Are democrats hopelessly stuck in the past?

Desperate and defeated like the once-proud Sioux at Wounded Knee, the Democratic nation’s hoop is broken and the sacred tree is dead, and with its center gone, the Progressives’ last hope is that the great Liberal Dream didn’t end with the massacre at Washington D.C. on Nov. 8, 2016.

Almost overnight, finding themselves powerless and irrelevant, and forced back onto their traditional ancestral reservations along the coasts of California and New York, Democrats have resorted to pitiful ghost dances of lament, protest, violence, treachery, falsehood, and obstruction—all in a do-or-die frenzy to resurrect the messianic movement of their former beloved chieftain, Barack Obama.

Now, after thirty-odd days inside the belly of the nightmare known as President Donald Trump, is there any doubt that Democrats are hopelessly stuck in their wounds?

{mosads}Irretrievably twisted into karmic knots caused by what I call Post Election Stress Disorder (PESD), Liberals have entered into new, unheard of states of anger and depression—so crippling, so devaluing, and so foreboding that some, like one 34-year-old San Francisco resident, are reading Harry Potter because “I feel like it’s kind of what I need.”

The situation is so dire that Leftist organizing groups advocating on behalf of Obama and his collectivist policies and agenda not only are sprouting up like bad mushrooms and provoking mass resistance, but encouraging renegade Obama holdovers seeded throughout the government to foment dissention and disloyalty—a heartbeat away from the Oval Office.

Prominent among the protest groups is Organizing for Action, an umbrella organization of liberal non-profits which is “committed to mobilizing and training the next generation of progressive organizers and leaders,” and building the movement “from the ground up, person-to-person, community-by-community — because democracy isn’t a spectator sport.”

Messina is a well-known, world-class Trump hater, who days after the Presidential Election at a conference of prominent progressive groups, defiantly railed against any compromise or bipartisanship with Trump and the new administration—admonishing to “Push back at every level.”

OFA is rumored to be complicit in recruiting an army of professionally trained agitators to challenge and disrupt President Trump, Republicans, and their supporters at every turn, wherever they appear. 

Their aim is to establish a loud, impenetrable Maginot Line of resistance, which according to Obama’s former civil rights chief and current Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez, will “stand up to protect President Obama’s accomplishments” and “build the strongest grassroots organizing force this country has ever seen.”

Of course, behind it all from his mansion not far from the White House, Obama exhorts his troops with his intentions to join the fray: “You’re going to see me early next year and we’re going to be in a position where we can cook up all kinds of great stuff.”

Perhaps one of his and Michelle’s recipes has already been prepared—the OFA acronym itself. If sounded out, it would be pronounced “ofay,” an old racial slur for a white person akin to “cracker” and “honky.” There are those who feel this subliminal slight is no coincidence and fits neatly into the pettiness of the Democratic mindset.

But is it enough to be the party of no, nada, never, and no way?

To be angry and depressed, to feel vulnerable and undervalued, and to suffer from a wound with no name other than “Trump” prevents Democrats from experiencing the very justice, equality, and tolerance they so vehemently demand. To find one’s happiness and destiny in another’s destruction is not only irrational and immoral, but leaves you with no standard, no honor, and negates the whole concept of happiness—the achieving of one’s values.     

In the end, Liberals must stand in front of the mirror and do the hard work of looking inward and truly seeing that what they’re offering America—an ever Left-leaning collectivism—is the source of their (and our) monumental distress.

To advocate laws, taxes, regulations, and policies to punish the rich and enlarge the welfare state; to raise the specter of a political revolution and class conflict leading to some Socialist utopia; and to assert that an individual gains his greatest identity, worth, and power as part of some group—all invalidate the greatest glory of America—individual rights. Individual rights are not principles to be compromised, diluted, or repressed. 

What Democrats have forgotten is that, as Americans, we have the right to live our own lives, to decide our own happiness, and to choose our own paths, as long as we respect the same rights in others. This makes everyone’s freedom unconditional and not subject to any group or any demand for self-sacrifice. Carrying signs and hash tagging “Persist & Resist,” “Never Trump,” and “He’s not my President” will not bring Obama back nor advance the purported Progressive goals of economic equality, racial harmony, peaceful coexistence, and the brotherhood of man. Shrieking gangs and threatening mobs demeaning our institutions and expressing manufactured outrage do not lay the moral foundation of a free society.

If Liberals can find a small respite from their misery and suffering, they will come to realize that the most important judgment we make in life is the one we pass on ourselves.

Russell Paul La Valle is an opinion writer whose work has appeared in the The Washington Post, The New York Times, New York Daily News, Newsday and The Village Voice.  and many others. He is a former contributing editor to the philosophical think tank, The Objectivist Center.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.