Most have presumed that anti-Trump crazy is just politics – attempts by his political opponents to capitalize on the man’s obvious flaws and ignore his equally obvious strengths.  Pretty standard political stuff, even if he is a pretty unconventional guy.  I certainly have presumed that AOC and those few other nutty, ignorant Congresspersons are exceptions, not the rule.  But after watching just a small portion of the Barr presser this morning (this is written prior to the release of the report) I am beginning to wonder if we are not sitting on several generations of the massively ignorant, coupled with, and perhaps casued by, an atrocious level of arrogance.

The press were so hostile in that event, and so ignorant of the law, that it was a bit frightening.

A Facebook friend linked to a truly interesting blog post from a early-20’s youngster.  The post is astonished at the socialist leanings of so many young people.  Here’s the money quote:

Why then, with all of the overwhelming evidence around us, evidence that I can even see sitting at a coffee shop, do we not view this as prosperity? We have people who are dying to get into our country. People around the world destitute and truly impoverished. Yet, we have a young generation convinced they’ve never seen prosperity, and as a result, elect politicians dead set on taking steps towards abolishing capitalism. Why? The answer is this, my generation has ONLY seen prosperity. We have no contrast.

That’s a heck of an argument, and it can be extended.

They are wrapped up in identitarianism because they have never had to struggle with the basics of life, like food and shelter.  Environmental issues are portrayed as life or death because unlike some of us, they have never actually seen a river catch fire.  Minor sins are portrayed as deep evil because they have never experienced true evil.  There is the law, there are moral rules, and then there are social mores.  They have no sense of what distinguishes these things from one another, nor what they are meant to guard against becasue they have worked.

AOC and her ilk have become frightening, not because of their silly stances, but because of their inability to acknowledge when they are wrong,  They are full of excuses and double-downs, but there is not a “Oops!” to be found.  The arrogance is born of that lack of contrast and the well-guardedness that they have experienced.  Humility is learned by failure.  And the less you are willing to admit failure, the harder humility is to learn.  The arrogance also explains the ignorance if you think about it for a minute.  It takes at least a bit of humility to know you need to learn something.

Conservatives are fond of pointing out that there are very real dangers in the world – an aggressive China and Russia, a potentially nuclear Iran -and pointing out how silly these far-lefties look in light of those threats.  But can we blame them for failing to see the threats when they have been so guarded and sheltered throughout their lives?  It’s not that they ignore those problems, it’s that they find them inconceivable – completely outside their frame of reference.

And that, I think, may be the biggest threat of them all.

ADDENDUM (several hours later): Did you hear the host play the audio from this AOC “Note from the future” video on this morning’s show? (hour 2)  It is actually pretty stunning.  AOC imagines herself as some sort of environmental superhero.  She evokes, as she has previously, World War II imagery when it comes to environmentalism.  The host was correct on air when he commented that it was massive fodder for parody, but when I listened to it and later watched it,  I heard a generation in search of a struggle.

As we noted in the body of the post younger generations have had it very, very easy – I think this confirms it.  As Arthur Brooks has said – accomplishment is a key to happiness.  These younger generation are unhappy/dissatisfied precisely becasue of the prosperity they enjoy and the lack of accomplishment engendered in that plenty.