We Just Don't Get it: It’s a Deliberate Attempt to Destroy America for Good.
Dinesh D'Souza@DineshDSouza
I was watching Fox News the other day—I’m not a regular, but I happened to be watching—and they were talking about how Mamdani is ruining New York. A predictable story!
But then one of the hosts said something interesting. She said, “Doesn’t he understand that what he’s doing is not good for the city? Doesn’t he understand that it’s going to make people want to leave?”
“Doesn’t he understand?” I call this the “they just don’t get it” approach. It is the standard approach that we Republicans—we on the Right—use with the Left and the Democrats.
I hear it all the time, on social media, on podcasts, on right-wing talk radio. Don’t the Democrats realize that voter ID is essential to election integrity? Doesn’t the Left realize that illegals take away jobs from American citizens?
We heard the same refrain through the Biden years. Doesn’t Joe Biden know—or maybe I should say, Don’t the people running the autopen know that they are letting in criminals and terrorists through their porous border policies?
But I even heard the same rhetoric from conservatives during the Obama years. Obama doesn’t understand that giving Iran pallets of money and a green light on nuclear weapons is dangerous for our security. Obama doesn’t realize that Obamacare will make our health care system more expensive and more bureaucratic. Obama doesn’t seem to get it that he is making race relations worse, not better.
But then one of the hosts said something interesting. She said, “Doesn’t he understand that what he’s doing is not good for the city? Doesn’t he understand that it’s going to make people want to leave?”
“Doesn’t he understand?” I call this the “they just don’t get it” approach. It is the standard approach that we Republicans—we on the Right—use with the Left and the Democrats.
I hear it all the time, on social media, on podcasts, on right-wing talk radio. Don’t the Democrats realize that voter ID is essential to election integrity? Doesn’t the Left realize that illegals take away jobs from American citizens?
We heard the same refrain through the Biden years. Doesn’t Joe Biden know—or maybe I should say, Don’t the people running the autopen know that they are letting in criminals and terrorists through their porous border policies?
But I even heard the same rhetoric from conservatives during the Obama years. Obama doesn’t understand that giving Iran pallets of money and a green light on nuclear weapons is dangerous for our security. Obama doesn’t realize that Obamacare will make our health care system more expensive and more bureaucratic. Obama doesn’t seem to get it that he is making race relations worse, not better.
“They just don’t get it.” That’s our underlying framework. Let’s spell it out some more. Our basic assumption is that the Left and the Democrats do bad things, not because they are bad people, or because they are after self-serving and destructive ends. They do bad things because they don’t know better. They are ignorant, and it’s our job to educate them.
Hey, Obama, let me explain to you how there are bad actors in the world and the mullahs are in that group. Hey, Biden gang, we need to educate you about why you shouldn’t use the weaponry of the government to go after your political opponents. Hey, Democrats, let us help you figure out that the SAVE Act—mandatory voter ID—is good for democracy and good for our country.
I want to argue that this is a completely wrong-headed way to think about Democrats and the Left. But before I do, let’s trace the history of this “you just don’t get it” philosophy. It actually goes back to the ancient Greeks.
Hey, Obama, let me explain to you how there are bad actors in the world and the mullahs are in that group. Hey, Biden gang, we need to educate you about why you shouldn’t use the weaponry of the government to go after your political opponents. Hey, Democrats, let us help you figure out that the SAVE Act—mandatory voter ID—is good for democracy and good for our country.
I want to argue that this is a completely wrong-headed way to think about Democrats and the Left. But before I do, let’s trace the history of this “you just don’t get it” philosophy. It actually goes back to the ancient Greeks.
The ancient Greeks believed—Socrates is a typical example—that vice is folly. Vice is the result of ignorance, and virtue arises out of knowledge. People do wrong things because they don’t know better. If they knew better, they wouldn’t do these things. Our job, and the job of philosophy, is to educate them.
contrast the Socratic approach with the apostle Paul. Paul writes, “The good that I would, I do not. The evil that I would not, that I do.” Paul is saying that even though I know better, I do bad and evil things. For Paul, the problem is not ignorance. The problem is with the will. The will is guided by lust, hatred, ambition. The will refuses to be bound by reason; instead, the will uses reason to achieve its self-serving and wicked ends.
contrast the Socratic approach with the apostle Paul. Paul writes, “The good that I would, I do not. The evil that I would not, that I do.” Paul is saying that even though I know better, I do bad and evil things. For Paul, the problem is not ignorance. The problem is with the will. The will is guided by lust, hatred, ambition. The will refuses to be bound by reason; instead, the will uses reason to achieve its self-serving and wicked ends.
So who describes the Left and the Democrats better, Socrates or Paul? To me the answer is obvious. It’s Paul.
Where, then, do we get this naïve idea that the Left does what it does because of ignorance, because it doesn’t know better? I believe we get it from the naivete of the Reagan years. In the Reagan years, we generally believed that the differences between the parties—the difference between us and them—were differences not of ends but only of means.
In that Reaganite framework, the Right and the Left both want a strong, safe, prosperous America. We all want to go to the same place. We have some disagreements, such as how our prosperity should be shared—how to carve up the pie—but these are disagreements within a shared vision.
Therefore, the two sides are really on the same side. Politically speaking, we are friends and not enemies. If they go in a different direction than us, our job is to show them that they are misguided. Today’s Republicans—today’s Right—have inherited that same framework from the Reagan era. “They just don’t get it, and it’s our job to educate them, to show them where their interests truly lie.
There’s a huge fallacy here, and it can be illustrated with the example of a gang of bank robbers who go around holding up banks. Imagine saying to the robbers, “This is not a good idea. Banks rely on public trust in order to stay in business. If people regularly robbed banks, then banks would go out of business, and people would no longer deposit money in them. So this bank robbery thing is counter-productive, because it ends up destroying the banking system itself.”
Obviously the robbers wouldn’t care. Why? Because they want money for themselves, and they don’t care what the effect is on the banking system. And I think the same logic applies to the Democrats. Obama didn’t care that he was making Iran stronger and America weaker—in fact that was his goal
This was the point of my book “The Roots of Obama’s Rage” and my first film, “2016: Obama’s America.” My theme was that Obama was driven by a Third World anti-colonial vision in which America is the bad guy and the people fighting America are the good guys. Obama wanted to take America down a notch, and he did. He wanted to diminish America’s power in the world, and he did.
All our attempts to educate Obama, to instruct him, to make him see the light, failed miserably, not because we are poor educators, but because Obama knew exactly what he was doing. He understood his objectives much better than we did. He moved purposefully to achieve them. We misunderstood Obama, because we falsely presumed he shared our objectives. We offered him a lot of helpful instruction that he considered to be completely useless.
The other day, through some idle scrolling on social media, I happened upon a meeting of the Oakland City Council. What a menagerie! I saw a bunch of complete dirtballs and losers, people who seemed utterly indifferent to what makes a city run well, in effect running the city. And of course the city is in shambles. It looks like a Third World country which, to some extent it is. San Franciso and New York are headed the same way.
Now imagine saying to these city council people: “Hey guys! You simply don’t know how to run a city. You don’t get it. Let us show you how to attract entrepreneurs. Let us show you how to reduce tax rates and regulation. Let us offer you some practical tips on making the city safer. There are many good ways to improve education and make public services more efficient.” Blah, blah, blah.
You can try this approach, but I predict it will be a total failure. They have no interest in doing any of this. Why would they want to make public services more efficient, when their friends all run programs that are looting public services? Why would they want to streamline the homeless industry, when it provides huge funding to nonprofits that are their political allies and help them win elections?
The Oakland City Council doesn’t care if Oakland becomes a wasteland, as long as they can stay in power and feast on its carcass. And the same can be said about the Democrats who run San Francisco, Chicago, Minneapolis and every other blue city. They are termites who can be counted on to protect termite interests.
Here’s the big picture. A fearful, dependent population is one that relies on the Democratic Party to keep it fearful and dependent. These are the Left’s most reliable voters. The last thing they want is an educated, upwardly-mobile population in Oakland or anyplace else. As soon as
We need to stop with the “They just don’t get it.” It doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because they know exactly what they are doing. They are building their political networks and extending their political power. They wouldn’t have such a grip on our culture and politics if they were as ignorant and incompetent as we imagine them to be. In reality, we are the ones who are ignorant and incompetent. We have not taken the measure of our opponents. We don’t get it.
Politics is a contest of power. The Left understands this better than we do. If we want to stop the Left and the Democrats, we have to outvote them, out-organize them, out-fund them, out-maneuver them, in short, we have to defeat them politically. Let’s stop with the useless tutorials, the endless educational jibber-jabber. The Democrats operate just like termites, just like the bank robbers, and we can’t talk them out of doing what they do.
And that’s the way I see it.people can make do for themselves, they no longer need the Democratic Party to make it happen for them. In a way, the dirtballs on the Oakland City Council understand perfectly well what keeps them in power.
We need to stop with the “They just don’t get it.” It doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because they know exactly what they are doing. They are building their political networks and extending their political power. They wouldn’t have such a grip on our culture and politics if they were as ignorant and incompetent as we imagine them to be. In reality, we are the ones who are ignorant and incompetent. We have not taken the measure of our opponents. We don’t get it.
Politics is a contest of power. The Left understands this better than we do. If we want to stop the Left and the Democrats, we have to outvote them, out-organize them, out-fund them, out-maneuver them, in short, we have to defeat them politically. Let’s stop with the useless tutorials, the endless educational jibber-jabber. The Democrats operate just like termites, just like the bank robbers, and we can’t talk them out of doing what they do.
Where, then, do we get this naïve idea that the Left does what it does because of ignorance, because it doesn’t know better? I believe we get it from the naivete of the Reagan years. In the Reagan years, we generally believed that the differences between the parties—the difference between us and them—were differences not of ends but only of means.
In that Reaganite framework, the Right and the Left both want a strong, safe, prosperous America. We all want to go to the same place. We have some disagreements, such as how our prosperity should be shared—how to carve up the pie—but these are disagreements within a shared vision.
Therefore, the two sides are really on the same side. Politically speaking, we are friends and not enemies. If they go in a different direction than us, our job is to show them that they are misguided. Today’s Republicans—today’s Right—have inherited that same framework from the Reagan era. “They just don’t get it, and it’s our job to educate them, to show them where their interests truly lie.
There’s a huge fallacy here, and it can be illustrated with the example of a gang of bank robbers who go around holding up banks. Imagine saying to the robbers, “This is not a good idea. Banks rely on public trust in order to stay in business. If people regularly robbed banks, then banks would go out of business, and people would no longer deposit money in them. So this bank robbery thing is counter-productive, because it ends up destroying the banking system itself.”
Obviously the robbers wouldn’t care. Why? Because they want money for themselves, and they don’t care what the effect is on the banking system. And I think the same logic applies to the Democrats. Obama didn’t care that he was making Iran stronger and America weaker—in fact that was his goal
This was the point of my book “The Roots of Obama’s Rage” and my first film, “2016: Obama’s America.” My theme was that Obama was driven by a Third World anti-colonial vision in which America is the bad guy and the people fighting America are the good guys. Obama wanted to take America down a notch, and he did. He wanted to diminish America’s power in the world, and he did.
All our attempts to educate Obama, to instruct him, to make him see the light, failed miserably, not because we are poor educators, but because Obama knew exactly what he was doing. He understood his objectives much better than we did. He moved purposefully to achieve them. We misunderstood Obama, because we falsely presumed he shared our objectives. We offered him a lot of helpful instruction that he considered to be completely useless.
The other day, through some idle scrolling on social media, I happened upon a meeting of the Oakland City Council. What a menagerie! I saw a bunch of complete dirtballs and losers, people who seemed utterly indifferent to what makes a city run well, in effect running the city. And of course the city is in shambles. It looks like a Third World country which, to some extent it is. San Franciso and New York are headed the same way.
Now imagine saying to these city council people: “Hey guys! You simply don’t know how to run a city. You don’t get it. Let us show you how to attract entrepreneurs. Let us show you how to reduce tax rates and regulation. Let us offer you some practical tips on making the city safer. There are many good ways to improve education and make public services more efficient.” Blah, blah, blah.
You can try this approach, but I predict it will be a total failure. They have no interest in doing any of this. Why would they want to make public services more efficient, when their friends all run programs that are looting public services? Why would they want to streamline the homeless industry, when it provides huge funding to nonprofits that are their political allies and help them win elections?
The Oakland City Council doesn’t care if Oakland becomes a wasteland, as long as they can stay in power and feast on its carcass. And the same can be said about the Democrats who run San Francisco, Chicago, Minneapolis and every other blue city. They are termites who can be counted on to protect termite interests.
Here’s the big picture. A fearful, dependent population is one that relies on the Democratic Party to keep it fearful and dependent. These are the Left’s most reliable voters. The last thing they want is an educated, upwardly-mobile population in Oakland or anyplace else. As soon as
We need to stop with the “They just don’t get it.” It doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because they know exactly what they are doing. They are building their political networks and extending their political power. They wouldn’t have such a grip on our culture and politics if they were as ignorant and incompetent as we imagine them to be. In reality, we are the ones who are ignorant and incompetent. We have not taken the measure of our opponents. We don’t get it.
Politics is a contest of power. The Left understands this better than we do. If we want to stop the Left and the Democrats, we have to outvote them, out-organize them, out-fund them, out-maneuver them, in short, we have to defeat them politically. Let’s stop with the useless tutorials, the endless educational jibber-jabber. The Democrats operate just like termites, just like the bank robbers, and we can’t talk them out of doing what they do.
And that’s the way I see it.people can make do for themselves, they no longer need the Democratic Party to make it happen for them. In a way, the dirtballs on the Oakland City Council understand perfectly well what keeps them in power.
We need to stop with the “They just don’t get it.” It doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because they know exactly what they are doing. They are building their political networks and extending their political power. They wouldn’t have such a grip on our culture and politics if they were as ignorant and incompetent as we imagine them to be. In reality, we are the ones who are ignorant and incompetent. We have not taken the measure of our opponents. We don’t get it.
Politics is a contest of power. The Left understands this better than we do. If we want to stop the Left and the Democrats, we have to outvote them, out-organize them, out-fund them, out-maneuver them, in short, we have to defeat them politically. Let’s stop with the useless tutorials, the endless educational jibber-jabber. The Democrats operate just like termites, just like the bank robbers, and we can’t talk them out of doing what they do.
And that’s the way I see it.
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