The right used to smack down every expression of idealism. “That’s not how the world works,” “nobody will go for that,” and “you shouldn’t get ideas above your station,” were tools of abusive right-wingers to stop people who threatened to make the world a happier place despite them. The only acceptable idealisms were the right’s holy sanctimonies.

Then… they learned better! That shit stopped. The right started looking forward to a changing world with real energy.

Around that time the left started learning to treat idealism as a command. Every favorable sentiment was met with world-weary cynicism, outright rebuke, or histrionic spite. These tools were deployed against anyone who threatened to make the world a happier place despite them.

They were worse than the right, because even uttering their canned sanctimonies was not acceptable. Everyone was to know good was hopeless and only angry unhappy fearful people huddling in “safety” were tolerable.

That was the power that made Pizzagate sociologically inevitable. The far right is pathetic, but hostility to kindness doesn’t work either.