person is already available. His name is John Edwards.
You read that right. The lesson Saletan takes away from the election is: since Americans who disagree with him are “simple” (read: “stupid”) then the solution for the Left is to run a pre-fab, blow-dried, empty-headed talking hairdo like John Edwards — who just lost the last election. Saletan at least gets as far as asking, “If the Right is so stupid, how come they keep running rings around us?” But like so many on the Left, he cannot face squarely the awful prospect “Maybe we're not nearly as smart as we think we are and conservatives aren't as stupid as we keep telling ourselves.” Instead, Saletan opts to say, in effect, “Sadly, more Americans than we'd like to admit are dumb, unlike Us. How can we exploit these morons?”
Pride: Both Deadly and Funny
This is why the Left is losing. Many who populate it are gripped by intellectual pride: a form of pride which is both deadly and funny. For just as the Spirit can take people of rather modest intellectual gifts and sharpen their minds, so the devil can, through intellectual pride, take very bright people and make them stupid.
Discussion: Why do you think the Left just doesn’t get it? Sound off at the CE Roundtable.
Mark Shea is Senior Content Editor for Catholic Exchange. You may visit his website at www.mark-shea.com check out his blog, Catholic and Enjoying It!, or purchase his books and tapes here.
