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January 24, 2017

Unpopularity.

For five years, I've been active on Facebook.* My Facebook "friends" is a chronological collection people I knew and still know: growing up in Chicago, Detroit and Cincinnati, in college and law school, as a lawyer in Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania and California, and working or developing business in Europe, Canada, Central and South America. Finally, there are those I've met recently in real life or sometimes digitally (for now) who I want to know more about.

My Facebook friends inhabit a kind of upscale but eclectic zoo of generally well-educated humans. In fact, what I really like about Facebook is the fact that my friends are a mixed group politically, culturally and geographically. People think differently. Sometimes they clash. Which is a very good thing. The very last thing I want in my life is for everyone to think, feel, talk and act alike.

Anyway, I still see myself as a traditional and hopefully classic liberal--culturally and politically--even though I registered Republican in June 2017 as a sort of symbolic note to myself on how much I have changed. Sure, I then went ahead in November and as planned voted for Hillary Clinton--who I've never seen as lefty but a moderate liberal in the same mold of our new POTUS Donald Trump. Like Trump, HRC to me is a pragmatic non-ideologue manager who likes and is comfortable with power. Two days after Trump was inaugurated, I commented in a short status post on the Facebook the following:

Quick and dirty:

1. I'm not a Conservative or Libertarian. At least I don't think I am or know very much about The Right.

2. But my respect for those of you who really are rises daily.

3. For years you've been patient, strong, often bit your tongues and endured self-righteous abuse.

4. A hat tip and kudos. Wow.

I hope it speaks for itself. I wish I had more time to expand on the above idea. There is so much more to say. Apparently, I now either: (a) think more like people on the Right, or (b) at least understand people on the Right well enough to sense how genuinely isolated, disliked and even lonely it was for many Conservatives and even moderate country club Republicans during some of the Clinton years, and certainly in the last eight Obama years. The Right--who in my view all down the line and spectrum seem by far to have the best grasp of the Constitution (and particularly the First Amendment--in many quarters were of necessity and presumptively shoddy, immoral, brutish, unenlightened humans.

It's the same with "liberals", of course. They are outnumbered and alienated in countless venues across the country. Often pariahs in small towns or rural areas in the Midwest and South. I get that. But an overall liberal precept and status quo during the Obama years on a level not experienced seen before in America must have frustrated and at times even discouraged or angered cultural or political conservatives. Liberalism got loud and cocky. Conservatives, Libertarian and even Centrists were in effect told their ideas were a form of Wrong-Think. That they were bad people. It got so bad that very often they must have been afraid to even speak.

*Which, incidentally, after much kicking and screaming in the beginning, I now view as a not only fun but productive and "transformative" social media platform for every lawyer in private practice.

Posted by JD Hull at January 24, 2017 04:36 AM

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