Opinion: Progressives cry wolf on Trump and wonder why no one listens

Progressives have responded in extraordinary ways since Donald Trump secured a whopping 312 Electoral College votes to win the presidency for a second time. Some have thrown temper tantrums. Others have expressed elitist disdain. And some have decried the 75.6 million Americans who voted for Trump as uneducated, sexist and racist.
Leftists’ inability for self-reflection, along with their self-righteousness and delusional sense of superiority, have been stunning to observe in the wake of the Republican Party’s sweeping victory.
If progressives don’t want to understand why voters rejected them and Vice President Kamala Harris by a wide margin, that’s fine by me. It’s their loss. The nation will leave them even further behind as conservatives shape the future.
Even so, I hope even more Americans will soon see that they, too, will benefit from a conservative president.
In the days after the election, leading leftists reacted with scorn for everyday Americans, slamming their intellectual capacity, moral center and choices. Here’s a sample:
So much is so wrong with these pronouncements about America and Americans. To start, voters didn’t reject democracy. They rejected far-left policies and politicians.
Conservatives care deeply about democracy and America. But we − and an increasing number of moderates − don’t accept a far-left view of how the world works, or should work.
We’ve had leftism pushed at us from every faction of news media and the entertainment industry for decades. We understand the left well, and so we voted against progressive leaders and their agendas.
Opinion:I voted for Trump. Your insults won’t change my mind.
Progressives’ immature reactions to the election are rooted in their world view: More government is the answer to every problem. So if the “wrong” people are elected, disaster is imminent.
The left is so worked up that they’re even willing to wreck relationships with friends and family. A Yale-affiliated psychiatrist, Dr. Amanda Calhoun, said on MSNBC that it was “completely fine to not be around” family who supported Trump.
On “The View,” co-hosts Sunny Hostin and Whoopi Goldberg agreed. “I think when people feel that someone voted not only against their families, but against them and against people that they love, I think it’s OK to take a beat,” Hostin said.
In fairness, not all Democrats have had such extreme reactions to the election results. But the leftist media’s reaction is still incriminating.
It’s hard to find out that you were wrong. (I’m wrong every day. Just ask my kids.) But the left’s reaction to Trump’s win has been both disappointing and revealing.
Much of the mainstream media learned once the votes came in that despite cranking out overwhelmingly negative coverage of Trump every day for nearly a decade, none of it stuck. Americans reelected Trump − and handily.
Yet, some journalists’ reaction was to rage and to condemn. To stomp their feet and to belittle. I haven’t seen anything like it before, even in 2016.
For years, progressives pushed narratives about news and information − from the Russia collusion hoax, to ignoring disclosures about Hunter Biden, to censoring COVID-19 information − that proved to be wrong. Despite being told they were dangerously misinformed, conservatives turned out to be right.
Conservatives got tired of being lied to and of being told they were ignorant and immoral. But the left refused to listen.
Instead, they came from a place of elitism, smugness and superiority. On Nov. 5, Americans made their choice − and indicted years of progressives’ self-righteousness.
The left’s reaction to the democratic process has been infuriating. I’ve been tempted to scold, ignore or sneer right back at my friends on the left.
I didn’t even get to take a victory lap before I heard leftists suggest I and the other 75.6 million Americans who voted for Trump were ignorant and stupid. Even before Election Day, the sitting president called us “garbage.”
The contempt, self-righteousness and the utter lack of self-awareness from the left have gotten old, quickly.
But if Democrats continue to smear a majority of the electorate as stupid and racist, without a moment’s pause for self-reflection, it’s they who will pay the price, not conservatives.
The Make America Great Again train will go forward regardless. Godspeed.
Nicole Russell is an opinion columnist with USA TODAY. She lives in Texas with her four kids. Sign up for her newsletter, The Right Track, and get it delivered to your inbox.