The Trouble with Young Democrats

It’s probably a slow day if you are worrying your soul about the current state of the Democratic Party. It’s even a slower day if you are tormenting yourself about the mind warp of today’s young Democrats. 

Nothing is quite as depressing as the mind of a young Democrat. If we are looking for a cogent analysis, we cannot do very much better than to turn to comedian Bill Maher. This is another way of saying that this constituency is fast becoming a national joke.

According to Maher, who opines on HBO and CNN, young Democrats have twisted their minds to the point where they embrace Hamas and hate America. 

Last Friday, Maher said this:

If the thought leaders in the Democratic Party keep encouraging and not rebuking that America is cringe and the people who run Gaza are great, the Democrats are doomed.

Of course, you might not think that this is a bad thing. And yet, the erosion of national pride is, in itself, a mental health crisis.

One can easily twist one’s mind into contortions while trying to figure out why so many young people support Hamas. One can do the same if one tries to understand why these intrepid Nazi-hunters have managed to embrace a movement that is a remnant of the Third Reich. 

Dare we say that the failure of the American educational system is on flagrant display in the number of young people who are supporting Hamas.

Dare we point out the rank stupidity of the calls for Free Palestine, when Palestinians have no real interest in establishing a free enterprise economy or even having free elections. Everyone with a minimal intelligence knows that there is no such thing as a free Muslim state in the Middle East. 

And still, both Egypt and Jordan-- the latter being a Palestinian state-- have a per capita GDP in the realm of  $4500 a year. Israel has a per capita GDP of around $55,000. 

Do your fervent Hamas supporters believe that this is the fault of the Jews? Do they recognize their own anti-Semitism when they wallow in it? If they expect that Israelis will recognize that their achievements have not been earned and that they must immediately turn Tel Aviv over to Hamas, they have been smoking the wrong kind of cigarettes.

The notion underpinning this piece of arrant stupidity has it that Israel succeeded where Jordan did not because it was exploiting Palestinians. A brief examination of the economic situation in Jordan belies this nonsense.

But, Maher is also correct to see that the problem with young Democrats is that they hate their country. This means, they feel no pride in being American. And this will likely make them depressed.

Despite what has been trafficked, the cure for depression is pride, not hope. Once you deprive people of their pride they will live their lives as though in a fictional narrative. They will set about to overthrow the system in order to restore their sense of accomplishment. In truth, they are playing a losing hand. The more you listen to them the more you understand that they are trying  to restore their pride at the expense of their nation, its achievements and accomplishments.

As for America’s flagging national pride, the sense among young people that they should not be proud of their country, it derives from Vietnam, that is, from our inability to win wars. When America won wars in the twentieth century, the nation felt pride. When we lost in Vietnam the price was national pride.

I discussed these matters in my book, Saving Face.

Maher explained it well:

But here is the dilemma for Democrats. Their young people, their key constituency, not only don’t like their own civilization, they like the wrong one. They actually think Hamas is a liberation movement. They chant for the Houthis. They’re chanting ‘We will honor our martyrs’ at Yale. They’re looking for love in all the wrong countries.”

Of course, these liberated youth should know better than to embrace a culture that follows Shariah law, that practices honor killing, wife beating and extreme homophobia. And that is certainly not democratic.

Maher said this:

“Someone needs to tell the kids that America is not the society where women basically have no rights, where there is zero freedom of religion, and where dissent is punishable by death.”

“Our democracy may be on life support, but we still have elections. They don’t.”

It takes a comedian to shed the light of reason on the debate.

He [Maher] then called out young Democratic members for supporting the catchphrase, “Globalize the Intifada,” quipping, “As if worldwide suicide bombing and cosplaying Islamic revolutionaries is the answer to our problems.”

“Liberals are weak and woke – especially the White ones – and they indulge all sorts of nonsense from their kids, a pattern that then continues on in the Democratic Party. Last election, it was all the gender stuff, the insistence that men can have babies and such. And now I fear that ‘We like the terrorists’ is the new that,” the talk show host added.

Surely, they are weak and woke. One thing they are not is: liberal. If they took their liberality to Gaza they would not survive the sunset.