2024 Election, Columnists, Jon Caldara, Uncategorized

Caldara: Trump win puts progressive intolerance on display

(You can listen to this column, read by the author, here.)

Welcome to the Great Un-friending.

One of the telltale signs of a progressive is the constant self-celebration of their tolerance. Progressive communities, like my hometown of Boulder, slap the word “diversity” on every school wall, rec center poster and library. “All are welcome,” don’t ya know.

The woke mob has mandated Diversity, Equity and Inclusion trainings that feeds the DEI Industrial Complex. The trans movement created the pronoun police state, where gender dysphoria is not merely tolerated, it will be celebrated. Free speech and proper grammar are relics of a long-gone racist era.

The modern left prides itself on diversity at gunpoint with an obsession about skin color, genitals and what people think their genitals should be but aren’t.

So, what happens when the tyrants of diversity have an opportunity to hold themselves up to their own standards? How do they welcome, oh, say a Donald Trump voter? What an opportunity to prove what they’ve preached and show us how it is done.

My 22-year-old daughter has had about 10% of her Instagram friends unfollow her after she came out of the closet as a Trump voter.

One of my dearest friends, yes, a progressive, has requested anyone who voted for “hate” this election to unfriend him, “You are not my friend.”

Another friend told me when Trump won in 2016 her sister refused to speak to her for months on end. As the scenario repeats itself, my friend is finding it a reprieve.

Am I crazy, or does this wholesale canceling of friends, family and acquaintances based upon who you voted for seem like the complete opposite of what the left preaches? ( You don’t really have to answer that one.)

Where is celebration of our differences and how our diversity makes for a better, stronger and more understanding community?

My favorite meme during the campaign season was a video taken from someone’s Ring doorbell camera. An angry, unhinged woman attacked this person’s Trump yard sign — kicking it, yelling at it, knocking it out of the ground and dropping to her knees to repeatedly stab it with a stick. The caption of the video merely read, “Party of joy.”

Entertainers and artists have led the collective narrative that Trump is a threat to democracy. “Democracy itself is on the ballot,” was the rallying cry. In past generations Hollywood came out to support American democracy. Bob Hope entertained the troops. Directors made stirring movies. Even cartoonists and animators donated their services for the cause.

In this existential fight for democracy, Hollywood righteously came out again.

Oprah charged $1 million for the pattycake interview she gave to Kamala Harris. Beyonce’s endorsement cost a cool $10 million, and she didn’t even have to sing.

What a stark contrast from Frank Sinatra who in 1960 did sing. He worked the campaign trail for John F. Kennedy and put new lyrics to his hit song, “High hopes.” “Jack is on the right track, Cause he’s got high hopes, He’s got high hopes, 1960 is the year for his high hopes.”

I’ve found no evidence that Sinatra got paid for his endorsement.

Saving America from tyranny is now a profit center for Hollywood. If they actually believed our way of life, our very democracy was truly at stake you’d think these national treasures would be campaigning for free. Makes me wonder if a world war to save America did break out if they’d get royalty payments off it.

Could it be that these entertainment elites know our republic is stronger than any one candidate? Could it be that instead of believing what they say, they are playing to their audience out of self-interest?

It is hard to run around screaming, democracy is at stake, when the guy who won the popular vote by millions upon millions is put into office.

As in 2016, I doubt there’ll be serious self-introspection of their role in electing the man they consider to be Hitler. Will Trump haters understand the intolerant world they created is why we elected this man? Will any of them look into the mirror and ask, “did I do this?”

And will they go back to our Facebook posts when Obama and Biden were elected to notice we did not unfriend them.

Jon Cladara is president of the Independence Institute, a free market think tank in Denver.

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