Back in what now seems like the waning days of the Paleolithic Era, when I was transitioning from Left to Right, one of the tactics my soon-to-be-former brothers and sisters would say was, "Oh, Lincoln, you're too smart for that!" The implication was that as someone who, at one time had embraced the principles of the Left, there was no way I could have been possibly hoodwinked or shanghaied into joining Team Red.
These people were not really concerned with my state of mind. It was their way of reminding me that they still occupied the intellectual and moral high ground and that I, short of developing a tail, had somehow managed to stumble backward a few steps on the evolutionary scale.
This line of reasoning is not unheard of among a largely useless class of people who create their own realities such as the majority of television and film performers and what passes for the remnants of the mainstream media — and people who seriously look forward to the Met Gala.
Thus, we can view the lamentations of one Michelle Kosinski with a certain degree of pity. A former CNN reporter, Kosinski revealed over the weekend that she was shocked to learn that recently, she had inadvertently broken bread and sipped libations with people who, horror of horrors, might be closet conservatives. She took to X to find some catharsis and hopefully a few fellow travelers.
A few weeks ago, I had dinner with a few couples, friends of friends, all American. All were well-educated and successful in careers.
— Michelle Kosinski (@MichLKosinski) May 5, 2024
They seemed great! On the surface. For like an hour.
But slowly, over a few drinks, they began to let slip their true MAGA natures....
This dinner continues to haunt me. They all seemed so... normal.
— Michelle Kosinski (@MichLKosinski) May 5, 2024
When I asked the couple who were my old friends how THEY didn't know, they said that in their upscale FL neighborhood, people are extremely careful not to ever broach or debate the subject.
This is not healthy.
Kosinski seemed very clear that vigilance was the watchword. MAGAs are everywhere and are seemingly normal people. But behind that glass of Chardonnay, they are waiting for the moment when they can force you into the back of a pickup, jam a red hat on your head, make you eat beef jerky or something, and possibly read to you from the Gospel of John.
Had she a thousand years to ponder it, it would never occur to Kosinski that normal, logical, and educated people are perfectly capable of reading the national and international tea leaves and coming to the reasonable and obvious conclusion that the country is, in fact, not better off than it was four years ago. She reinforces her disconnect with, “If people don't ever talk about these things as friends and neighbors, and only live in their own warped information silos, how will they ever learn what is true or false? How will the truth ever make them consider alternatives? The allure of bulls*** is co-opting decent minds.”
While the pathology at work here is mildly alarming, it is the natural result of years of self-conditioning. The Left and, in particular, the media, have spent years in the heart of the Misty Mountains. Like Gollum, telling himself that the One Ring was his birthday present, the Left and its propagandists have crouched in the dark, repeating over and over again:
My precious, the White House and the Supreme Courtses...they were our birthday presents. Nasty, fitlhy MAGAses! They stole them from us! They stole the preciouses. MAGAses! Thiefs! We hates them, my precious! We hates them FOREVER!
The difference, as those who paid attention while reading "The Lord of the Rings" or watched the adaptations know, is that Gollum occasionally had flashes of insight, accountability, and self-awareness.
Why should we pity Kosinski, who seems to be rightfully choking on a cold cup of reality? We should pity her not because she is fully invested in the Left's fiction, although that is true. She deserves our pity because she is like the grandmother in Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find."
There were two more pistol reports and the grandmother raised her head like a parched old turkey hen crying for water and called, "Bailey Boy, Bailey Boy!" as if her heart would break.
"Jesus was the only One that ever raised the dead," The Misfit continued, "and He shouldn't have done it. He shown everything off balance. If He did what He said, then it's nothing for you to do but thow away everything and follow Him, and if He didn't, then it's nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him. No pleasure but meanness," he said and his voice had become almost a snarl.
Like the grandmother, Kosinski refuses to acknowledge the brutal reality confronting her and the rest of the country and the doom it has brought with it. As in the case of O'Connor's Misfit, the latest incarnation of the Left is an agent of chaos. And like the grandmother, Kosinski believes that if she shouts the approved mantras long enough and loud enough, what she wishes to be true will become true. Worse yet for Kosinski, she believes that her devotion will grant her a place at the Afterparty in Aspen. The truth is that she will be tuning skis, trimming putting greens, bussing tables, and washing dishes with the rest of us.
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