Smug and Complacent

I can’t help myself. I really can’t. At least there’s a disclaimer below.

I haven’t seen any of the numbers — and even if I had seen them, I wouldn’t know what to do with them — but that won’t stop me for writing about the midterm election and what I see as a serious problem for the American Left.

The Left is generally smug and complacent; they spent the run-up to this election making fun of the (far) Right rather than actually demonstrating why not to vote for GOP candidates. Christine O’Donnell used to be a witch and so forth. The Left went to a rally sponsored by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert with far greater enthusiasm than they went to the polls. They seem to believe that intellectual superiority will necessarily win out, that — given the choice — Americans will obviously vote for the brainiacs, the guys and gals who love science and who know what the Constitution says.

And that makes sense, right? Whenever there’s been a popularity contest, throughout history, the smart kid has always won.

This is nothing new. I distinctly remember the shock I felt when George W. Bush was elected in 2000: how could so many people vote for a candidate who couldn’t correctly pronounce the word nuclear, who didn’t know the names of foreign leaders, and who called himself a compassionate conservative as he made fun of death row inmates whose execution warrants he signed?

Well, the other candidate was really, really boring.

Oh — and remember when Bush ran for re-election? Remember the guy he ran against? So dull. And so unable to get any point across in under two minutes.

I suppose one thing we ought to ask is why the Left keeps putting such boring candidates in front of the electorate. But far more important is to ask why so many on the Left think — over and over again — that having reason and facts on their side matters more than actually showing up to vote.

In Oklahoma, voters approved a ban on Shari’ah law; in Iowa, voters punished judges who upheld same-sex marriages; in Kentucky, voters sent Rand Paul to the Senate.

Making fun of it doesn’t make it go away. Voting against it in large numbers does that.

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A disclaimer: I don’t study American politics and I never have. So you should take all of the above with a grain of salt. In fact, my colleagues are already lining up to tell you why I have no idea what I’m talking about. It’s all about the economy and so on.