But that’s not all. Much to the consternation of the liberal justices plus Amy Coney Barrett (but maybe I repeat myself), all such lawfare was struck down, as the court announced that the only way in which the “insurrection” clause of the 14th amendment could be used was if Congress acted and passed a law barring a candidate from office. And given the current divided state of Congress, I think it’s safe to say that President Trump is not going to be barred from the ballot anytime soon.
The Left’s reaction, needless to say, has been hilarious. Keith Olbermann has already tweeted obscene reproaches of the liberal Justices. My sources tell me that White House staffers, particularly those close to First Lady Jill Biden, are engaged in paranoid speculation that Republicans must have blackmail material on those same Justices. The atmosphere on X after the decision can best be described as a combination of funereal and hysterical. Hell, even David French has gotten in on the act, claiming that the conservative justices somehow misread the 14th amendment. All of which is to say, I haven’t seen the Democrats immolate like this in at least seven days.
And speaking of the Democrats, let’s talk about the one with the biggest egg on her face: Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold. Griswold has already come out with a classic passive aggressive response, claiming she’s “disappointed” in the Supreme Court for not letting her strip an “oath-breaking insurrectionist” off the Colorado ballot. This is, coincidentally, the exact phrase which the liberal justices used to describe President Trump; I guess the talking points have gone out already. However, what interests me more than Griswold’s whining – though that is delicious to see – is what her failure before SCOTUS says about members of my generation, and the toxic style of politics which many increasingly embrace.
Perhaps we could call it liberalus millennius. The liberal millennial.
Let’s not mince words: Jena Griswold is a classic example of “millennial girlboss energy.” Like Taylor Lorenz, she is a childless, aging millennial liberal woman. Also like Taylor Lorenz, she is clearly a girl who grew up thinking she was Hermione Granger from Harry Potter: that is, a bookish, socially awkward warrior against injustice. Unfortunately, like most such aspiring Hermiones – including the actress who played her, Emma Watson – Jena Griswold has instead grown up into the schoolmarmish, sadistic bureaucrat Dolores Umbridge, complete with the warning to truthtellers (like President Trump) that they “must not tell lies” when it conflicts with the government narrative.
This schoolmarmish tendency also explains why her attempt to force Trump off the ballot felt less like the act of a grownup political figure, and more like the petulant attempt by some college-age snitch to get Donald Trump disqualified by snitching on him to the Dean’s Office. In short, it is a classic example of what sociologists Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning describe as “victimhood culture” in their 2018 book The Rise of Victimhood Culture. Manning and Campbell’s contention is that whereas civilizations had previously followed either honor cultures (which were hypersensitive to insult but promoted violent resolutions like dueling as the remedy), or dignity cultures (which promote resilience to insult and only resort to authority in cases of actual physical violence), Western society was falling prey to “victim culture.” Victim culture, in their telling, was a hybrid of honor and dignity culture, in which the sensitivity to insult associated with honor culture was resurrected, but was resolved not with duels and physical exchange, but rather by constantly complaining to the authorities about said insults. Put simply, it was an attempt to explain the rise of concepts like “microaggressions,” the demand for “safe spaces,” and similar trends which encouraged people to use their own hurt feelings as a weapon to silence perceived enemies or competitors not directly, but through bureaucracies which were designed to fix their discomfort for them.
That this kind of culture should arise among members of my generation is, sadly, not surprising. It has become common knowledge at this point that much of the fragility shown by members of the millennial generation comes from the existence of so-called “helicopter parenting,” IE overprotective parenting. One millennial has even admitted that she “felt abandoned” when her mother, a former helicopter parent, didn’t help her to raise her own children. In 2013, stories began to emerge of millennials taking their parents even to job interviews. Thanks to a combination of wage stagnation, falling rates of homeownership, and toxic Leftist ideology which venerates fragility, millennials have been stuck in a state of terminal adolescence until our mid and late 30’s. To be clear, the Global Financial Crisis plays a huge role in this, and millennials were not the cause of that. The fake Leftist “anti-bullying” campaigns of our teens and college years, whether those be “It Gets Better,” or any number of imitators, have infected our psyches and blinded us to the fact that the real bullies are precisely those who claim most loudly to be standing up for the “oppressed.” Anti-bullying campaigns stunt the development into adulthood of students and deny them the opportunity to understand how to face confrontation.
What does all this have to do with Jena Griswold? Well, in one of her responses, Griswold spits contemptuously that the voters are going to have to save “our Democracy” by defeating Trump. Beneath that contempt, there is obviously fear, because for the first time in her life, Jena Griswold has found a problem that she must fight alone. Do not underestimate what a shock this must be for her: Jena Griswold comes from a slice of the millennial demographic – privileged white women -- who have particularly never had to solve their own problems. There has always been someone: some parent, some administrator, some adult who was willing to heed the tears of those like Jena Griswold, rather than making her brave her problems alone. Is it any surprise that someone like this thought that the only way she could respond to Trump’s so-far successful campaign to return to the White House was to proverbially tell her mom on him? The same way, by the way, that she has aided in the attempt to use the law to silence people like Mike Lindell for daring to question whether she and her fellow leftist hacks are conducting America’s elections in a truly democratic way. Only a millennial would think this could work. And then, the horror, she did not get her way!
And you know what? Even in Trump’s case, it almost did work. At least one lower court agreed to act as Jena Griswold’s metaphorical mommy and kept Trump off the ballot, quoting from the fake J6 committee. But SCOTUS, Amy Coney Barrett notwithstanding, do not see themselves as America’s mommies and daddies.
SCOTUS is charged with protecting the Constitution, not the feelings of a bunch of spoiled snitches. Which is why, when Jena Griswold’s legal team came before them, the questioning was some of the most brutal in recent memory, with every single Justice taking the opportunity to shoot holes in Colorado’s clumsy argumentation. And, of course, now, every single Justice has ruled against them, and thanks to 5 of those Justices, not only is Jena Griswold’s attempt to stop the horror of letting the voters vote dead, but all future such lawfare attempts are doomed, as well. Jena Griswold is aghast at the prospect that people could be allowed to vote for Trump, because aging millennials like her have never faced a conflict they couldn’t avoid by claiming a stronger rival was somehow too “problematic” or “hurtful” to be allowed to compete against them. Her “lived experience” as part of a privileged, protected class (and yes, Leftists, contrary to what you think, affluent, white, female liberals are a protected class) blinded her so completely to what she was doing that now she has inadvertently cemented President Trump’s ability to challenge not just her, but President Biden himself, to do something that they are too cowardly and fanatical to do: to face a fair fight and go, straight up, twelve rounds, one on one.
Which is why Jena Griswold is not just a figure of fun; she is a cautionary tale to millennials of all stripes: you cannot win by criminalizing competition. You cannot rig culture, and politics, and law, and every institution against anyone who hurts your feelings forever. There is no Dean of Students you can cry to in the real world, with the possible exception of Almighty God. And in the fight between the defenders of strength, beauty, and intelligence, and the childless girlboss hall monitors, I have every confidence that God is on our side.
