If there was a Scrooge dedicated to New Years, then he would be me. Not only do I feel somewhat sad about the passing of another year on our slow, monotonous march a much-needed return of our Lord and Savior, but the sentiment that goes with it — that we’re all starting over — has always felt like a lie we tell ourselves to feel hopeful for the future.

It sounds overly cynical to say, but on January 1, I’m going to wake up and keep doing what I’ve been doing now for a while. This isn’t the story for all of us, but it is for the vast majority of us.

Regardless of our personal lives, we as a species use the passage of time marked by our journey around Sol as markers to detail the beginning and end of a time period we collectively lived through. The year of 2018, to me at least, was a massive look at what happens when we all go to extremes, whether we chose to venture there ourselves, or were pushed there.

Better political commentators than I can tell you all about how ridiculous 2018 was from a bureaucratic perspective. Trump did this, Pelosi did that, Ted Cruz hit me with a wiffle ball bat. There’s plenty of good and bad to say about the goings on regarding the world of marbled halls, bad haircuts, pantsuits, and cringy platitudes.

But what really drew my attention was the way we, for lack of a better term, spent the vast majority of the year trying to “own” each other.

From what I can tell of the hard left’s bloviating, identity politics was supposed to rule the day with the introduction of Hillary Clinton’s presidency, but when they got Trump instead, something snapped. Instead of learning that America really isn’t into the idea of an Oppression Olympics and would rather be judged by the content of their character, rather than the color of their skin, the left decided to high-tail it further up its own tail.

The wound was only rubbed rawer as Trump, who embodies the phrase “it takes one to know one,” aimed for what Jon Stewart pointed out was their Achilles heel in the form of their own narcissism. No matter what, they couldn’t cause Trump to feel bad about anything, and continued to find themselves on the losing end of a media war they weren’t supposed to be in in the first place.

Now we have witch trials for NRA spokeswomen like Dana Loesch, and people like Don Lemon saying blatantly racist things on television to the applause of its own network.

The constant hyperventilating from the media had an effect on the populace too, as activist groups from the left sprang up with unbelievable speed, all with the message of resisting Orange Man, who we’re told is bad. Nevermind that Antifa is violent and fascistic itself, or that the Women’s March is lead by a group of unabashed antisemites. Trump, the right, and pretty much anyone who disagrees with them is the real threat. This creates unbridled racism, sexism, and bigotry we haven’t seen in the open since the ’60s, yet it’s excused because it’s directed at the right races, religions, and sexes.

It’s even more than just the hypocrisy is the hysterics that have seized the first world, however. The left has gone so far in its response to the world’s rejection of it that it has caused them to morph into something like children. The hard left has embraced the critical theory laced drug of social justice and as a result has ceased finding any joy in anything, as they’ve openly embraced the task of finding something wrong with everything in order to defend the world against this right-leaning ideological wave washing over the collective populace, be it the election of Trump or Brexit. They cling to identitarian beliefs that are clearly hurting themselves and others, and with the coddling of a complicit media are aghast to find that others don’t agree.

They classify themselves as victims and have meltdowns that either result in hysterical screaming…

…or lashing out at others with violence.

It would be a shame if everyone Retweeted this and exposed the identity of this tolerant leftist. 🤦‍♂️pic.twitter.com/Yn7qzbyNYI

— DR. ETIQUETTE 🤦‍♂️ (@DrEtiquette) October 3, 2018

The populace is so convinced that right-leaning anything is bad that groups of thinking members of the homo sapien species become unable to use their reason, and proceed straight to their Kindergarten selves. Do not pass “Go.”

This has also had something of an effect on the right as well. Too many either worship Trump as a sort of infallible god or find themselves defending his every move in an effort to not give their opponents a foothold in the collective war of ideologies. Trump can do no wrong because if Trump is wrong about one thing, the left will begin to think they can make him wrong about other things.

We call this “owning the libs,” which generated its own meme wherein members of the right point out how they own themselves or the principles they stand for in an attempt to justify anything Trump does with “owning the (insert person or group here) to own the libs.”  Needless to say, it’s not a good look.

Both extremes are extremely ridiculous but are extremely potent within our culture. Our mainstream media and activist groups deal in extremes, and our politicians are only too happy to cave to or lead the ideals they believe are prevalent in America. Where common sense on an issue may have prevailed even with the left a decade ago, the shifted galeforce winds of political change has swept politicians into ideals no sane person should have.

You can ask Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) about his 180-degree shift on illegal immigration. That’ll give you a solid idea of what I mean.

For me, at least, 2018 was what would happen if The Onion became very real news. I sometimes couldn’t tell the difference between a satirical story or a real one due to the fact that we’ve entered into an era of ideological absurdity, like 80’s fashion, but with ideas.

The Scrooge in me says 2019 will be worse. The pimple hasn’t popped yet, but I can at least hold out hope that in 2019 it will come to a head, and the public will finally engage in the war against social justice openly and proudly. This will likely be spurred on by the mainstream social media purging of any ideas that are right of center, and as I’ve said before, the sooner this war happens the better.

What I do think 2019 will give rise to is the presence of Gen Z, who has proven to be a counterculture in and of itself. They don’t seem to sign on to the social justice narrative Gen X and its Millennial offspring have had forced down their throats, at least for the most part.

Time will tell. Until then, we can only look back at 2018 as the year we all owned ourselves.