self-congratulatory

For decades, the powers that be have told a very specific narrative about us: triumphalist and trite, self-congratulatory and sappy, while staying far away from our difficult parts.

He describes them as something of an ideological insider's group that was in this self-congratulatory loop, of pushing policies and legal agendas and court decisions.

That self-congratulatory cinematic gesture almost feels insulting, when it’s the audience who deserves a reassuring pat on the back.

“Even the hard parts were all for the best,” she decides, and her voice leaps up — above double-time drums, swirling backup vocals and cavernous bass tones — as she realizes, “I must have loved you more than I ever knew,” at once self-congratulatory and unburdened.

In an open letter signed by more than 1,400 writers and members of the literary community, including Roxane Gay and Naomi Klein, the group called the organization’s response “silent, tepid, neither-here-nor-there, self-congratulatory middle of the road.”