http://www.nationalreview.com/article/442299/barack-obama-progressive-arrogance-leads-backlash?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Trending%20Email%20Reoccurring-%20Monday%20to%20Thursday%202016-11-18&utm_term=NR5PM%20Actives

Its Arrogance and Condescension Finally Catches Up with the Left
November 18, 2016 12:00 AM

President Barack Obama won’t explicitly say that Donald Trump is on the wrong side of history, but surely he believes it.

The president basically thinks anyone who gets in his way is t***sgressing the larger forces of history with a capital “H.” In 2008, he declared John McCain “on the wrong side of history right now” (the “right now” was a generous touch — allowing for the possibility that McCain might get right with History at some future date).

Obama has returned to this phrase and argument obsessively. It is deeply embedded in his, and the larger progressive, mind — and indirectly contributed to the Left’s catastrophic defeat on November 8.

The notion that History takes sides is a distant cousin to the Marxoid idea that we are on an inevitable path to socialism, and borrows heavily from the (genuine and very hard-won) moral capital of the abolitionists and civil-rights movement. Obama likes to quote Martin Luther King Jr. for the proposition that the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice. Whoever is considered on “the wrong side of history” by the Left is always loosely associated with the opprobrium of s***ery and Jim Crow.

This means that progressives wield History as a weapon, and make it an occasion for constant self-congratulation. But there is a downside in the accompanying sense of smug inevitability that is off-putting at best and blinkered and self-deluding at worst.

For the Left, History is not a vast, unpredictable, untamable force, but has all the characteristics of a stereotypical Whole Foods shopper. History reads the Huffington Post, and follows Lena Dunham on Twitter. It really cares whether t*********r people get to use the appropriate bathroom. History was probably h*****g out at the Javits Center on e******n night, and collapsed into a puddle of tears right around the time Wisconsin was called.

The political dangers of this point of view should now be obvious:

It assumes that certain classes of people are retrograde. Why would Democrats bother to try to appeal to working-class white v**ers if they are stamped with the disapproval of History?

It becomes a warrant for all manner of overreach. History evidently favored trying to get nuns to sign up for contraceptives they didn’t want and forcing small business to bake cakes for gay weddings.

And, if History is thought to have an ascendant e*******l coalition (and a hell of a data operation), it creates an unjustified sense of political inevitability. This is what the theorists of the “emerging Democratic majority,” and most pundits on the left, bought into.

All that said, the evidence was pretty good for the proposition that welfare-state programs, once ensconced, could never be reversed and therefore must enjoy the approval of History. This assumption pervaded the Obamacare debate. Senator Harry Reid lambasted Republicans for not “joining us on the right side of history” and compared them — of course — to defenders of s***ery.

In retrospect, History might not have been so enamored of sprawling legislation based on faulty economic premises. When Republicans pass a repeal bill, it will constitute the most significant rollback of the welfare state ever.

Another progressive assumption is that the nation-state is bound to decline, as supranational institutions like the European Union grow and cross-border migrations increase. In a trip to Germany in April, President Obama deemed Angela Merkel’s policy of welcoming a massive wave of migrants as “on the right side of history.” Never mind that its recklessness has caused a backlash that is still brewing. Obama believed the same of his own latitudinarian views on immigration, apparently never imagining people might consider it progress to tighten our borders rather than render them more porous.

Now, a president who so confidently associated himself and his cause with the tide of the future has presided over a political wipeout that will send much of his legacy into the dustbin. If nothing else, History has a keen sense of humor.

— Rich Lowry is the editor of National Review. He can be reached via e-mail: comments.lowry@nationalreview.com. © 2016 King Features Syndicate



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It certainly is going to be interesting! Trumps administration is going to be a collage of insiders and outsiders; each will have different inputs of ideas and direction. Now, the insiders are going to help" drain the swamp " that's going to be interesting by itself. I'm sure the insiders are going to take a shower for sure, I wonder how that's going to work?

No one is going to be completely happy nor even close to that. The progressives will always have negativity to all of this administrations ideas and policies, they'll all try and throw cold water on all of it. But, time will tell, it's too early to see what's going to happen on all the issues. Let's wait and see before the wet blanket comes out.

An Oregon bureaucrat who waged political jihad against the owners of a Christian bakery was given the heave-ho by v**ers.

Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian was defeated in his bid to be Secretary of State by Republican Dennis Richardson.

It’s the first time a Republican has been elected to a statewide office in Oregon since 2002.

So consider this – Avakian was too liberal for what is arguably one of the most liberal states in the country.

Avakian, a passionate advocate for the L***QIA crowd, was thrust into the national spotlight when he declared war on a Christian bakery in 2013.

Aaron and Melissa Klein, the owners of Sweet Cakes By Melissa, declined to make a wedding cake for a lesbian couple’s ceremony.

The Kleins, who are devout Christians, explained that participating in a same-sex wedding would violate their deeply-held religious beliefs.

Click here to get your “I’m Politically Incorrect” t-shirt!

Avakian launched a very public and very ugly assault on the Klein family – alleging they had discriminated about the lesbian couple.

They faced boycotts and picket lines and other wedding vendors were threatened with similar action if they did business with Sweet Cakes.

The family’s young children received death threats and the store’ssocial networking platforms were overrun by militant L**T activists posting obscene and profane messages.

The Kleins were eventually ordered to pay $135,000 in “emotional damages” to the lesbians.

They were also forced to shutter their retail location – and eventually shut down their family bakery.

“The goal is never to shut down a business. The goal is to rehabilitate,” Avakian told The Oregonian in 2013.

Avakian was just as ruthless in his attacks on a Portland bar that turned away t*********r patrons. The owner of the Twilight Room Annex did not want his establishment to be known as a “gay bar.”

The bar was slapped with a $400,000 judgment and was forced to shut down.

The Kleins are represented by First Liberty Institute, one of the nation’s most prominent religious liberty law firms. They are appealing the fines levied by Avakian’s office.

“We will never know if Mr. Avakian’s unprecedented attack on religious liberty played a role, but we are hopeful that there is a path toward justice,” attorney Hiram Sasser told me. “Everyone’s beliefs deserve respect and tolerance even if some disagree with those beliefs.”

Sasser said Americans should have the freedom to live according to their own conscience without the force of government being used to punish those who disagree with government officials like Avakian.

“Perhaps this will serve as a point of reflection for government leaders that the people of Oregon and indeed most Americans believe in tolerance and respect and the dignity of each person to live their lives according to the dictates of their own consciences,” Sasser said.

V**ers saw Avakian for who he really was – an anti-Christian bully with no regard for the U.S. Constitution.

Nobody likes a bully – especially a liberal bully.

WOW, You apparently love to makeup history! All the facts I quoted came from just Obama's terms as President, and it seems you can't answer a single one of them. The over 15 million unemployed Americans dropped from the 'US Workforce' report is about a year and a half old, and by now I'm sure that number is over 16 million unemployed Americans dropped from the 'US Workforce', and the BLS statistics show that never a single one was ever added back in, despite a false economic recovery of 7 years and 4 months straight. When Obama became President in the depth and throes of the Bush recession, there were only 17 million Americans on 'Welfare& Food Stamps', and 5 months later started 7 years and 4 months straight of Obama's June 2009 declared economic recovery, but today we now have over 48 million Americans on 'Welfare & Food Stamps', and some say that number is actually over 50 million, but lets use Obama's BLS statistics anyway, a nearly three fold increase of Americans on 'Welfare & Food Stamps', all during 7 years and 4 months straight of an economic recovery. What is wrong with this picture, is everyone (Obama & BLS) telling the t***h? I guess in your mind the American people haven't suffered enough under Obama and the Democrats, but fortunately enough the majority of Americans have decided we have, and v**ed that way to stop Hillary Clinton from continuing all of Obama's failed policies and agendas, and elected Donald Trump as our next President. Thank GOD!

The first to fall will hopefully be Obamacare, which most Americans have learned the hard way that they cannot afford to pay for it, and the ones that can afford to pay for it can't afford to use it because the deductibles and copays are so astronomically high. Getting rid of Obamacare will help the economy out tremendously, by allowing companies to afford to hire more workers, but most of all give the American people much more discretionary money to spend, since they aren't forced to pay for Obamacare any more, and will be able to spend that tremendous amount of saved money from being forced to purchase something that they don't want or need, on other things that will create demand for more manufactured goods and services, putting even more people back to work, and that will create the spending even more money in our economy. Discretionary spending is the life-blood of any economy, and having it will cause it to grow. Obamacare has robbed the American people of their discretionary money, to spend freely on what they want, need, and/or desire.