Meet the liberal who cancelled his Christmas party because Trump voters would have shown up

We've already heard that Democrats are three times as likely as Republicans to defriend people on social media over political disagreements. When your entire identity is tied up in your political opinions - and you've sold yourself on the idea that opposing opinions are not only wrong but fundamentally evil - you can back yourself into a moral corner in which you can't live with yourself if you associate with anyone who thinks differently. But de-friending people on social media is easy. If you've got 1,000 Facebook friends, you probably don't even know a lot of them in real life. Offending opinion expressed? UNFRIEND button pushed. Smack the hands together. Your problem is solved, Arlo. But what do you do if you actually do have friends in real life who are on the opposite side of the political spectrum, and the election of Trump has made you newly appreciative of the imperative to dissociate yourself with all bur the ideologically pure. And let's say, furthermore, that you've traditionally hosted an after-Christmas party for the past 20 years, and many such people have always attended.

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If you're Henry S. Rosen of Dallas, who writes for Daily Kos using the handle HammerinHank, this calls for nothing less than the upending of known social constructs. You have to cancel that party. This is serious:

I realized this was not a normal election, with one political philosophy prevailing over another. This was a repudiation of the value system – and Constitution - on which the United States is based. This was a green light to racism and demagoguery which apparently festers even in people of privilege. This was an overt turning of the cheek to freedom of the press, to truth, decency and respect. The bigotry that my friends’ children experienced were not isolated incidents. Intimidation, threats and hatred – directed at minorities, immigrants, etc. - have come fast and furious since November 8th. Every person who voted for Trump is complicit. Some, like Hillary’s deplorables, are incorrigible. Others, like our comfortable friends, chose their own pocketbooks, or their understandable distaste of Hillary Clinton, over doing what was right.

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These people should have known better. Any student of history can compare current times to the rise of fascism in the 1930’s – when an electorate reeling from The Great Depression brought to power Hitler and emboldened Mussolini. The formula was eerily familiar: blame others for your own failures and turn power over to a man who pledges to restore the country to its prior greatness. Today, restless populations in the US and Europe are traumatized by economic and social changes brought about by globalization. Many blame immigrants, minorities, elites and the media for their plight. This is now a world in which strongman elected officials like Putin, Duterte, La Pen and Hofer are enjoying surges of popularity. They wantonly attack life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – all in the name of economic retribution, law and order, and fighting terrorism. To this menacing trend, we now add Donald Trump. This is not a joke. This is not tolerable. This is not American. The people who enabled it by voting for this ignorant and dangerous buffoon are not welcome in my home.

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Hammerin Hank means business.

I will say this: I have my share of liberal friends and I have experienced none of this personally. The wife of our mayor is about as far left a person as you're ever going to find, and she rails against Trump endlessly on social media. I run into her in town all the time. Happened just last night at the grocery store. It's never anything but sincere pleasantries when we see her. We're making dinner plans as we speak with another couple who are major activists in the Michigan Democratic Party, and as far as I know, nobody's cancelling. I point that out because I think it would be unfair to imply that all liberals are acting this way. But you see enough of this phenomenon in societal circles that you know there's something to it, and again, the social shunning of those with different political views is almost an exclusive function of the left. To understand why, you only have to look at the basic premises behind each side's thinking in this election. If you opposed Hillary, you probably thought she was personally corrupt and more driven by personal ambition than any real desire to serve others. If you read me at all, you know I was on a mission to stop her from becoming president, and was on that mission for years. Any friend who was willing to see her elected was obviously operating at cross-purposes with me. But there was no reason to take that personally. They probably support Obama's agenda and figured Hillary - for all her obvious faults - would continue it. In my mind, that means you're wrong about what's best for the country. It doesn't mean you're evil or immoral. If you opposed Trump, however, you very possibly bought into the narrative of him as racist, sexist, xenophobic and the second coming of Hitler. Just like Henry S. Rosen did. You think a vote for Trump was a clear and obvious vote for the oppression of women and minorities, and a knowing attack on the poor and all who are not like Donald Trump. Surely you knew exactly what you were doing by choosing to vote in this way, and that makes you morally untenable. Association with you is simply inconceivable for a liberal certain of his or her own philosophical virtue. Or to put it more simply: Conservatives think liberals are wrong. Liberals think conservatives are evil. It's a huge overgeneralization. But when you see the type of moral preening you're getting here from Henry S. Rosen, that's the basis of it. I hope he's happy with his rapidly shrinking circle of friends - a phenomenon of his own making, and intentionally so. That certainty he feels about his own moral superiority may be all he has left to keep him company before long.

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