The Real Problem

Just got unfriended again on Facebook. Not that it bothers me. It ought to be considered a badge of honour. The shameful thing is unfriending, not being unfriended. And, again, by a left-leaning woman. This happens a lot. Is it just me?

No, it isn’t. Apparently, thirty percent of self-identified Democratic women in the US have unfriended someone on Facebook over their political views. For comparison, it’s only eight percent of Republican women, and ten percent of Republican men.

This is an excellent measure of who has the better arguments.

What does the typical person do when they lose an argument badly? Of course, they feel shame. Of course, it is not a good feeling. Properly, they should be good sports about it, and concede. But almost nobody does, do they? Because it feels bad, they begin to shun the other person. Or, two, if they are less principled or self-aware, they lash out. They get insulting, or even throw a punch.

That is just what we are seeing right now, isn’t it, on the US national stage? Have you been watching the reactions on the left to the election of Trump?

Note, too, that it is especially left-leaning women. Only fourteen percent of Democratic men unfriended over politics, in our survey; the figures for Republican men and women, while lower, were about the same.

This suggests clearly the specific issue on which the left has no good arguments. I leave it to you to fill in the blank.

The current hysteria over Trump’s presidency is a pretty open if unintended admission that, on the issues Trump ran on, the left knows it has lost the argument.

And note that the first wave of assault was a “women’s march.” And it wasn’t really a “womens march.” That march banned—unfriended--pro-life women. It was left-wing women, and their hysteria was really over one specific issue.

Trump, of course, did not just run against abortion. He ran against political correctness. But again, that’s what political correctness was all along. It was about trying to avoid the argument: by creating large swathes of things you were not allowed to say. Restricting debate to avoid the dangerous argument.

He ran against the media. But again, that is what the “media bias” was all about. It was the left seeking to avoid the argument they knew they could not win. So they refused to hear or report any opposing points of view. They were walking away from the argument.

Now they can’t do it any longer, cannot just shun, because Trump is in the White House and has access to Twitter. So do all the dissenting views. Hence the hysterical ad hominems. Trump’s a racist, a misogynist, his face is too orange, it’s a toupee, his son is a school shooter, his wife is being held captive, and on and on. His voters are despicable.

Not edifying, but human nature.

The good news is, all it should take is to end this one issue, and the current culture wars should be over. Short, I hope, of a Civil War, as was ultimately needed for slavery.

Overturn Roe v. Wade.