Above: Entomology, like probing the dark minds of “progressives,” may seem unpleasant, but can be useful.
This article was first published on July 16, 2024 in Complete Colorado.
by Rob Natelson
Rep. Steve Woodrow (D.-Denver) deleted his vicious “X” (formerly Twitter) post after running into a tempest of well-deserved outrage. But the fact that he posted the tweet in the first place offers some useful insights into the “progressive” gang that currently dominates Colorado.
After the failure of the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump, most of us condemned the violence and condoled with Trump and his family. But Woodrow is not like the rest of us. Here was his response:
“The last thing America needed was sympathy for the devil but here we are.”
For decent people, Woodrow’s tweet provokes the kind of revulsion we feel when we see a loathsome insect about to bite a baby. Let us, however, suppress our feelings and perform some entomology.
Consider first Woodrow’s equation between Trump and the devil. Although references to Satan are not common among “progressives”—they are too secular for that—it is very common for them to confound conservatives and conservatism with evil. That’s why so many have called Trump “Hitler” and describe him as a fascist.
Of course, such comments are objectively absurd: When Trump was President, he was not a dictator. He was not as dedicated to smaller government as I would prefer, but he did work with Congress to lower taxes and deregulate. He certainly is not an anti-Semite: his own daughter is Jewish—as is his son-in-law, whom he employed extensively in his administration. As President, Trump supported Israel a good deal more firmly than “progressives” do today.
Let’s put this into perspective: “Progressives” have been slandering their political opponents this way for a very long time. Sixty years ago, they compared Senator Barry Goldwater (R.-Ariz.), the 1964 Republican presidential nominee, to Hitler—despite the fact that Goldwater was half Jewish and about as libertarian as a national politician can be. Twenty years ago, they were defaming Republican President George W. Bush as “Hitler.” More recently, Hillary Clinton slimed nearly half the country as “deplorables.”
This sort of filth tells us more about “progressives” than about their targets. It tells us how they see the rest of us.
You may have heard the adage, “Conservatives think liberals are stupid and liberals think conservatives are evil.” Leftists’ equation of Republicans with the devil and with Naziism and fascism is emblematic of the latter half of the adage.
The “Progressive” bubble
I’m not a psychologist, so I won’t try to identify all the reasons leftists think their opponents are evil. However, I think it has something to do with the bubble in which they live. Conservatives and moderates cannot escape the ubiquity of leftist propaganda. Leftists’ political messages are plastered even on our garbage trucks—where, perhaps, they belong. On the other hand, “progressives” can go through life without ever seeing Fox News, or the New York Post. They absorb unrebutted drivel served up by government-subsidized college professors and the “mainstream” propaganda media.
So I would not be surprised if Woodrow still believes Trump was elected in 2016 because he conspired with Russian oligarchs. And I’d lay even money he continues to believe that in Charlottesville, Virginia, Trump proclaimed neo-Nazis and white supremacists to be “very fine people.” Even President Biden repeated that lie as recently as June 27.
You can see how a person absorbing such unrebutted propaganda might think Trump is diabolical.
Charging us with what they are doing themselves
As a former political activist, I’ve long known that “Progressives” tend to accuse others of what they are doing themselves. In recent years, I’ve noticed, this insight has become more widespread.
Thus, some of those who accuse Trump of being “Hitler” side with the Hamas neo-Nazis, or at least seek to compromise Israel’s ability to defend herself against them.
Moreover, “progressives” themselves comprise the major American political group most closely approaching fascism. You need only examine the record of the Biden administration to see this: Within the last three and a half years, the administration has relentlessly pursued policies traditionally associated with fascism: efforts to disarm American citizens; perversion of the legal system to attack political enemies; gargantuan interventions into the economy; sweeping presidential mandates issued without regard to Congress or the Constitution; and what one federal judge called “arguably . . . the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.” For more on this point, see here.
On the state level, Woodrow has been an enthusiastic participant in the Colorado legislature’s quasi-fascist thuggery: intrusive regulations, efforts to disarm citizens, and the campaign to convert Colorado from one of America’s freest and most prosperous states into a Third World hellhole. Woodrow himself was a sponsor of the “bag law”—a measure that appears to have no coherent purpose other than (1) attacking an interest group leftists don’t like and (2) making the rest of us suffer.
So “progressive” charges that conservatives are fascists looks somewhat like the psychological phenomenon of projection. Thus, Woodrow labels Trump as the devil, when by traditional measures his side’s social agenda is what looks satanic: abortion so late as to constitute infanticide, child mutilation, attacks on conservative Christians, and (among some of his allies) support for Hamas.
Returning to Woodrow’s post
Normal people reacted to the attempted assassination of another human being with sympathy and horror. But, again, this is what Woodrow said:
“The last thing America needed was sympathy for the devil but here we are.”
Can you grasp the lack of human feeling behind such words?
“Progressives” advertise themselves as opposed to hate. Yet in my experience, some of them are very good haters. There’s a lot of hate in Woodrow’s post.
They also advertise themselves as “caring.” But their “caring” is highly selective: It seems to be limited to interest groups within their own political coalition and on their list of voting dependents. They care deeply for people who pursue outre or destructive lifestyles. But do they care about pious believers like Jack Phillips? Well, not so much.
As their constant efforts to subvert Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) demonstrate, they also care very little about those of us who have to pay for their escapades.
These conclusions about caring are not merely impressionistic or anecdotal. Surveys show marked differences in charitable giving among religious conservatives, secular conservatives, religious liberals, and secular liberals. Specifically, they show that religious conservatives are the most generous of the lot, while secular liberals are the least. Their principal medium of “caring” seems to be buying votes with other people’s money.
Woodrow’s post reminds us that Colorado has been hijacked by power-grabbers with no affinity for traditional American ideals, or for the Constitution, or for the rule of law, or for the values that shaped the American West—or, in some cases, even for obligations of basic humanity.
It will take a lot of work to reclaim our state. But I am certain we will do so.
