Every once in a while, it’s fun to look somebody in the eye and smugly assert, “I told you so!”

Being right when others are wrong empowers one to be smug, and being smug is a guilty pleasure. Guilty, that is, if you are a decent human being; if you are liberal, it is simply a pleasure to be indulged as often as possible, justified or not.

The problem is, as Cassandra found out, it is a curse to be right when nobody listens to you. There is no pleasure when your warnings aren’t heeded, and serious disasters result. It is infuriating and depressing, not ego-enhancing.

When I read John’s piece on the Oregon governor’s plan to revive Portland, I didn’t experience schadenfreude, smugness, or even a bit of pleasure at being able to say, “I told you so!”

I experienced barely suppressed fury–a rage at the self-satisfied idiots who ruined a fine city after they had been warned that defunding the police, legalizing the use of drugs, and tolerance for “urban camping” would destroy Portland’s charm and its viability.

The decision to defund the police resulted in skyrocketing violent crime. Even when Portland’s hapless mayor tried to reverse course and rehire police, they couldn’t find people willing to take the jobs.

Meanwhile the decriminalization of drugs also created new problems including a rise in overdoses and even more problems with drugged-out homeless people on the city’s streets.

We warned them, and they did it anyway. The results speak for themselves. I would be smug, but the scale of the disaster and the number of victims just leaves me angry and depressed at the state of the world.

Now, Oregon Governor Kotek is pushing to reverse course by expanding police presence and re-banning the ingestion of drugs on the streets. Portland is already trying to address “urban camping,” although it’s hard to see how the city will succeed until it musters the courage to get tough on “campers” in the long run. Tut-tutting the behavior of degenerates is utterly useless, as they have no self-control or shame.

Assuming–and it is dangerous to assume this–that Portland can be revived by reversing course, the damage done will still have been immense. And it was all preventable by following common sense advice. We told them so, and they went and did it anyway, harming not just themselves but thousands of innocent victims.

The politicians who did this should be punished–we told them so, and they ignored it. They should lose their jobs and, in a just world, would be forced to pay restitution to the victims. It wasn’t just a mistake–it was easily preventable harm, and they did it to allow themselves to feel compassionate and virtuous. They should have known. We told them so. Again and again.

Time and again over the past few years, I have felt the helplessness of Cassandra. On COVID-19, we were right, and they were wrong, and the price paid now and into the future will be incalculable. Lives were lost, ruined, and permanently scarred. It was unforgivable, yet Fauci is still a hero, and we are still “conspiracy theorists.”

Soon enough, even the densest people will see the harms of alphabet ideology, and we will reverse course. But in its wake, lives will have been lost, ruined, and permanently scarred. And nobody will pay the full price for the harm done. We told them so, and they scoffed.

On crime, the failures of public education, academic corruption, inflation, national security, and the growing censorship state, I and others have seen and predicted disaster, yet nobody listens. Add them all together, and our society is crumbling. We see it happening before our eyes and warn everybody we can. We are telling them so, and yet they scoff.

Until total disaster strikes, nobody listens. And when they admit failure, they claim “good intentions” and “we didn’t know.” And our warnings were motivated by bad intentions, so they don’t count. Some “scientists” have already admitted that they refused to tell the truth because they didn’t want Trump to look good.

Yeah, well, I knew. And you vilified me and others. The least the liberals who have empowered the radical Left could do is step aside and learn from those who foresaw all this and warned them. We didn’t have to be geniuses to see the problems. We get it wrong too, but on so many of these issues the disasters coming were easy to see and easy to avoid, but the liberals rushed headlong into danger when we told them so.

As with Cassandra, we get ignored, no matter how right we are. Because we have become pariahs for being inconveniently right.

Liberals would rather save face than save the country.

I am tired of saying, “I told you so.” Liberals should either get on board to save the country or slink away to lick their wounds, but for God’s sake, quit getting in the way of our war against the radical Left. They are ruining the country, and I will take no pleasure in saying “I told you so” when the United States is mortally wounded.