Keith Olbermann is a world-class jerk.
We all know that, and usually, jerks don’t merit much attention. Contempt? Obviously. But spending a lot of time worrying about a jerk being a jerk is time you could have spent enjoying something else.
But Olbermann is a hero to many, and one of the more influential political figures in the country. Sometimes an A-lister, usually a B-lister, Olbermann is just the sort of guy who can express the id of the Left and get rewarded for it by his followers, if not his colleagues who famously hate him.
"WE MUST HAVE ECONOMIC CIVIL WAR.
"There is only one way to stop Mass Shootings. The Blue States must financially starve the Red States, the Gun Lobby, the GOP, the Death Lobby, and the crooked judiciary into submission.
"NOW."
WEDNESDAY COUNTDOWN: https://t.co/OY1H1fxw8G pic.twitter.com/0wILxJIXu0
— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) February 15, 2023
Olbermann’s “feisty” personality has cost him professionally–not because his followers are put off by it, but because he is as big a jerk in person as on screen. He can justify it all he wants as righteous fury at injustice, but the truth is that he is just a jerk.
His latest rant is a great example of his ability to combine Leftist talking points with his grating personality in a way that appeals so much to his followers. Filled with righteous anger about how Americans are dropping like flies due to gun violence (slyly combining gun suicides and murders to inflate the numbers dramatically), Olbermann calls upon the wealthy Blue states to engage in an economic civil war against the troglodytes of the Red States.
This is exactly how many liberals think, unfortunately. We hear constant references to how the “Blue” states are far more economically productive than the Red ones, and there is just a hint of truth to the assertion, although it is complicated by many factors. Blue states are also far more expensive and your dollar goes much less far, and of course, Blue states would soon be filled with starving coders and engineers designing and programming phones being built in China but for the enormous productivity of Red states which produce the basic commodities upon which their wealth is actually built.
The wealth–and it is real wealth–of Blue states tends to come from generating the luxury goods of society. It is not a bad thing, but not the only thing. The sneering superiority oozing out of elite liberals is similar to that of a coddled political appointee looking down on the marines defending the Embassy they reside in while stationed in a troubled country; they get to sneer because that marine is protecting them. It is disgusting and morally base. It is the sneer of the Elite in the Hunger Games directed at the plebs who do the actual work of making society run.
There are many levels of irony here; the compassionate liberal calling for the immiseration of the lower classes as punishment for not licking his feet is certainly one.
But another is that, from the perspective of the Red states, the Blue ones already are conducting an economic war against them. The basic industries upon which American industrial civilization is built are being strangled by people like Olbermann. The Left hates production, and production is what the working classes do.
The war on fossil fuels, food production, mining, manufacturing, the “green” revolution, the 87,000 IRS agents going after tipped workers….it is all a war on the foundation of the working class economy.
The war on Red states has been going on for decades and has accelerated dramatically in recent years. Joe Biden has turned the cold economic war into a very hot one indeed, sneering at the plebs for not appreciating all he has done to destroy the foundations of American wealth.
“I have printed trillions of dollars! Be grateful!” As we struggle to afford eggs, heat our homes, and keep the lights on as he destroys the electric grid.
When I see a clip of Olbermann I don’t just see a jerk verbally jerking off to his fantasies of destroying America; I see the id of the Leftist intellectual.
His argument for imposing his socialist values on the rest of us boils down to: “I am richer than you, so do what I say.”
To which we should say: grow your own food, police your own streets, fix your own plumbing, and repair the power lines after they are brought down in a storm.
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