Ladies and gentlemen, the Vice President of the United States, speaking about climate policy at a public even in Colorado:
I went home one day and I said, Why are conservatives bad, mommy? Because I thought we were supposed to conserve! (Cackles.) I couldn’t reconcile it, now I can.
The anecdote has gone viral, as these things do, and plenty of conservatives have expressed their disapproval on social media.
Oddly enough, most of the criticism directed at Harris has focused on the unlikelihood of the conversation having taken place.
A few critics have observed that calling conservatives bad doesn’t “reconcile” very well with the unity theme on which Harris and Biden campaigned.
But there’s a lot going on in the Vice President’s anecdote that doesn’t seem to be getting much attention.
For one thing, she said she had to have things “reconciled.”
Not confirmed or corrected: reconciled.
That is, she wanted guidance on how to balance the known badness of conservatives with the unquestionable goodness of conservation. It never entered her little head to wonder whether perhaps conservatives weren’t bad.
For another, she’s openly acknowledging that although as a child she couldn’t reconcile these two things, now she can. She’s the Vice President of the United States, and she knows that the badness of conservatives is in fact compatible with the goodness of conservation. (We’ll give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she only said “conserving” to emphasize the childishness of her original question.)
The audience didn’t seem to mind any of this. In fact, they laughed along (unless they were just trying to drown out the sound of the Vice President’s cackles).
Worst of all, however, she clearly thought “conservatives are bad” was such a commonplace observation that it was okay to say it publicly.
That’s not good.
It deserves more than snark and partisan sniping in return.
Sometimes politicians say something that leaves you wondering what they meant. This isn’t one of those times. It’s very clear what the Vice President meant.
And this moron says: good for her! It’s refreshing to have it out in the open.
It’s more than refreshing: it’s epiphanous.
See, this moron has always winced whenever he heard a conservative tell him that Democrats behaved the way they do because they hated us. Kurt Schlichter, Dave Rubin, Steven Crowder, Bill Whittle, Glenn Reynolds, Candace Owens, Officer Tatum, the Conservative Twins, Mark Levin, Mark Steyn, Douglas Murray. All of them have said it, or words to that effect, at some point or other since 2016, and it’s always bothered this moron.
But it’s true: they hate us. They really hate us.
It used to frustrate this moron how freely leftists disparaged conservatives or Republicans in social and workplace conversation, as though it were unthinkable that any of those people (*shudder!*) could possibly be in their midst—and even if they were, how could they feel anything but the appropriate shame and contrition at having their obvious political defects pointed out to them?
It's such an obvious violation of basic decency. Imagine sitting at a dinner table with seven or eight people you don’t know very well and saying:
“Well, of course he’s a bastard—he’s a Jew.”
Or:
“Only assholes like jazz.”
Imagine not just saying such a thing, but then looking around at your colleagues with a big smile in anticipation of their total and complete agreement with every hateful word you’d just barfed out onto the table.
This isn’t about bigotry or prejudice. It’s about the necessary lubricant of good manners. Comfortable co-existence requires that we operate on the assumption that people may think differently than we do (one of the safest assumptions you’ll ever make) and that we cushion our language appropriately to avoid giving offense.
But over and over and over throughout this moron’s entire adult life, he’s found himself in situations like this. In America and in Denmark, in business and the arts, in private life and big social settings. It has been a puzzlement. How can otherwise decent people behave so thoughtlessly?
Could it be the price to be paid for trying to blend into whatever group one finds oneself in? Any effort to fit in may give others the impression that one thinks like them.
Could it stem from the differences between the left and right? Conservatives believe in the fundamental dignity of the individual, whatever he or she may think, but the very nature of collectivism is not to give a damn about the individual.
Stupid speculation.
Now, at long last, this moron understands. They’re not being bad-mannered. It’s not that it doesn’t dawn on them that there could be conservatives among them: they hold us in such contempt they don’t care. Are we offended? So what? We’re bad, who cares if we’re offended? We deserve to be offended—we’re offensive!
You wouldn’t worry about offending a Nazi, would you?
You wouldn’t refrain from saying anything untoward about insects just because there might be a cockroach within earshot, would you?
Well, that’s how they see us.
The Vice President’s casual bigotry, at once so stupid and vicious and vapid, has finally opened these moronic eyes. The approving laughter of her audience only drove the point home.
As instructive as her remarks may have been, however, there’s still one problem:
Now what?