The left is now openly rooting for the enemies of the United States. This was inevitable, given the hatred of America that has been growing and becoming mainstream among leftists ever since the Vietnam War, but it has been a rather short trip from the “Don’t you dare question my patriotism” mantra of the mid-2010s to the current open and unapologetic alignment with the “Death to America” crowd.
This alignment isn’t limited to tattooed, screaming, blue-haired harpies, either. It has now moved into the salons of the respectable left, the comfortable left, the oaken furniture left that laughs derisively at the idea that it wants to destroy the existing order, and then goes to its charmingly cluttered desk and writes out a hefty check to the scruffy, flea-bitten local Antifa cadres. Hatred of America is mainstream, acceptable, respectable, and quickly becoming de rigueur.
Skeptical? Don’t be. Just look at Thomas L. Friedman.
Tom Friedman has been with the New York Times for 45 years. He has won several Pulitzer Prizes. His book From Beirut to Jerusalem won the National Book Award. He has been laden with honors both domestically and internationally. Barack Obama asked him for advice on how to deal with Middle East issues.
Tom Friedman is a solid, established, respected voice of the leftist political and media establishment, which means, of course, that on virtually every issue, he is about as wrong as a human being can be. He is also completely predictable: Thomas L. Friedman is not in the business of surprising people by taking unexpected positions, and he didn’t become the esteemed oracle that he is widely considered today by being unpredictable.
Daniel Greenfield, the CEO of the David Horowitz Center, puts it a trifle more trenchantly: Friedman is “is a longstanding institution. People read the New York Times so they can repeat his slick glib nonsense at parties to people just as clueless, but slightly too busy to read his verbose ramblings in the paper for themselves.” Thomas Friedman tells the busy leftist what he is supposed to think about the Middle East and other topics. This is a valuable service; it prevents all manner of social gaffes, and protects Friedman’s fans from being ostracized from their social circle for inadvertently expressing the wrong opinion. What Thomas Friedman says is the right opinion. He’s safe. He’s trustworthy. He personifies the mainstream left.
And that means, of course, that he hates President Donald Trump with laser-like intensity. He hates him so much that he is willing to see the people of Iran continue to suffer under the boot of the tyranny they have endured for the last 47 years, with no end in sight, solely in order to make sure that Orange Man Bad cannot gloat over having freed them. Friedman wants more girls to be tortured and killed for not wearing hijab, more converts to Christianity to be imprisoned, more missiles shot into Israel and the Sunni states that have earned the wrath of the Islamic Republic of Iran, just to cheat Trump out of a victory.
Friedman said Saturday that he would indeed like “to see Iran defeated militarily because this regime is a terrible regime for its people and the region. And nothing would improve the region more than the replacement of this regime with a regime that is focused on enabling its people to realize their full potential, and integrating peacefully with other countries, and stop occupying Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. So I'm all for that."
Well, he is and he isn’t. Maybe he would have liked a Democrat to try to rid the world of the bloodthirsty regime in Tehran, but his friend Obama just handed them billions of dollars in cash, and Old Joe Biden gave them even more. And so now Trump is doing the job Friedman wants done, and that just won’t do.
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“The problem,” Friedman explained, “is I really don’t want to see Bibi Netanyahu or Donald Trump politically strengthened by this war because they are two awful human beings. They are both engaged in anti-democratic projects in their own countries. They’re both alleged crooks. They are terrible, terrible people doing terrible things to America’s standing in the world and Israel’s standing in the world.”
And so, says poor Friedman, "I really find myself torn. I want to see Iran militarily defeated, but I do not want to see these two terrible people strengthened."
That’s that. The Islamic regime must remain in power, and destroy the lives of more Iranians. Thomas L. Friedman, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, consultant of presidents and kings, has decreed it. The mainstream left, so concerned about the people of Ukraine and Gaza, will let the people of Iran suffer. It’s better this way, as it denies Trump a victory. And that’s all that matters.
