Most of the time, when I report here on secular elitists, the only right tone is outrage. That’s fitting when those who are strong and spoiled kick down at the dogged and decent. But when godless self-righteous hysterics throw a futile hissy fit, then the only Christian thing to do is to sit back and throw peanuts. We all did that in the days after the election, as snowflakes who’ve burrowed into debt like hungry mole rats for B.A.s in cultural studies had a catastrophic meltdown, and were herded into playrooms with coloring books and crayons for group hug sessions and sing-ins.  

Now someone has topped that. No crying jag at Oberlin that ends with herb tea and Playdoh can top this blog post from Ned Resnikoff, an allegedly grown up writer at Think Progress and al Jazeera (!), who went online to explain to America his phobia of his plumber:

This afternoon, I had a plumber over to my apartment to fix a clogged drain. He was a perfectly nice guy and a consummate professional. But he was also a middle-aged white man with a southern accent who seemed unperturbed by this week’s news. And while I had him in the apartment, I couldn’t stop thinking about whether he had voted for Trump, whether he knew my last name is Jewish, and how that knowledge might change the interaction we were having inside my own home. I have no real reason to believe he was a Trump supporter or an anti-Semite but in my uncertainty I couldn’t shake the sense of potential danger. I was rattled for some time after he left.

I’m very privileged insofar as this sense of danger is unfamiliar to me. And I know I felt it much less acutely than a lot of other people right now. I’m still a straight, white guy who can phenotypically pass for gentile. Plus my first name is pretty WASP-y.

But today was a reminder that ambiguous social interactions now feel unsafe and unpredictable in a way that never did before. And even if Trump is gone in four years, I don’t expect to ever reclaim that feeling of security. That’s just one more thing you voted for, if you voted for him.

The Cashmere Hair-Shirts of Park Slope, Brooklyn

It is rare to see such twisted, self-torturing scruples outside James Joyce’s portraits of teenage sexual guilt in 1890s Ireland.

Really, how can a writer do justice to Resnikoff’s reflections? It’s almost like drowning a perfectly grilled piece of prime rib with heavy Bernaise sauce. But let me at least add a dash of salt and pepper.

It is rare, Ned, to see such twisted, self-torturing scruples outside James Joyce’s portraits of teenage sexual guilt in 1890s Ireland. But it’s not God you fear offending. If I might follow your example and deduce your world view from surface social cues, you’re not worried about Him. You surely don’t fear hell. And yet you police your inmost thoughts like an East German union meeting. Who exactly do you think is listening — Meryl Streep?

Perhaps you sound tortured with guilt because you started off your reflections by reacting with thinly veiled hatred (disguised as fear) for a stranger because of the way he talked, the color of his skin, and what he does for a living. When other people do that, you call that behavior “bigoted.” But here you are indulging it — not just in a private moment, which is natural enough, if far from optimal.

No, you’re sharing it with the world, and you clearly expect to be congratulated for it — in exactly the same way some alt-right hater would post his dyspeptic comments about black teenagers he’d run into down at Walmart, then spend the day reading the comments in his Spider Man pajamas.

And then, Ned, you make it even worse, when you switch gears from simple snobbery and tribalism into a frenzied dance of virtue-signaling, worthy of a worker bee whose wiring tells it how to point the way to the honey. You do not stop to consider whether you might be a bigot for assuming that the man who fixed the sink which you have no idea how to unplug hates you because you are Jewish — since he might have voted for a doggedly pro-Israel candidate with a Jewish daughter and grandchild.

No, instead, you clutch at your pearls and pretend to flagellate yourself because — while the sense of danger you indulged through the plumber’s visit was perfectly valid, of course — there are other groups of people less privileged than yourself, whom you imagine walk through the world in a permanent state of panic. You assume that all blacks, Latinos, Jews, and gays — millions of whom, by the way, did vote for Donald Trump — feel persecuted and terrified. No, Ned, that’s just you and your tiny circle of insufferable, overpaid friends.

What to Expect from Southerners

Now I will admit it: As a native New Yorker, when I hear a southern accent, I have my own set of expectations. I expect that the people I’m dealing with might well be grounded in some sane and functioning culture. I imagine that they’re more likely to believe that there is a God. I figure the odds are higher that they stay in touch with their grandparents, and have a deference for veterans. Whatever their social class or color, I expect that they will display a higher level of civility, and I make sure to offer that back. I try to restrain my New York City impatience with needless chit-chat and seemingly pointless delays, with time spent on pleasantries that humanize transactions. It isn’t always easy.

But I try, Ned, because I realize that not everyone on this earth is exactly the same as I am. And I’m okay with that. You clearly aren’t. You live in an organic vegan soap bubble where everyone, of every color and sexual deviation has exactly the same ideas, and is equally smug about them. You have pro-gay, pro-choice, pro-Muslim (don’t try to do the math here, people) friends of every ethnic background. Whatever their ancestors thought, whatever their skin color or accents, their souls have all been bleached as white as bones.