The Awful, Awful Truth for Democrats

California Democrats are going on the offensive, firing the first shot in their pitched battle with President Donald J. Trump, and threatening to “cut off the Feds” by withholding taxes.

According to CBS San Francisco, former State Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, Jr. said: “California could very well become an organized non-payer. … They could recommend non-compliance with the federal tax code.” Democrats are considering the tax revolt as part of what CBS San Francisco called an “all-out war” against the Trump administration, which could also include holding back state transfers of funds to the federal government.

California Democrats proposing a tax revolt against the federal government? We really do live in interesting times!

It also shows the terrible dilemma Democrats, in particular, now face. With Donald Trump in the White House, Democrats no longer support the federal government. Yet the federal government, as we know it, is almost entirely the product of Democrats. Medicare, Social Security, SSI, public education, government subsidies to unprofitable “green” businesses — the list is endless. While career politician Republicans are also involved in these activities, they’re mainly the outgrowth of the Democratic philosophy.

The election of 2016 changed everything. Now that Democrats, at least for the moment, no longer control the federal government, they’re left with opposing the very centralized authority they hold so dear.

It’s no wonder unprecedented numbers of Democrats in California — a one-party state — actually think of seceding from the United States. Or at least temporarily doing so, under the Trump administration.

But it’s a truly awful dilemma for Democrats. Why? Because their whole ideology of government — indeed, their whole philosophy of life — requires a centrally managed society managed by like-minded progressives who oversee everything. Political correctness, environmental correctness, money flowing to the “right” people (e.g., Clintons) and away from the “wrong people” (anyone who disagrees with them) — all of this relies on the premise of an all-powerful, all-knowing federal government run exclusively by like-minded elites. When that government is taken over by people they consider thugs or psychopaths, it ruins their lives. Why do you think Hollywood and other celebrities with too much time on their hands are so distraught?

It’s bad enough for Democrats when that federal government is run for 4 or 8 years by, say, a Ronald Reagan or one of the various George Bushes. But when someone like Donald Trump — blunt, brash, unblinking and uncompromising — takes over, they’re truly out of their minds. Their whole world comes tumbling down because their entire mental universe — not just politically but psychologically, even metaphysically, because government is a social religion for them — collapses from within.

It’s amusing to watch, on one level. It’s also sad, because it’s a reminder of just how deeply divided our nation actually is, with no improvement on the horizon. Democrats scream, cry, and threaten in their effort to blank out the most awful truth of all: That even if they get a Hillary Clinton or equivalent back in the White House in 4 or 8 years, the opposition such a person will encounter will make the current Democratic opposition seem tame by comparison. Donald Trump woke up the sleeping giant, and that giant will not go back to rest even once Donald Trump is gone.

You see, all of this political upheaval is worse for Democrats and progressives than anyone else. They’re the ones who had the most to lose by the resurgence of dissenting opinion. Those of us “deplorables” on the other side had nothing to lose, because most of us never wanted the federal government so involved in the individual lives of citizens of the American republic in the first place. We’re all used to the hostility and arrogance displayed by intolerant, rude progressives during the Obama years. When Donald Trump throws it back in their faces, it provides a refreshing sense of justice in what many feared had become a malevolent universe populated by pretentious, know-nothing twits. No matter what the future holds, we know it’s possible to fight back and sometimes win, while the Democrats will face a bitter struggle — to the end — when it comes to imposing their totalitarian mindset onto the population as a whole. In short, America will not go down without a fight.

Deplorables now can take comfort in the fact that there’s a real battle on our hands. The Democrats and progressives had sneered themselves into believing they had won it for all time. The overconfidence and almost cartoon-like complacency they displayed in expecting a Hillary Clinton landslide was defied not only by Trump’s victory, but by the overwhelming landslide against the Democrats on every other level of government.

Donald Trump is a daily reminder of just how wrong progressives and Democrats were, and just how painful the road ahead will be for them.