It hasn’t been that long ago that the progressive left was against “othering”. The word became so prevalent in the lexicon of the left that the word “other” mutated from an adjective and a pronoun into a verb. To “other” or engaging in “othering” was defined as viewing or treating (a person or group of people) as intrinsically different from and alien to oneself.

Progressives assert that Republicans are guilty of “othering” because, in the words of thankfully ex-President Barack Obama, “…it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Apparently “othering” doesn’t apply when Democrats express their frustrations and hound Republicans out of restaurants or refuse to serve them.

The only way to explain how this hypocrisy gets mainstreamed and excused away is that the progressive element has convinced itself it is morally superior to everyone else. Let’s assume that the Democrats, the party of bitterness, get their wishes, what would America look like?

Here’s a sample of a Democrat approved future based on columns from the party organs (the NYT and WaPo):

• Infanticide and eugenics (via abortion)
• Population restrictions (like China’s one-child rule) to “protect” the environment
• Government preferences based on race
• Nationalization of industry and the financial sector
• A highly regulated, “planned” economy
• Restrictions on free speech
• Restrictions on/elimination of religious practice
• Criminalization of free enterprise and the implementation of crony capitalism
• Criminalization of “certain” politics and political parties
• Open borders
• All-encompassing welfare state

But guess to whom none of this would apply.

There is s difference between being righteous and self-righteous. Being righteous means being morally right or justifiable; virtuous. Righteous people are validated by immutable principles, their actions are guided by them. Being self-righteous is defined as having or characterized by a certainty, especially an unfounded one, that one is totally correct or morally superior. Self-righteous people are guided by malleable propositions, not principles and define their “principles” to justify their actions.

Self-righteous people justify their principles through their actions, actions of righteous people are justified by their principles. Their actions are always approved because their motives are the purest – even when they are not.

The progressive left has become all they once professed to hate. The only way they can exist in this environment of cognitive dissonance and hypocrisy is to “other” all who are non-progressive. Everybody else is evil, a Nazi, a racist and God only knows what else. They have succumbed so much to the self-love philosophy of Stuart Smalley, they have come to worship themselves.

The fatal flaw in this Church of Progressivism is that no moral superiority can be built on a foundation of amoral or immoral acts.

Comedian Flip Wilson used to do a skit called “The Church of What’s Happenin’ Now!” That’s progressivism in a nutshell. What they opposed yesterday, they are cool with today.