Thanks Jenny for differentiating the term “liberal boomers”. I am a “conservative boomer” raised in a large conservative Catholic working class family. I went to college with the liberal boomers, lived beside them in suburbia, and worked alongside them professionally. I once enjoyed lots of good times with my liberal friends. That was until, Trump was elected, the George Floyd/BLM riots and finally Covid. These three events combined have created a painful chasm in my life and so many others. I have witnessed so much heartbreak among friends and families, communities and neighborhoods. The intolerance displayed by liberals is unbelievable and dangerous.
You said in your piece, that “they were good people”. I’m not sure what that means anymore. I always said that to myself as well. As a Christian, I struggle with loving this type of enemy. Now, I’m at the point to where the smidgeon of goodness I held onto is gone.
I ask myself what is good about a party of people who allow themselves to be represented by cheaters, liars, radical islamists asking for death to Jews, death to Israel, and even death to America? The people responsible for our well being are so impressively credentialed on paper with the highest of Academic degrees, but their minds are closed and their souls are empty. I cannot stand by and search for goodness while they hurl hateful rhetoric, imprison protesters, taunt police and burn cities down. Those are just funders and the activists.
An even worse problem are those democrats who remain silent. All because they don’t have the guts to face the bullies and help turn this destruction around. And some, because of their aversion and hate for one mortal man (Donald Trump) has eroded their souls. It just doesn’t make any logical sense, that people could be that educated and at the same time that shallow.
I have a quote by Johnny Cash that has been on my refrigerator for years. “I’ve learned that there is no fence to sit on between heaven and hell.” I pray they find a way to get off of that fence.
“…“they were good people”. I’m not sure what that means anymore.”
That’s something that I have been disturbed about for a while now. I remember a conversation I had with a nurse who talked about one of her classmates in nursing school who came from an Eastern European country, and got her US citizenship by marrying a man she didn’t care about (he didn’t know this). Once she got her green card, she left immediately; he was apparently crushed because he thought he was in a real marriage, whereas she was scamming him the whole time. The woman who told me this story then said, “But she was a good person”. I was flabbergasted and replied, “Was she? it seems to me that marrying someone under false pretenses is the opposite of being a good person!”. 🤷♂️
I think that, as we have lost our sense of morality, we’ve also lost our ability to judge people correctly. We’ve been taught that “judgment” is bad, but it isn’t: being judgmental (prejudging someone without adequate information about them) is bad, but having “good judgment” is absolutely necessary in life.
As for the young people chanting “death to America”… you know, when the Supreme Ayatollah of Iran (a murderous and extremist theocracy) praises you, that should tell you — clear as a bell — that you are not on the “right” side of history!
I know what you mean, and I agree that we have lost a sense of morality. And I agree with you about judgement.
What my comment referred to (about the good, decent people) is two things: One, the reality is that all the liberals I know are being told a wildly different story, and they are making their judgments accordingly. Two: the people i am referring to are people who raised me, people I love deeply (see my comment above) and we just don't talk about politics. We are all subject to incessant bombardment of opinion, er...mine included lol...And that provokes emotional responses that shape our thoughts about others that, once face-to-face, can evaporate in just talking about life. I blame the media (for everything.)
Both excellent comments. I’m with someone who thinks there is no truth , that my feelings about lockdowns , net zero , etc are ‘just a matter of opinion.’ Well I fundamentally disagree. There is truth. It exists .
Ted Bundy said his "hobby" was just a small part of his life, that the man the world saw was by far the greater part of who he was.
I, too, have been disgusted by that "right side of history" garbage. I'm not sure whose coinage the term is, but it's been appropriated by groups on the Right, as well. It's meaningless at best, inasmuch as we're not omniscient. Still, the smugness inherent in it belongs to them. These are Cluster B personality disorder cases.
This is by far one of the best comments I have ever read. I am technically a millennial (1981), but I have had the same experience of loss of “liberal friends”after Trump, BLM, & Covid. It is baffling how much previous friends refuse to change their minds despite evolving evidence in all of the above areas. (Failed impeachments, city burnings/corrupt BLM leaders, and vaccine mandates). I am truly worried for the future of this country. However, this Substack brings me some hope. Keep up the good work, Jenny Holland.
Thank you Melissa. I decided that my love of a handful of people who were important to me was more important than ever talking about this stuff with them. I haven't completely managed it, but it's my standard operating procedure. It helps that I see them/speak to them very rarely. !!
Well said. The idea that used to be accepted in the political divide was that we 'all' were looking to improve the world, but we just disagree about How to do it.
I don't think that is true anymore. Clearly, a large proportion of these people want to destroy the world, the Western World at least, and have no problem tearing down democracy on their way to doing that.
I can hear the anguish in this comment -- no exaggeration. Thanks for posting it, it's been such a crazy thing to watch.
I am referring to the majority of my family and friends, who remain liberals and who still speak to me. I don't live near them so I don't see them often, and when I do we speak of other things, not politics. They are the good people I am referring to. My aunts and uncles helped raise me, my cousins were my childhood playmates. My friends from my 20's shaped me as a person. I love them all. Some know my politics, some don't, we just don't go there. It gives me hope. I have also lost a few stragglers along the way, but they were people I didn't care much about anyway. It's one of the benefits of living away from the US, I don't have to navigate the differences every single day.
The criminalization of our judicial system is nothing short of frightening. I pray that this situation turns itself around otherwise we are careening toward a dangerous and possibly irreversible future.
"They are not aware..." Maybe some, but I believe most are aware but only care about identity through party affiliation. The myth of the caring and empathic democrat dies hard. De Niro displayed the narcissism, aggression and smarmy condescension I see in too many these days. The silver lining in this mess is, I believe, the runaway dem freight train is going to bring on a course correction sooner rather than later.
I believe most people just want to take of their families and don't have the time or energy to "stay informed." Those of us who do have some time support the writers who are making a difference with the power of the pen.
Jenny, thank you SO much for including the link to the guy from New York who is a Trump supporter. How I wish he were running for president! Like this guy, I, too, voted for Obama the first time around, but not the second because, shortly after Obama was elected, I realized that he was yet another typical politician, doing what was best for himself and not that which is for the highest good for all. I've been staying out of the voting booth in recent elections because I couldn't stand any of the candidates and I thought that it didn't really matter who was elected president because each president (as Obama proved to me) was always going to be controlled by the corporations (in particular Big Pharma and Big Tech and Big Defense). However, after having seen Trump being treated so unfairly by the Dems, I've decided that I need to drag my butt to the polls for this election and vote for Trump, if only to "give the finger" to what our government (and all its puppets) has become. I'm now saying, Enough! And, yes, I know Trump is nowhere near perfect. In fact, I intensely dislike him. I have NO respect for him. But I feel that I need to send a message to our evil government.
Concerning my liberal friends (who continue to ignore me when I try to share with them some of your essays), I say this: they are brainwashed but I don't have the power to "wake them up." Only God has that power.
Thank you, Jenny, for a GREAT essay. Very much appreciated!!! : )
Thank you Shelly for not choosing to be apathetic. Your vote/your voice will matter, not so much for Trump, but for the slowdown of this massive attack on our constitution. It truly is the only binding tool we have to protect us from the government tyranny. Never be afraid to be a patriot for the liberty of all citizens. You give me hope.
Another excellent read. DeNero’s performance the other day was nothing short of crass, unseemly and degenerate. It reminded me of a scene from ‘The Untouchables’ when he played Al Capone. Set outside another Courtroom, where his character was being challenged by reporters, we got exactly the same rant including the same set of expletives and gestures. The irony, for me at any rate, was delicious. It’s about time these wealthy Boomers shook off their arrogance and realised that this ‘my tribe is more righteous than your tribe’ nonsense is merely wrecking their society.
Hold on a minute. I'm a Baby Boomer and I don't fit your characterization. There are plenty of us who don't buy into the baloney as perpetrated by Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Party. I do agree we have a massive class division in this country and those who are sitting pretty can find no reason to search for truth, yet feel superior to anyone with different views. After all, Hillary, the High Priestess, called this "underclass" a bunch of deplorables. What a role model!
However your friends or acquaintances who are decent and good leave me with a question mark because it sounds to me they are willfully ignorant. I have a few at a distance in my life of the same persuasion and I believe being willfully ignorant does not fall into the good category.
What does it really mean to be a good person anyway? When life is easy and one is not tested it doesn't mean much and certainly being so sure of themselves without open minds will rot a person and make them a bit insane as your essay so excellently diagrams.
In regards to this: "because it sounds to me they are willfully ignorant" -- I would push back a bit on this. It's not that, it's that they are being told massive, massive lies and misrepresentations the likes of which we have never seen before. It's two parallel realities. It's crazy.
"So I have come to realise that these liberals are not aware of the legal manipulations and shenanigans that went into convicting Trump. They are not aware of the depths of corruption in the corporate-government complex. They are not aware that working class people are moderate and open-minded. They are not aware that their trusted media figures are lying through their teeth. They may be about to have a very rude awakening. "
I am not so sure. I think they know, but just don't care. I was a liberal for decades and eventually woke up, so guess if it happened for me it could happen for them. However, especially with the younger generation, I think it hopeless. They are well and truly disassociated from reality.
Thank you Lindsay. It's a very interesting question, how some people were able to step away and others stayed within the propaganda regime. I do know that these people would strongly disagree that they "just don't care" -- they care very much. It's just been misplaced. Their empathy has been hijacked and misdirected.
Well said. I love your perspective on everything that's going on. Your acessment of Robert D is "spot on". Thank you. I guess you can now call me an "ardent follower"!
I can't reconcile how anyone, including my own acquaintances and relatives, can be intelligent and good, yet vote for Democrats like Biden and Newsom, and their policies. They have to be clueless or evil. They get all their information from NPR, MSNBC, "The View", and The Times, and never question anything, or they actually want the U.S. and Western civilization in general radically altered. I can't reason with them, so I just avoid them as much as possible.
I say all of this with the luxury of not talking to American liberals every day, so my patience has not evaporated, but I do really think that the are just processing entirely different information, and the downsides to noticing the weird glitches in the matrix of media spin is just too huge. You lose to much when you wake up.
True: entirely different information, and the dissonance when or if they wake up could be devastating. But the information I read and listen to is equally available to them. Something in their psychology bars them from considering or even approaching it. They also seem to have very tribal, in-group loyalty to leftist society at all costs. It's when, for example, they all, as one, tell me that my wife's niece is her nephew, and that I'm a science-denier if I refuse to play along, that I question their intelligence, regardless of what graduate degree any of them might have.
I guess that, if my sole source of information was leftist media and acquaintances parroting leftist media, I might be clueless about reality too. Big media and big tech have an enormous influence and it is often used for harm. Moral of story is to keep informed by seeking out reliable sources of information and wise sources of commentary. And don't forget the most reliable source of all: the Bible.
Your innately American perspective, clarified by distance, is always worth reading. The best part , though, is your trustworthiness and gentleness, even when you are being scathingly specific about what the hell is going on. Grandpa Simpson... lol..
"innately American perspective" is so interesting to me! I'm never sure where I belong. I love Americans, though, so I'm happy to have been shaped by them.
At this point it would not surprise me were the Democrats to declare that standing as a Republican candidate is "interfering in an election"
Brilliantly concise way of summing this up. Spot on.
Thanks Jenny for differentiating the term “liberal boomers”. I am a “conservative boomer” raised in a large conservative Catholic working class family. I went to college with the liberal boomers, lived beside them in suburbia, and worked alongside them professionally. I once enjoyed lots of good times with my liberal friends. That was until, Trump was elected, the George Floyd/BLM riots and finally Covid. These three events combined have created a painful chasm in my life and so many others. I have witnessed so much heartbreak among friends and families, communities and neighborhoods. The intolerance displayed by liberals is unbelievable and dangerous.
You said in your piece, that “they were good people”. I’m not sure what that means anymore. I always said that to myself as well. As a Christian, I struggle with loving this type of enemy. Now, I’m at the point to where the smidgeon of goodness I held onto is gone.
I ask myself what is good about a party of people who allow themselves to be represented by cheaters, liars, radical islamists asking for death to Jews, death to Israel, and even death to America? The people responsible for our well being are so impressively credentialed on paper with the highest of Academic degrees, but their minds are closed and their souls are empty. I cannot stand by and search for goodness while they hurl hateful rhetoric, imprison protesters, taunt police and burn cities down. Those are just funders and the activists.
An even worse problem are those democrats who remain silent. All because they don’t have the guts to face the bullies and help turn this destruction around. And some, because of their aversion and hate for one mortal man (Donald Trump) has eroded their souls. It just doesn’t make any logical sense, that people could be that educated and at the same time that shallow.
I have a quote by Johnny Cash that has been on my refrigerator for years. “I’ve learned that there is no fence to sit on between heaven and hell.” I pray they find a way to get off of that fence.
“…“they were good people”. I’m not sure what that means anymore.”
That’s something that I have been disturbed about for a while now. I remember a conversation I had with a nurse who talked about one of her classmates in nursing school who came from an Eastern European country, and got her US citizenship by marrying a man she didn’t care about (he didn’t know this). Once she got her green card, she left immediately; he was apparently crushed because he thought he was in a real marriage, whereas she was scamming him the whole time. The woman who told me this story then said, “But she was a good person”. I was flabbergasted and replied, “Was she? it seems to me that marrying someone under false pretenses is the opposite of being a good person!”. 🤷♂️
I think that, as we have lost our sense of morality, we’ve also lost our ability to judge people correctly. We’ve been taught that “judgment” is bad, but it isn’t: being judgmental (prejudging someone without adequate information about them) is bad, but having “good judgment” is absolutely necessary in life.
As for the young people chanting “death to America”… you know, when the Supreme Ayatollah of Iran (a murderous and extremist theocracy) praises you, that should tell you — clear as a bell — that you are not on the “right” side of history!
I know what you mean, and I agree that we have lost a sense of morality. And I agree with you about judgement.
What my comment referred to (about the good, decent people) is two things: One, the reality is that all the liberals I know are being told a wildly different story, and they are making their judgments accordingly. Two: the people i am referring to are people who raised me, people I love deeply (see my comment above) and we just don't talk about politics. We are all subject to incessant bombardment of opinion, er...mine included lol...And that provokes emotional responses that shape our thoughts about others that, once face-to-face, can evaporate in just talking about life. I blame the media (for everything.)
Both excellent comments. I’m with someone who thinks there is no truth , that my feelings about lockdowns , net zero , etc are ‘just a matter of opinion.’ Well I fundamentally disagree. There is truth. It exists .
That must be tough. Sending you strength!
Thank you for that Rabbit….that is truly what I meant by judging others. Your example nails that concept.
What a wonderful comment!
Ted Bundy said his "hobby" was just a small part of his life, that the man the world saw was by far the greater part of who he was.
I, too, have been disgusted by that "right side of history" garbage. I'm not sure whose coinage the term is, but it's been appropriated by groups on the Right, as well. It's meaningless at best, inasmuch as we're not omniscient. Still, the smugness inherent in it belongs to them. These are Cluster B personality disorder cases.
This is by far one of the best comments I have ever read. I am technically a millennial (1981), but I have had the same experience of loss of “liberal friends”after Trump, BLM, & Covid. It is baffling how much previous friends refuse to change their minds despite evolving evidence in all of the above areas. (Failed impeachments, city burnings/corrupt BLM leaders, and vaccine mandates). I am truly worried for the future of this country. However, this Substack brings me some hope. Keep up the good work, Jenny Holland.
Thank you Melissa. I decided that my love of a handful of people who were important to me was more important than ever talking about this stuff with them. I haven't completely managed it, but it's my standard operating procedure. It helps that I see them/speak to them very rarely. !!
Well said. The idea that used to be accepted in the political divide was that we 'all' were looking to improve the world, but we just disagree about How to do it.
I don't think that is true anymore. Clearly, a large proportion of these people want to destroy the world, the Western World at least, and have no problem tearing down democracy on their way to doing that.
These aren't good people at all.
I can hear the anguish in this comment -- no exaggeration. Thanks for posting it, it's been such a crazy thing to watch.
I am referring to the majority of my family and friends, who remain liberals and who still speak to me. I don't live near them so I don't see them often, and when I do we speak of other things, not politics. They are the good people I am referring to. My aunts and uncles helped raise me, my cousins were my childhood playmates. My friends from my 20's shaped me as a person. I love them all. Some know my politics, some don't, we just don't go there. It gives me hope. I have also lost a few stragglers along the way, but they were people I didn't care much about anyway. It's one of the benefits of living away from the US, I don't have to navigate the differences every single day.
Look in the mirror. What do you see ? My mother would ask that of me. I never forgot that. How can these people like what they see ?
The criminalization of our judicial system is nothing short of frightening. I pray that this situation turns itself around otherwise we are careening toward a dangerous and possibly irreversible future.
The Left never turns itself around.
Remember President Trumps quote.
“They’re not after me, they’re after you. I’m just in the way.”
Once Trump is gone then you can believe the Democrats will start going after the deplorables using more lawfare.
"They are not aware..." Maybe some, but I believe most are aware but only care about identity through party affiliation. The myth of the caring and empathic democrat dies hard. De Niro displayed the narcissism, aggression and smarmy condescension I see in too many these days. The silver lining in this mess is, I believe, the runaway dem freight train is going to bring on a course correction sooner rather than later.
Perfect description: narcissism, aggression, and smarmy condescension”.
"The myth of the caring and empathic democrat dies hard"
It really, really does.
And as politicised as everything is right now, I still think that most people do not think about this stuff that much.
I believe most people just want to take of their families and don't have the time or energy to "stay informed." Those of us who do have some time support the writers who are making a difference with the power of the pen.
Jenny, thank you SO much for including the link to the guy from New York who is a Trump supporter. How I wish he were running for president! Like this guy, I, too, voted for Obama the first time around, but not the second because, shortly after Obama was elected, I realized that he was yet another typical politician, doing what was best for himself and not that which is for the highest good for all. I've been staying out of the voting booth in recent elections because I couldn't stand any of the candidates and I thought that it didn't really matter who was elected president because each president (as Obama proved to me) was always going to be controlled by the corporations (in particular Big Pharma and Big Tech and Big Defense). However, after having seen Trump being treated so unfairly by the Dems, I've decided that I need to drag my butt to the polls for this election and vote for Trump, if only to "give the finger" to what our government (and all its puppets) has become. I'm now saying, Enough! And, yes, I know Trump is nowhere near perfect. In fact, I intensely dislike him. I have NO respect for him. But I feel that I need to send a message to our evil government.
Concerning my liberal friends (who continue to ignore me when I try to share with them some of your essays), I say this: they are brainwashed but I don't have the power to "wake them up." Only God has that power.
Thank you, Jenny, for a GREAT essay. Very much appreciated!!! : )
Thank you Shelly for not choosing to be apathetic. Your vote/your voice will matter, not so much for Trump, but for the slowdown of this massive attack on our constitution. It truly is the only binding tool we have to protect us from the government tyranny. Never be afraid to be a patriot for the liberty of all citizens. You give me hope.
Thank you Shelley, and thank you for this: "they are brainwashed but I don't have the power to "wake them up." Only God has that power." -- CORRECT.
Another excellent read. DeNero’s performance the other day was nothing short of crass, unseemly and degenerate. It reminded me of a scene from ‘The Untouchables’ when he played Al Capone. Set outside another Courtroom, where his character was being challenged by reporters, we got exactly the same rant including the same set of expletives and gestures. The irony, for me at any rate, was delicious. It’s about time these wealthy Boomers shook off their arrogance and realised that this ‘my tribe is more righteous than your tribe’ nonsense is merely wrecking their society.
De Niro is a has been trying to attract attention ... A fool ...
Hold on a minute. I'm a Baby Boomer and I don't fit your characterization. There are plenty of us who don't buy into the baloney as perpetrated by Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Party. I do agree we have a massive class division in this country and those who are sitting pretty can find no reason to search for truth, yet feel superior to anyone with different views. After all, Hillary, the High Priestess, called this "underclass" a bunch of deplorables. What a role model!
She said liberal Boomer. If you can watch all of this from 2015-2024 & still vote for Biden, you are definitely the problem.
Excellent slice of analysis, Jenny.
However your friends or acquaintances who are decent and good leave me with a question mark because it sounds to me they are willfully ignorant. I have a few at a distance in my life of the same persuasion and I believe being willfully ignorant does not fall into the good category.
What does it really mean to be a good person anyway? When life is easy and one is not tested it doesn't mean much and certainly being so sure of themselves without open minds will rot a person and make them a bit insane as your essay so excellently diagrams.
Thank you!
In regards to this: "because it sounds to me they are willfully ignorant" -- I would push back a bit on this. It's not that, it's that they are being told massive, massive lies and misrepresentations the likes of which we have never seen before. It's two parallel realities. It's crazy.
"So I have come to realise that these liberals are not aware of the legal manipulations and shenanigans that went into convicting Trump. They are not aware of the depths of corruption in the corporate-government complex. They are not aware that working class people are moderate and open-minded. They are not aware that their trusted media figures are lying through their teeth. They may be about to have a very rude awakening. "
I am not so sure. I think they know, but just don't care. I was a liberal for decades and eventually woke up, so guess if it happened for me it could happen for them. However, especially with the younger generation, I think it hopeless. They are well and truly disassociated from reality.
Excellent post as always, btw.
Thank you Lindsay. It's a very interesting question, how some people were able to step away and others stayed within the propaganda regime. I do know that these people would strongly disagree that they "just don't care" -- they care very much. It's just been misplaced. Their empathy has been hijacked and misdirected.
Well said. I love your perspective on everything that's going on. Your acessment of Robert D is "spot on". Thank you. I guess you can now call me an "ardent follower"!
Ha! Thank you very much Doug!
I can't reconcile how anyone, including my own acquaintances and relatives, can be intelligent and good, yet vote for Democrats like Biden and Newsom, and their policies. They have to be clueless or evil. They get all their information from NPR, MSNBC, "The View", and The Times, and never question anything, or they actually want the U.S. and Western civilization in general radically altered. I can't reason with them, so I just avoid them as much as possible.
I say all of this with the luxury of not talking to American liberals every day, so my patience has not evaporated, but I do really think that the are just processing entirely different information, and the downsides to noticing the weird glitches in the matrix of media spin is just too huge. You lose to much when you wake up.
True: entirely different information, and the dissonance when or if they wake up could be devastating. But the information I read and listen to is equally available to them. Something in their psychology bars them from considering or even approaching it. They also seem to have very tribal, in-group loyalty to leftist society at all costs. It's when, for example, they all, as one, tell me that my wife's niece is her nephew, and that I'm a science-denier if I refuse to play along, that I question their intelligence, regardless of what graduate degree any of them might have.
I suppose the title could also be: "Rupert Pupkin at 80."
The only thing missing is his cardboard cutout audience.
I appreciated the film literacy of the guy who heckled him by calling him a “mook”: that’s a shout-out all the way back to “Mean Streets” from 1973.
New Yorkers still got it!
I guess that, if my sole source of information was leftist media and acquaintances parroting leftist media, I might be clueless about reality too. Big media and big tech have an enormous influence and it is often used for harm. Moral of story is to keep informed by seeking out reliable sources of information and wise sources of commentary. And don't forget the most reliable source of all: the Bible.
“Leftists and well paid labour bosses may gasp at my comparison to one of their folk heroes, but what do they know, any more, of justice?”
It will be hard to tell if they’re gasping behind their covid masks.
Ha!
Your innately American perspective, clarified by distance, is always worth reading. The best part , though, is your trustworthiness and gentleness, even when you are being scathingly specific about what the hell is going on. Grandpa Simpson... lol..
"innately American perspective" is so interesting to me! I'm never sure where I belong. I love Americans, though, so I'm happy to have been shaped by them.