The smug style in American liberalism
10th November 2016
There is a smug style in American liberalism. It has been growing these past decades. It is a way of conducting politics, predicated on the belief that American life is not divided by moral difference or policy divergence — not really — but by the failure of half the country to know what’s good for them.
In 2016, the smug style has found expression in media and in policy, in the attitudes of liberals both visible and private, providing a foundational set of assumptions above which a great number of liberals comport their understanding of the world.
It has led an American ideology hitherto responsible for a great share of the good accomplished over the past century of our political life to a posture of reaction and disrespect: a condescending, defensive sneer toward any person or movement outside of its consensus, dressed up as a monopoly on reason.
The smug style is a psychological reaction to a profound shift in American political demography.
November 11th, 2016 at 13:50
This sums up my experience talking with liberals online. If you’re face to face, they will usually nod in the direction of politeness, but online the personal attacks start almost immediately.
November 11th, 2016 at 15:56
I’d forgotten this. Thanks for posting.
The prescient sentence: “The wages of smug is Trump.”