"The Pieties of the Liberal Class," wherein Democrats decry Trump's policy actions even as they hide their own like deeds.

To me, this sentence summarizes my experiences with the hallowed American two-party system.

"We could only take leaders at their word if they opposed a policy not only when the enemy was implementing it, but when their own side was implementing the same policy."

Hence another timely reminder that condemning Republicans for what Democrats do themselves fails to resonate, whether nationally or down the street, up on the third floor.

The Pieties of the Liberal Class, by Jason Hirthler (CounterPunch)

 ... In his excellent polemic, Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, Vladimir Lenin wrote that we could only take leaders at their word if they opposed a policy not only when the enemy was implementing it, but when their own side was implementing the same policy. On this score, all the Obama liberals fail the test, as do the equally haughty conservatives. Their fake outrage, their pious contempt, and their theatrical astonishment are forms of political posturing and, as the conservatives themselves say, “virtue signaling”. Power evidently corrupts us so thoroughly that when we gain power, our singular value becomes retaining power. We are often principled until our principles confront the opportunity to increase our power. Then they are deprioritized. How does an electoral system that votes on federal seats just twice a decade militate against this human frailty, a moral infirmity we all share?

As Chris Hedges remarks, we still have the “iconography and language” of democracy, but we are made to “kneel before the dictates of the marketplace” and “structure our society around the primacy of profit.” We are left with an institutional “facade.” Which is why it is so proper to treat with derision the reeling hysteria of politicians who claim, in comical hand-wringing interviews, that “our democracy” is under attack. Why it is so perfectly appropriate to mock the mastheads of our major newspapers, which admonish us that, “Democracy Dies In Darkness,” as though the Washington Post, owned by a CIA contractor and the richest man on earth, is some kind of bulwark against corporate fascism. It is the very vanguard of corporate fascism. It is not a barricade being manned by scruffy journalists firing lead at would-be usurpers. What a farcical notion, yet one embraced by the liberal class, who fail to see the corruption of their party as a summons to revolution.

This human capacity for self-delusion may be the final nail in the coffin of our species.