Can the Left Get a Grip?

With just under a month until Donald Trump's inauguration, many liberals have ratcheted up the hyperbole to the point of derangement. The New York Times editorial board has called for the abolition of the Electoral College, dismissing it as nothing more than an artifact of slavery. This came on the heels of a video from Hollywood celebrities pleading with Republican electors to select somebody other than Trump—and arguing that the Founding Fathers, Alexander Hamilton especially, would want them to do precisely that. Keith Olbermann, the former ESPN and MSNBC commentator, has started a webcast for GQ, subtly titled "The Resistance," where he talks darkly about the end of the country as we know it. Paul Krugman—the Nobel laureate and New York Times columnist—tweeted just the other day: "Thought: There was (rightly) a cloud of illegitimacy over Bush, dispelled (wrongly) by 9/11. Creates some interesting incentives for Trump."

This is quite a volte-face for the left. For years, we have been told that conservative opposition to Obama was nakedly opportunistic, even nihilistic, if not outright racist. Now, opposition—distraught, hysterical opposition—is the highest form of patriotism.

Some of this is to be expected. History has shown time and again that the difference between a loyal opposition and a seditious one is in the eye of the beholder. None other than Hamilton—of late the hero of the progressive left—reluctantly endorsed the Sedition Act of 1798 to quell the opposition press of the Jeffersonian Republicans. The president who signed that vile piece of legislation was John Adams, a coauthor of the Declaration of Independence. In ages past, European kings usually snuffed out their political opponents—literally. Monarchs who failed to mete out such brutality frequently became victims of it. Indeed, during the War of the Roses, England bled itself white because competing branches of the royal house refused to recognize the legitimacy of their familial opponents.

Since 1801, the United States has enjoyed the peaceful transfer of power—but that does not mean it can't be a little ornery. John Adams refused to attend Jefferson's inauguration in 1801, just as his son, John Quincy Adams, refused to attend the inauguration of his successor, Andrew Jackson. When Rutherford Hayes was inaugurated in 1877, he was quickly dubbed "Rutherfraud" by his opponents, who judged that the Republican party had stolen the vote in several states. More recently, Democrats sputtered with outrage that the Supreme Court had "stolen" the election of 2000, and may have persisted in those bitter declamations had 9/11 not altered the political landscape so abruptly.

So it goes in a democracy. The stakes of elections are so high because elections actually influence public policy. Emotions are intensely felt by partisans on both sides. Feelings are easily bruised, especially when defeat comes as a surprise. That the left has shifted so swiftly from criticizing Obama's critics to criticizing Trump only goes to show that progressives are not the cool-headed avatars of reason they take themselves to be. They are, much like their current beau idéal Hamilton once wrote, "rather reasoning than reasonable animals for the most part governed by the impulse of passion." Just as we all are.

Conservatives watching this spectacle are within their rights to enjoy themselves—just a little bit. But it would be wrong to linger on such petty indulgences. For the good of the country, the left needs to come to its senses. Progressives need to accept the results and move on.

That does not mean they have to submit to Trump and the GOP—far from it. Back in 2009, during the negotiations over the stimulus, President Obama dismissed Republican proposals by saying, "Elections have consequences, and at the end of the day, I won." He was technically correct, but he missed the bigger point of our system of government. All members of Congress who had been seated in January 2009, Republicans and Democrats, had also won their elections. They all had a right to fight for what they believed was the best course of action, and they all did so knowing that there was another election just 21 months away. This was as true in 2009 as it will be in 2017. Trump won—but his victory gives him the right to occupy the executive office for four years, nothing more. Liberals can and should oppose him, just as conservatives opposed Obama. Nothing is ever settled once and for all. The ideological battle endures, as well it should.

But this temper tantrum is counterproductive. The swing voters who decide national elections are too pragmatic to be swayed by such extravagant language about the demise of the republic. They don't want to hear about abolishing the Electoral College. They don't believe that every Trump nominee is a mortal threat to the general welfare. They certainly do not think Trump has an incentive to launch a terrorist attack upon the country. Insisting that Trump is "not my president" is a surefire way to alienate them.

Liberals, if they have any instinct for self-preservation, will need to accept the fact of Trump's election, calm themselves down, and get back to the issues. Trump won the presidency because a critical mass of voters in the industrial Midwest swung to him from Obama. The left needs to figure out how to win these voters back. To that end, they would do well to remember Aesop's "Boy Who Cried Wolf." If they continually harangue voters with jeremiads about how the end is nigh, then their cries of alarm will never be heeded, even if Trump actually does something dangerous.

All of us should hope that the left gets a grip. One-party governments tend toward decadence and corruption, and if the GOP reckons that the Democrats are too perturbed to take back the offices they've lost, it will be less responsive to the general welfare. Our democracy depends on robust party competition—where the combatants compete relentlessly for support on the issues that matter to the public. So, even as we quietly enjoy the collective freakout on the other side of the aisle, let us hope that it ends sooner rather than later.

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