My erstwhile colleague Ben Dreyfuss writes that we liberals should ease up on the guilt trips:
One easy thing that liberals could do to make it easier for democrats to win in red and purple states (thus furthering liberal goals) would be to stop moralizing to people about how their personal consumer choices are bad.
— Ben Dreyfuss (@bendreyfuss) March 6, 2021
This prompted one person to ask, "Like which ones?" My snarky response is, "Would you like the list alphabetically or by subject area?" but I suppose something more serious is called for. Here's a list off the top of my head:
- Football games (concussion factories run by greedy billionaires)
- SUVs (gas guzzlers, bad for planet)
- "Aladdin" (problematic Arab stereotypes)
- Straws (plastic)
- Fiji water (not as green as they claim)
- Facebook (spreads right-wing disinformation)
- Chick-fil-A (COO opposed same-sex marriage)
- Amazon (treats workers poorly)
- Almonds (crops use a ton of water)
- Meat (uses lots of resources per gram of protein)
- Chicken (factory farmed)
- Fur coats (kills cute little mammals)
- Air travel (emits lots of CO2)
- American Dirt (novel about Mexican migrants written by a white person)
- Guns (duh)
- Barbie (promotes unattainable ideal of female beauty)
- If I Ran the Zoo (racist imagery)
- Etc.
None of these things are unavailable or even shunned by most liberals. But they're all things that liberals of one stripe or another have criticized at one time or another. This is frequently done with excellent cause, but there's no question that it also turns off a lot of people. It's just one of the prices we pay for trying to do the right thing.
The only dealbreakers for me are SUV, Chik*fil*a**, & almonds, with approval of If I Owned the Zoo as is a dubious opinion.
**More that is not tasty at all, than that Dan Cathey is the Mike Lindell of Poultry.
Maybe there is a grain of truth in that, but it's not that it's conservatives' taste in garbage consumer goods that's really the issue, it's that their taste for garbage extends to forcing garbage on everyone else and they're offended liberals don't share their 'values', which include a deep, deep love of trivial convenience and self-satisfaction and psychopathically aggressive defenses of any wrong thing.
If conservatives could bring up one thing they've been demonstrably right about and stick to that and that alone we might be able to agree and build on that, but that seems like the last thing they'll ever do, and I can't think of anything they could propose to be proud of.
Political conservatism is about keeping corruption legal and any perverseness in service of that is some kind of virtue.
QAnoners gotta have their almond milk.
F*ggots.
You misspelled fidgets.
Flibbertigibbett.
Loud bragging about your own actual accomplishment, loud pointing at the corruption and failure of your opponent. The Covid relief bill contains a lot of things that will help a lot of people, Democrats can brag about every part of it, Republicans are universally opposed to every part of it. This is where to start. Republicans are universally opposed to anything that isn't tax cuts for billionaires and killing people, that's the only thing anyone needs to hear about them.
Treat a conservative politician like you're stomping on a wounded fly, that's what will appeal to a conservative audience.
I don't know any actual liberals who complain about these things. Twitter performers, on the other hand...
Indeedily do.
I was recently tipped to the Qish, MRA-adjacent, White Economic Anxiety amplified grievance of castout from the Deadspin/Defector/Ex-Gawker Wokeness Cult Xmasape Michael Tunison, & he has many of the same underachieving &/or under-remunerated gripes about "end-stage capitalism" as his former KissingSuzyKolber colleague Big Daddy Balls Drew Magary. I found myself in agreement more with the Ape than the Balls, too, though ultimately in disagreement with both. & I also realized, however much each might feel aggrieved diametrically, in the end, there #OurRevolution incubated anger would have them nodding their heads, if ever they were willing to break bread together again.
I think, ultimately, the folly in Twitter grievance culture is that even when it's the same grievance, individual experience leaves two or more similarly aggrieved parties at loggerheads. & in the case of ex-KSK mates Christmas Simian & Father with Oversized Testicles, it comes down to class, the latter a son of privilege & trustfunds & matriculant at prep school & elite private college, while the former is an alumnus of a state school.
#OurRevolution has it right that the war in American life is class, not identity based, but it is most that within the side trying hardest to flatten the class divide. (Allegedly.)
Seems to me more a matter of them attacking us for our positions (& our rights) than our constantly berating them for their views & choices. They may act defensive or even aggressive about our stands simply due to being aware of them, especially through legislative & court issues - not because most of us go about "propagandizing" on a daily basis.
Frankly, I no longer have even anti-death penalty bumper stickers on my car or wear a "Nevertheless she persisted" shirt due to being verbally attacked in public here, once by someone waiting in the dark.
I certainly have never interfered in others' choices - I have limited myself, like many liberals I have known, to writing letters & emails to political representatives, officials, & to in-person lobbying at our state legislature, as well as offering campaign literature at my polling place.
People on the far right like to stir things up & indulge in name-calling more than most liberals I know, but obviously some on the left are prone to that kind of activity, too.
If one of those issues comes up, I will still give my opinion if the other party appears to want a good-faith discussion - but have found that's not likely here. Have to settle for feeling lucky that more people here are wearing masks after a year & more than 500,000 deaths - far too many in this county.
Knowing liberal opinions conservatives will just spontaneously infer that you hate them --and hate them for these trivial issues like nascar --and stick to that so they never have to think about it.
But I don't hate NASCAR, they saw the light. What I hate is NASCAR fans who now hate NASCAR because they surrendered to the politically correct brigade.
NASCAR is terrible. As is all non-road-course racing.
Would help move to a universal electric series; though.
If not nascar then they're confident you hate them for the kind of hamburger they like or the music they listen to how they barbecue in the backyard, anything will do. If you're going to win them over you have to give them someone to hate and liberals will never want to do that so, to them, they're obviously not even trying, which seems contemptuous, so the people liberals hate is clearly them.
But they also hate me for NOT liking NASCAR and for the kind of hamburger I like and the kind of music I listen to. So what?
In some cases, it’s just the old criticism that liberals want perfection all at once instead of accepting small bits of progress here and other small bits there. Point out problems and push for improvements (better helmets and rules protecting nfl players, better nfl-funded care for players who were injured playing ball but didn’t get rich, etc) but don’t push to the point that you lose potential allies (this is of course true on many issues).
On the other hand, significant progress is made in some areas only because of the liberals’ push over many years. One example off the top of my head: I’m sure you’ve heard by now that some automakers plan to make only electric cars within a few years. The people behind this are probably not “liberal” and there’s no way this is happening without years of advocacy by liberals. It just wouldn’t. But it sure as heck didn’t happen all at once.
So don’t buy from Amazon if it can be avoided, don’t buy from chick fil A, replace or remove the racist images from kid books but don’t ban the books. Let people know what you are doing and why and let them make their own choices. And don’t be obnoxious about it. Dont expect perfection. (You get my almond joy and Hershey bars with almonds out of my cold dead hands.)
Exactly right.
Incrementalism is actually a greater enemy to the fleftist movement than conservative societal & cultural stasis.
In the end, Neoliberal scoundrels like me are fighting a two front war (three front war) against Falangists who want no change to the social order (other than to backdate it to the pre-war years) & fauxgressives who claim they want equity but either have no plan to approach it (the poor & workingclass frauxgs) or could not care less if we ever do (the trustifarian fleft that, actually, does better with the status quo).
Wow, right and left join! I stopped buying from Amazon since they started censoring books. (Books I can buy from Barnes and Noble; everything else you can find with google and buy from the manufacturer or Wal-Mart.)
Nobody is banning any books. The publishers of Dr. Seuss books have decided to stop printing a few of them. Publishers stop printing books every day; why is this decision to stop publishing books getting so much comment?
The decision began with external pressure on Seuss Enterprises to stop publishing. It started with an academic paper that also found The Cat in the Hat and The Sneetches offensive, then gained traction with the SPLC and a librarian who dragged Melania Trump for donating Seuss books.
Chicago libraries removed the books from circulation, and schools are walking back any mention of Seuss.
...there's no question that it also turns off a lot of people.
And dwacious doodness we wouldn't want to hurt anyone's delicate fee-fees, especially not, say, greedy sociopathic polluters or righteous Real American™ bigots, just for silly notions like wanting air to be safe to breathe and water safe to drink, or that people should not be treated differently -- and children should not see them treated differently -- based on things like skin color or religion or national origin or sexual orientation.
I am seriously tired of "conservatives" whining about what >victims they are, and how awful those nagging libruls are to them, most especially after hearing and seeing their support -- past and continued -- for The Former Guy.
To borrow one of their favorite slogans, "fk your feelings."
I call conservatives's feelings Riley Reid.
Okay, googled, she's a porn actress. I don't get it.
Far be it for me to interpret ol' Clippy's always-challenging references, but perhaps: their feelings are about as genuine as her on-screen orgasms?
This is a regular feature of Kevin's blogging and, sorry man, this is like the War on Christmas. Right wing bullshit.
Like haddockbranzini, above, I don't know any liberals who moralize about any of those things except the guns. And sorry, right wing ammo-sexuals, we're not going to stop shaming and mocking your gun fetish.
Kevin, you won't get what liberals say, think, or do from a right-winger. They make shit up. Just yesterday, in re the Sinema vote on minimum wage, someone in my twitter feed said, "And liberals claim that all LGBTQ are progressives." What liberals? He didn't say.
I mean, as opposed to conservatives lecturing me about whom I sleep with, what I may be teaching kids, about disrespecting the flag, about disrespecting "real americans", about failure to be reverent of (some versions of) history, about...
This is easy to summarize: political positions are characterized by there being multiple opinions of certain things. This means I may annoy you when rambling about Walmart, and you may annoy me when you call me a baby killer.
The end.
Was that so hard?
"This is frequently done with excellent cause, but there's no question that it also turns off a lot of people."
If the cause is excellent (and I agree that it is) then perhaps the problem is not with the people espousing it. Wrong choices have led to existential threats to the biosphere in a surprisingly short time. Perhaps we should have paid more attention and turned off a lot more people earlier.
How hard would it be to put together a list like this of things conservatives disapprove of? All you have to do is listen to Donald Trump talk for 5 minutes. It's one grievance after another.
* The NFL, for "allowing" players to kneel during the anthem (and for having too many rules to protect players for injury)
* All the mainstream news media for being critical of Trump
* Hollywood in general for drinking the blood of children (this is no more of a fringe issue to the right than many of the things KD listed)
* Disney World, for allowing homosexuals into the park apparently
* Windmills for supposedly causing the Texas blackouts (they didn't) and killing birds (they do but so does every single other human structure and activity)
* And you don't have to be that old to remember when they cancelled the Dixie Chicks (and France and a lot of other stuff) for not supporting the Iraq war enthusiastically enough.
So no. "Liberals" are not doing crap. Some people don't like some things and talk about it. Some people think some things are problematic and try to do something about it. Oh what a world! Pity the poor conservatives for living in a free country where people are allowed to express ideas.
I'm an atheist vegetarian. Do you think I don't feel judged by others on a daily basis? And I'm a white male so I'm lucky. What about the non-heteronormative and people of color? Oh cry me a river oh ye poor put upon conservatives.
Who cares about state sanctioned marriage in general??? Abolish it and learn to stop obsessive materialism. Homosexuality and Capitalism are like blood brothers.
Well, technically the institution of marriage is civil, and the main reason for it is material -- it's basically about property and a few other more recent things like immunity from testimony. Formal religious sanction and celebration is as much about legal recognition as anything else, dogma notwithstanding (thus, eg, the "if anyone present knows any reason..." bit).
An awful lot of legal conventions are evolved from necessity or to avoid conflict, and marriage is certainly one of those.
I'm so old that I remember when replacing incandescent light bulbs with LEDs was a major conservative outrage.
Actually, the issue was replacing incandescents with fluorescents, which was an outrage.
What most people don't realize is, the "conservatives" thought it said "outage," and they just hate it when the power goes off.
The Lightbulb Freedom Act turns fifteen next year.
How are we celebrating?
I hope you’re watching the HBO Woody vs Mia documentary if you really want to see how far from “due process” some elements of the “feminist” left(?) can get.
I hate when liberals and of course liberal shamers bring up air travel. 2% that is what it contributes to CO2 emissions and unlike the say trillions of gallons of water we keep heated in tanks there is no alternative it jet travel. Just stop with the air travel.
Liberal: X is really bad for our country. The government should do something.
Conservative: You liberals always want the nanny state government to fix things. Why not make your case and let the people decide?
Liberal: OK, here are 57 reasons why X is bad and people should stop it.
Conservative: You annoy me.
And, the people already have decided,
Republican Senators Haven’t Represented a Majority of Voters Since 1996,
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/02/gop-senators-havent-represented-a-majority-since-1996.html