How Brexit shattered progressives’ dearest illusions, by Damon Linker.
But what we’ve seen from a wide range of writers and analysts in the days since the Brexit vote is not necessarily worry. It is shock. Fury. Disgust. Despair. A faith has been shaken, illusions shattered, pieties punctured. This is what happens when a life-orienting system of belief gets smashed on the rocks of history.
The name of that shattered system of belief? Progressivism. …
[Progressives] believe not only that their views deserve to prevail in the fullness of time, but also that they are bound to prevail.
Nuh. Political correctness, the main propaganda tool of the progressives, has taken a major blow.
It is this faith in the inevitability of progressive triumph that has led so many commentators to respond so intensely to the rise of Donald Trump. … mean reactions that take the form of moral indignation and outrage — as if the very fact that millions of voters have cast ballots for a candidate who strongly opposes immigration and free trade is some kind of moral and theological betrayal, or an offense against capital-H History itself.
The progressive response to the outcome of the Brexit vote is remarkably similar.
They will double down, rather than retreat and acknowledge reality:
If history is moving inexorably toward humanitarian universalism, then giving it a sharp shove forward every now and then might be necessary and even admirable. And it certainly won’t meet any significant resistance. It will merely hasten the inevitable.
But what if progressivism isn’t inevitable at all? What if people will always be inclined by nature to love their own — themselves, their families, their neighbors, members of their churches, their fellow citizens, their country — more than they love the placeless abstraction of “humanity”? In that case, the act of ignoring or even denigrating this love will have the effect of provoking its defensive wrath and ultimately making it stronger.
It’s hard-wired; it evolved for good reason. But the facts of life are lost on the PC.
It makes perfect sense to be surprised, saddened, and concerned by the outcome of the Brexit vote. But shock? Fury? Disgust? Despair? That’s what a person feels when he discovers that his most dearly held fundamental beliefs have led him astray. Wake up, progressives! You have nothing to lose but your illusions.
