Letter: Political left can’t accept that they lost

It's apparent from national and local events that the political left can't absorb the reality that it lost. Indeed, the results of the last four elections were unequivocal repudiations by the electorate of the left's political halitosis, made manifest in the ruinous nostrums of the Democratic Party. Their anguished reaction appears to exhibit the noted Kübler-Ross five stages of grief:

Denial: How could the boorish and contemptible Donald Trump possibly have defeated the sophisticated and urbane Hillary Clinton? There's some mistake, some miscount, some subterfuge. The Electoral College goofed. Boris and Natasha infiltrated the polling stations.

Anger: Tantrums and street riots. Windows smashed, cars burned. The Mad Marches, with profanity-laced speeches by shrill and grating celebrities.

Depression: Tears, sobs and wails. Retreats to campus comfort zones.

Bargaining: Trump is an illegitimate pretender; his long-promised executive actions violate Constitution and statute. (Actually, they don't). The legislative misdeeds of Republicans in Congress and statehouses are un-American, uncivil and probably unconstitutional. (They aren't.) The answer: destroy the Trump presidency - it worked on Richard Nixon. Filibuster the legislative bodies. Appeal to the metastasizing American jurocracy, employing crafty judge shopping to achieve desired outcomes: black-robed lawyers negating the democratically-expressed will of the people. Recent examples: a federal court's constitutionally-vacant order countermanding the president's lawful immigration proclamation, and now Iowa labor leaders announcing planned lawsuits to neuter our Legislature's long overdue reform of collective-bargaining law.

Acceptance: I'm still awaiting that one, but not holding my breath.

Dale Fitzgibbons

Cedar Rapids