Amanda Marcotte wants liberals to stop being such downers:
Progressives in the past couple of years haven't been doing ourselves many favors. The dominant discourse is so often focused on suffering and surviving, without any talk about happiness and thriving as a counterbalance.
....The recent kerfuffle over Spotify is a good example....The action feels more about performing self-sacrifice, proving liberal bona fides by showing off the small indulgences you'll give up. That garners likes and retweets, but as political action, it's likely to backfire. It will be used as confirming evidence that liberals are fun-hating scolds — which makes it easier for Rogan and his allies to recruit more young people to the right.
I'm far from the only one who has noticed. On "Pod Save America" this week, host Jon Lovett complained about the "grim and joyless aspect" of progressive politics and warns "nobody wants to become part of a sour and sanctimonious movement." It's not a popular message, but it's uncomfortably true.
Why yes! I don't necessarily agree with everything Amanda says after this, so please take up any issues you have directly with her. But her diagnosis is spot on.
Nor is it just the past two years, as she suggests. This has been going on for quite a while. Liberals are the party of:
- Don't watch the NFL. It's a racist concussion machine.
- Don't drive SUVs. They are destroying the planet.
- Nobody is "illegal." We should welcome hardworking folks from south of the border. Unless you're a racist, that is.
- Don't eat meat. It's all factory farmed and contributes to global warming.
- Suburbs are bad. We should fill them up with high rises.
- Watch your speech. You should talk the way young, college educated people do.
- The economy is terrible. Have you seen the latest news about what our heartless policies are doing to poor people?
- You aren't vaccinated? Obviously you're a selfish prick who doesn't care about your fellow human beings.
- The military? Why would anyone join the military?
- Everyone is racist. We should all gladly take diversity training courses to prove this to ourselves.
- Walmart is horrible. You shouldn't shop there because they're viciously anti-union.
- Amazon too.
I could go on, but you get the idea. Any of these things could be great if they were part of a passionate, upbeat crusade, but they aren't, really. They're mostly framed as scolding, and who the hell feels uplifted by a party of scolds?
I'm to the left of roughly 90% of all Americans, and even I get kind of tired of this stuff. There's just got to be a way for liberals to keep their principles but sell them more in an evangelistic tone and less in a hectoring one.
I do agree with a lot of this. It doesn't bother me too much because I tune out a lot of the minutiae, but I understand how irritating it can be. I'd rather see liberals/progressives/the left as well as everyone else be more positive in general.
I will say that I do support avoiding the term "illegals". It's dehumanizing, and I don't think that helps the debate over immigration.
As to the vaccine, it's been almost two years of the pandemic, and we've had to deal with a lot of crap. I think people are understandably cranky at this point. It's not always helpful, but people are human.
But not everything has to be a cause. The world is full of many things that could be better but we don't have to obsess over every one. Enjoy your NFL or whatever. Just make sure to support the players.
I also agree with Kevin
Small disagreement on the illegal term: I think it’s different when someone says “illegal immigrant” vs “illegal” as a noun. Sort of similar to the difference between “he is black” and “he is a black”. It’s certainly not the hill I die on, but calling it “undocumented immigration” is a bit too close to doublespeak for me. Calling someone an “illegal” is certainly distasteful and dehumanizing, but an “illegal immigrant” is not so bad
Again, not the hill I die on, but it’s like the Latinx thing: inventing a solution to a problem that does not wholly exist. The language policing stuff misses the point for me anyways, it’s why we have had like 5 successive terms for those with disabilities in the past 30 years. Anything you use as a label will become a slur if the widespread sentiment towards the group remains negative. Language won’t fix that
I agree, "illegal immigrants" and "illegal aliens" are less objectionable than "illegals" and I don't mind them too much, but I also think widespread use of the former leads to more use of the latter. Though to be fair, people are always going to find a slur to denigrate those they hate.
You're grasping at straws here man. Now do a list of conservative performative grievances.
You can start with Dr. Suess . Or maybe M & Ms?
"...our Country is going to hell!"
Uplifting? Not by a long shot. Hectoring? Well yeah. Grim and joyless? Damn right.
I don't know about you but I'm getting a little tired of the scolding comments from the former president.
https://twitter.com/DrJCottrell/status/1489983709369540611
I don’t think those things make people joyless. I rather enjoy heaping scorn and ridicule on the damn fools in the US military. No one cares where I shop or where I live or what kind of car I drive. I suppose this is referring to some very online twitter people who have a huge audience. I have no idea what those folks are like in real life. Maybe they are joyless. In my real life, I am a perfectly wonderful happy content guy.
And I enjoying thinking military people are freaks and murderers. 😂 see. Happy!
In your hatred of the military, you and Trump have a lot in common. Though he doesn’t think they are “freaks and murderers”, he sees them as suckers and losers. But they love him so maybe heaping scorn on them works and you might have a career as a Republican politician waiting for you.
Being against violence and destruction wouldn’t endear me to the republicans any more than it does for you.
Your hands smell like your own poo. Nobody cares what you think, freak.
Exactly! Why would anyone care what I think about the military or Walmart? These silly things get amplified by twitter and then bloggers and pundits comment endlessly which, I agree, is tedious.
Unfortunately, "they love him" because many white supremacists have joined the military to gain weapons experience that can be used in militias later.
I am hardly antimilitary - my father having served in the PTO & ETO, translated for his unit in Germany, returned to be director of a state veterans' commission, then director of rehab for the VFW before being eulogized in the Congressional Record by Dole & Cranston.
But we heeded Eisenhower's prescient warning & our military has only become worse in many respects. This is not to disparage all who serve, but to be aware of the reasons that our troops might support a service evader like trump - worse than Clinton & other draft evaders IMO.
Now this is joyless. And stupid. I keep asking myself how democrats managed to turn this into another distraction. Who does that? Who cares about some obscure persons tweet?
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/04/opinion/supreme-court-georgetown-twitter.html
I don’t care who Biden picks for the court, but to have that question turned into a circus by media and tweeters is really quite silly.
progressives should be for legalization of recreational pot. Getting a buzz is fun. Besides, legalization would include taxes, use tax money for whatever causes.
Worked out so well in driving turnout in Virginia.
I'm to the left of roughly 90% of all Americans, and even I get kind of tired of this stuff.
Ditto. And Lefty Twitter, while entertaining (and often quite fun for lefties like me) is a shit show of epic proportions.
Re: the Joe Rogan thing: I'm a dedicated Spotify user. It's a Godsend for people living abroad. Your tunes are always with you. There are zillions of free, high quality podcasts, and it's not censored by Uncle Xi.
I was initially doing some fist-pumping when Neil Young and Joni Mitchell demanded to have their content dropped. And then upon further reflection I thought: oh gimme a break. It won't make a bit of difference if Spotify dropped Rogan: If vaccidiots don't have enough evidence by now to get jabbed, does anybody really think a the firing of a podcaster will have any effect? Seriously?
(Apparently Spotify did end up tightening their misinformation rules and they got Rogan to issue a semi-apology and a promise to do better. So, some good was done! But no way was I going to cancel my sub for, erm, approximately nothing).
If it hadn't been for this incident I would never have found out they pay Joe Rogan $100,000,000.
Now that's the scandal.
It's a multi-year contract, but, yeah, that's crazy money for such a dreary bore.
Also, where there's light there's hope: apparently multiple example of Rogan's using the N-Word have been exposed (OF COURSE he's used the N-word), so, who knows, maybe Spotify will yet be forced to fire him...
Kevin Drum is in the 89th percentile of liberals?
Laughable, man.
It took me 5 minutes to cancel Spotify and switch to Tidal at the same price.
When the real "cancel culture" wave started picking up on campuses, and I heard a lot of sub-reporting-level anecdotes from academic friends, I was kinda of baffled. The purpose of college is to try to be cool--being a narc/scold is the least cool thing to do.
Policy-agnostic people are not going to gravitate to part of busybodies. By some measure hispanics are in the process of a mass shift to the GOP, and it's not because of a policy shift.
Cubans /= All Spanics
There's just got to be a way for liberals to keep their principles but sell them more in an evangelistic tone and less in a hectoring one.
Maybe. But for a lot of liberals, especially for those not directly involved with contesting elections (in other words the vast majority), it's pretty clear that feeling and projecting moral superiority is vastly more satisfying that winning power and enacting policy.
When they do win power they are told not to use it for fear of losing it.
The "play nice" double standard. Denocrats can wield power without becoming trump or McConnell.
Worse yet, they believe it.
Leftists are hectoring?
Golly gee, then just WTF are the rightwing lunatics, or must we politely refer to them as conservatives or the party of Lincoln, as Liz Cheney does?
They are not only supporters of everything crazy, but are incredibly rude & given to threats, intimidation, & even physical attacks - on ordinary citizens, teachers, & our state & federal legislators.
Isn't this carrying the "both sides do it" too far? It is confounding to hear how we are guilty of sounding too negative, in the wake of outright insurrection & defiance of our Constitution.
👍🏼
Yea, it really is exhausting. I agree, there are plenty of pretty annoying lefties, but Jesus, the idea that the right wing lunatics are always the “default” that everyone will be driven to if we’re not perfect is nuts.
Apparently the 13 year old arsonists will always be cooler than their desperate parents.
Yes, indeed, I love Mr. Drum's willingness to share his Jabberwocking with us at no charge, but I'll be darned (trying to revert to my Middle Western language limitations, but I can blame THEIR atrocious words & deeds on us.
So if I seem overly cranky today, I'm old, tired, in pain, & therefore too "get up."
"het up"
Shoot "can't blame"
+1,000
Some of it is legitimately the brand, and we should wear it rather than trying to pretend it's not true.
Consider: what makes someone a good person?
A big part of it is that when a good person sees something wrong (however that is defined), he or she will feel a compulsion to do it. And whenever they are tempted to do something wrong, they will feel a compulsion not to do it anyway.
So either you decide that underage women engaging in prostitution in one way or another is wrong, and you look for what you can reasonably do to stop it, or you decide that you like girl-ish looking women and you figure out how you can go right up to the edge of the law with Venmo and with a wingman you can blame for everything, and how you can evade the law as conditions demand it.
Yes, that's right: Matt Gaetz had fun in ways that good people would never allow themselves to do.
So being a good person is largely a burden that you place on yourself; no, it isn't fun: it precludes you from doing a lot of things that might be awfully fun for you, and it gives you worries about what you might do to make things better in the world, worries that people who are not good don't have.
And you don't have to be a good person: you could be a selfish person, concerned only with your own happiness and well-being, and any laws that intrude upon that are nuisances that maybe you have to abide by ... but won't if you can get away with it.
So being a good person -- which progressives should strive to be -- isn't fun.
As to "scolding" people, some people are generally good, and if you point out to them that something they are doing is wrong, maybe they'll stop doing it and appreciate that you mentioned the matter to them.
Some people are not good, and "scolding" them does no good; at most you can demand that they obey the law ... which is society's verdict on what a minimally acceptable level of being "good" is.
And maybe "scolding" takes the form of trying to raise the standards of the law: maybe Walmart should have to pay its employees more; maybe there should be stricter laws about what corporations can do to discourage unionization. Maybe retail outlets should be forbidden to discriminate against homosexuals in the same way that they're forbidden to discriminate against people according to race.
And in that case, are you still being un-fun? I mean, if someone doesn't want to bake a cake for a gay wedding, aren't you making their job unpleasant when you tell them they have to whether they want to or not?
While the consideration in "scolding" ultimately should be whether it brings about a positive change or not, at the same time we coddle a lot of rotten people and they feel justified in complaining that we're intruding on their fun by "scolding" them about the wicked things they do.
As usual, the solution is that we just need better people in the world.
'Virtue is not a coin you can put into a machine for a reward.'
Thank you; I am tired of people who get their "fun" at other people's expense.
This statement of yours makes no sense, and is not supported by the current state of psychology either:
"A big part of it is that when a good person sees something wrong (however that is defined), he or she will feel a compulsion to do it. And whenever they are tempted to do something wrong, they will feel a compulsion not to do it anyway."
When a good person sees something wrong, they strive to correct it, or at the very least to condemn it, not feel a desire to emulate it.
Of course, "good" people is subjective and interpretive. My interpretation is along the lines of the Golden Rule, updated for the civil liberties age: respect other's rights, help those in need (where possible), and mean no harm.
If you want "grim and joyless" watch Fox News for half an hour: black people are committing voter fraud by the hundreds of thousands; socialists are taking away your healthcare; school children are being indoctribated by Black Lives Matter; the government is trying to poison you with vaccines; marks are taking away your freedom....
Which suggests two possibilities: (1) this is what political parties do -- they promise to make things better and they point out the ways in which the other party makes things worse; or (2) being grtim and joyless is the key to success and the right is just better at scaring people and making them miserable than we are.
"masks" not marks.
Yeah but you can always legitimately go out and beat on some police with a flagpole to express your joy. So there's that.
Ya, they're definitely building up a hellscape designed to trigger folks into negative reactions (but they hope unifying amongst the negatives).
I can see this. But liberals are definitely not the anti-meat party.
Not only am I a liberal, but a vegetarian who has been hectored - even "informed" by people that vegetarians eat fish when there was no plant option on the menu.
While I believe in many of the goals that Kevin Drum lists, I know that trying to proselytize, especially where I am now, is not a worthwhile or even safe pursuit. Just wearing the wrong t-shirt (not a crude or negative one) can elicit the worst behavior from a stranger.
So I really don't think that most of us are out there making a point of harassing or hectoring people. But there are those who resent ANY public demonstration about injustices, however peaceful, & they will make such accusations - just as we - the supposed snowflakes- must avoid any & all subjects that might not be appreciated when teaching history. God knows my sociology professor would be out of a job.
Just a reminder: while we all want to enjoy & share happy moments, we cannot ignore the dangers facing us. That's why, however much we get satisfaction from destroying MTG or Boebert on Twitter, we still must take the danger which they represent seriously.
https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/2019/03/ferlinghetti-pity-the-nation-whose-people-are-sheep.html
But … Anytime we make a hopeful forward-looking suggestion like “Imagine if we had free college education for anyone who wants to improve themselves” or “Imagine if we had national healthcare like every other civilized country so no one would go bankrupt and everyone would be free to pursue their dream career without fear of losing insurance” we get smacked down by centrists and establishment Democrats. What else are we supposed to do?
I live in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, right on the edge of liberal central Park Slope. Been here 15+ years. About 80% of the folks around me believe about 20% of this stuff... Mostly the stuff about Wal-Mart, Amazon killing small businesses, and signs about "no one being illegal"... The vax stuff is also fairly strong, but we're all packed in pretty tight around here.
But otherwise, that's about it. The rest is liberal self-hating and the internalization of right-wing memes. I wasn't aware that everyone was a racist or what I'm supposed to hate the military. I literally just planned our Super Bowl Party which will feature both meat and non-meat options, and include veterans of the military amongst our guests. We drive a mini-SUV and are contemplating moving to the burbs, but we're torn b/c Brooklyn has been great for a long time.
So the plan is for Dems to fight being perceived as dour and sullen by blowing dour and sullen shit out of proportion, is that right? Geniuses... No wonder we can't get any-effing-thing done... Keep beating yourselves up and wasting time over nonsense... Brilliant.
The gist of this seems to be that now it's not the fault of Fox, nor Facebook/meta, or the rightwing evangelical churches, but our fault- what changed? And if I never again say one word to offend the closet racists I could no longer be friends with after 2015, will they suddenly become nicer eople?
The problem I have with a lot of fellow liberals is their propensity for hand wringing. “Oh no! They don’t like us. What did we do wrong?”
To me, Kevin and the linked article is the same attitude that gets NewYork Times reporters to go to Midwest diners to find the “real” America. Apparently we should all have fun “rolling coal” and living in a fantasy land where slavery wasn’t such a bad thing and vaccines and masks are Bill Gates and the government trying to control us. And if a football player gets a concussion he should just tough it out and continue playing like they did in the good old days.
The Left’s excesses are nothing compared to the Right. It’s the difference between annoying and dangerous.
Yes, I'm in a place where Virginians have assured me that the enslaved people were treated well & were happy (they sang as they tooled, don't you know), where two people invited me to live in Richmond, presumably because I was white, presentable, looked of childbearing age! Have gone there only to lobby legislators on liberal issues. One Advocacy Day, an NRA member whined too me -
Cannot cotrectt "too" to "to" & finish with my cat for active company!
NRA member complained bitterly about the Hokie parents "exploiting" the murder of their children - it's a topsy-turvy world here, & one to which I cannot simply adjust.
I keep wondering how the conspiracy fanatics get this way & if they really believe such things - or if there's a physical reason common to them all, something like Kevin's explanation of lead exposure & crime rates.
It really isn't rewarding to engage in the discussions that some insist we need; the other silos are unsafe.
I'll grant you that El Jefe Maximo de Maralago is a JewYorkCity liberal cat's paw of Bill Climpton & KKKlay Travis was an algore2000 campaign volunteer, but they are GQP mouthpieces now & they led the anti-NFL charge of late ("go woke, go broke"). Likewise, El Jefe prolly hates the US military more than Allen Ginsburg's mystic guru.
So, presuming that this is a "nobody wants to be scolded so of course some people will become Republican instead" kind of thing...
It's not like Republicans don't scold people. So I'm not really sure how *this* is what's making the difference.
Should go back to looking at fear as the motivating factor. That seems far more salient.
Climate change doesn't give a shit about anyone's feelings.
I agree with Kevin for the most part. Progressives who hang out with our own kind just don't see it, but man is it ever there. What matters to me is counting votes. If liberals (or progressives or whatever the right word is) can't win elections, none of this matters. That doesn't mean "move to the center" but just figure out what the cultural tics are that turn a lot of people off.
For the record, I LOVE NFL football -- I hate the hype and the right-wing, pseudo-military media vibe, but I love the game, which has incredible depth and nuance combined with incredible strength, agility, skill, toughness, AND strategy.
Re:NFL football.
That's about what Normal Mailer wrote, regarding boxing. Just an interesting coincidence, I guess. (On Jan 31, he would have been 99 yo)
What people really want is to become part of an angry, violent, totally unleashed movement. Instead of "guilt", they go for hatred. Everybody not them is BAD. "Freedom" is gross irresponsibility. It means you never have to say "sorry." And you have an unconditional Constitutional right to blow away anybody who makes you feel angry or frightened.
When the majority of people think that way, the US is (almost) done for. We can't have the Dems following that path, too.
You're right - they're not only guilt-free but lacking in empathy, turning the teachings of the Jesus they claim to worship into more reasons to act with malice, never admitting wrong.
Amanda sounds like one of those people who don't want to feel shame but want to have a nice comfortable life.
I enter churches now only for friends' funerals, but I'm still wondering whether anyone still considers if they should ask if they're their brother's keeper, or if they are intent on pursuing only the prosperity gospel & the divisiveness of their own negative positions on people different from them.
I'll align myself with the comments above that conservatives are as bad or worse at this "grim and joyless" stuff as progressives. Reagan (at least the myth of him) was optimistic (at least he knew how to flatter people for their own prejudices), but by the time Gingrich headed the GOP it was a downer party, and it's only gotten worse. What upsets conservatives are figments of their own imaginations. When progressives are downers, at least they have legitimate beefs (climate, inequality, etc.). Are there examples were the left overdoes it? Sure. That's the way it's always been.
A few notes from today's NYT obit of Todd Gitlin:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/05/us/todd-gitlin-dead.html
His best-known book was “The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage” (1987), a firsthand account, part history and part autobiography, of the rise and fall of the left during that decade of upheaval. The leftists who held sway, he said in the book, were never prepared to govern. “Often,” he wrote, “I’m glad we’re in no position to take power: If we did, the only honorable sequel would be abdication.”
...
“He did rub people the wrong way sometimes,” Michael Kazin, a historian and longtime friend who is a former co-editor of Dissent magazine, said in a phone interview. “But,” he added, “he had made a transition that others had not, from revolutionary and radical politics to a more practical politics, a sort of left wing of the possible.”
I'll align myself with the comments above that conservatives are as bad or worse at this "grim and joyless" stuff as progressives.
There's some truth to that, of course. And it's hard to imagine a more joyless prig than Tom Cotton. Or Stephen Miller. Etc. But remember, the true MAGA believers aren't up for grabs. The portion of the electorate that Democrats can reasonably compete for is fairly small, and generally not well-informed. And a lot of these people take their cues not from Rupert Murdoch or official GOP/Right-wing voices, but from "softer" general cultural sources like Bill Maher, South Park, Kid Rock, Joe Rogan etc. Such figures often spout their opinions with a kind of snarky, dopey, irreverent sense of fun. And a lot of the things they're "defending" (politically incorrect jokes and ethnic humor, shooting guns, eating meat, admiring hot babes, not wearing a mask, driving a big SUV etc) strike a lot of their audience as enjoyable. So, these folks have positioned themselves as defenders of a way of life that was more pleasurable and less stressful than the 24/7 cultural mindfields we liberals (in their view) are serving up.
Kid Rock -- despite having fathered a biracial son -- has his own Roganian n-word c-reel.
The unusual gang of idiots at South Park & Real Talk (is that Maher's* show?) are just typical suburban or campus falangists who also want to hit that doob. (Not unlike frequent Rogan guest Elon Musk.)
& Jon Stewart**? He was going to be John Mc Cain's White House Press Secretary, be it 2001 or 2009.
*I remember when Maher was just a snarky red carpet lizard for Jay Leno's version of the Tonite Show, like a blanched Guillermo.
**In retrospect, Jon Stewart peaked with Naked Pictures of Famous People, while the Daily Show was better with Kilborn. (Trevor Noah is better than either.)
Now weren't you arguing the other day that going negative wins votes?
Calling for people to be their better angels---is scolding.
Telling people to blame "the other" for all their problems--energizing the base.
There are scolds, and some are trying to be holier than thou, and that can hurt. Causes also get subverted. Better recycling is needed--but that is a systemic problem, not an individual one. Yet it typically gets turned into an individual one, which turns people off. The "please recycle" messages on single use coffee cups (or juice boxes) that are not recyclable--or the recycle symbol on the lids when basically no one takes that type of plastic.
We may not be perfect, but we've done great things. And we can build on that to do even better. To be our best, we need everyone to do well, no matter their background. And helping everyone to be their best really is a great investment in America!
There's a difference between scolding and going negative. Going negative is "Don't vote for republicans--their standard bearer is a idiot who tried to put his personal pilot in charge of the FAA; just imagine that next time you fly!"
Scolding is "Hey you--that's right, you the potential voter over there. You should feel bad because your choices are different than my choices."
To be clear, both of these are different from what Trumpists do. Trump is a fountain of aggressive negativity, but it's directed at imaginary enemies. That sort of thing can be wildly entertaining if you are interested in feeling like you're part of an in-group. Trump: "I love you all, you're the best. Unfortunately, people are saying that there are bad people who say you're all jerks! But they're the real jerks, amiright?"
Bingo
That's a nice list of sideshow malarkey that has very little to do with progressive policies. Consider basic progressive policies like:
* electrify everything, shut down coal
* invest in public infrastructure
* a national health care program
* free college education
* tax the wealthy
* build housing for the homeless
Look at the narrative of just the first of these. The reactionaries on the right want us to return to the energy source of the 19th century: coal. The conservatives in the middle want us to keep using the energy sources of the 20th century: oil and natural gas. The progressives want us to move quickly to 21st century technologies: wind and solar. It's a story of innovation and improved quality of life.
What you are showing is the Reactionaries success in negative campaigning, helped along by so-called progressive media pundits.
Reactionaries are a dialectical illusion. Carbon capture makes coal viable. Democrats are returning to it. Whether you like it or not.
The modest portion of the electorate that is up for grabs (Democrats don't have to compete for the votes of loyal progressives or hard right/MAGAts) doesn't much follow policy debates. If people based their votes on what policies benefited them personally, Republicans would never win another election.
None of the topics and solutions are fun. Conservatives can do it because the lie and don't care about fixing things. It's really unavoidable. It's why there's never been a really funny lefty movie.
Seriously? You've never seen "Dick"? How about "Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay"?
Exactly.
Would throw Blazing Saddles in there too.
You couldn't be more wrong. Monty Python anyone?
This: “Everyone is racist.” That is more or less the belief fueling the current and ongoing controversy over Ilya Shapiro and his now endangered job @ Georgetown University.
And Mark Joseph Stern adopted the role of pearl-clutching Leftist to explicitly accuse Shapiro of racism (because of, what else, a poorly worded tweet).
Then the Lefty students @ Georgetown dutifully fall in line and stage a demonstration to demand Shapiro’s firing, all while insisting they be supplied with a safe space to cry in and reparations in the form of snacks. These last items are apparently recorded by eyewitnesses, and I feel I have to point that out since it probably sounds like I’m making up some exaggerated snark.
And I get where Kevin is coming from: I also identify as Liberal and feel that the Lefty dialog has moved very far away from me. But, for me, it’s the obsession with racism that has become unbearable. And if I feel that way, I can’t imagine how an average conservative or Fox viewer feels. I look at that recent Georgetown incident and think, “oh give it up, Ilya just misspoke: move on and get a life.” And if I’m fed up with tar and feathering everyone as a racist: how does the rest of the country feel?
I’m generally sympathetic to the idea that many on the far left have basically found a new religion: white people are Satan and racism is original sin. Anyone who disagrees is a heretic and therefore must be converted or destroyed. There can be no “agree to disagree” with heretics. But what makes this ideology truly dismal is it apparently leaves out redemption. No one has died for our sins. We’re all just racists forever, and must go on hating ourselves (or something). No wonder they need rooms to cry in ….
There's no excuse for publicly calling black women who are not your preferred (as you see "most qualified") candidate as "lesser black women". No excuse for that, especially in this particularly explosive political time and moment.
At any time of a Supreme Court opening, there are many eminently qualified candidates, all of whom could be considered the "most qualified" (this is a group, not an individual). To make a decision that it's time for there to be a black woman on the Supreme Court, after over 200+ years of there not being one, is perfectly reasonable, and does not imply we are getting an inferior nominee, as there are many black women who are in the "most qualified" category.
You state: “There's no excuse for publicly calling black women who are not your preferred (as you see "most qualified") candidate as "lesser black women". No excuse for that, especially in this particularly explosive political time and moment.”
You’re certainly entitled to feel that way, but I don’t know what anyone gains from it. This is, in fact, more or less the sour and unforgiving Leftism that I’m talking about.
I personally think it’s abundantly clear that Shapiro was attempting to refer to the risk that racial affirmative action can lead to “lesser” candidates in general. And I believe that’s a majority opinion (more or less) in the USA (most poll respondents do not approve of affirmative action based on race).
Shapiro certainly did, however, write his tweet badly and in a way that easily lends itself to misinterpretation. He apologized for it: and, in a sane society, that would be an end of it.
Instead, there is apparently a vocal contingent of lefty scolds who want Shapiro’s scalp. I don’t agree with that approach at all. Speaking for myself, I’m not so perfect that I can go Puritanical on anyone else.
“No excuse” for inciting a violent insurrection? Ok, I’ll buy that. “No excuse” for declaring that a mob which killed five police officers was engaged in “legitimate political discourse?” I’m on board. But: “No excuse” for a badly written tweet, let’s fire the man responsible and expel him from polite society! Nope. That’s exactly where current Lefty-ism has left me (and, no doubt, much of the country) at a great distance.
I'm certainly not suggesting the man be fired, but don't have any problem with people piling on him for a while, "poorly written" or not he put that trash out in the public space.
And nothing about this is "affirmative action", sorry.
Well, I don’t know how to say this other than to say it: I don’t believe you. And this has become, in fact, an incredibly annoying habit on the left - call someone’s behavior unacceptable and/or label them a racist, but then innocently claim that we’re little angels who never wanted our victim to actually get fired. No, sorry, but getting someone fired is exactly what people want when they pile on in the way you describe.
Mark Joseph Stern, in fact, has the nerve to insult everyone’s intelligence by claiming that he never wanted Shapiro to get fired. And this despite the fact that Stern went through the trouble of tagging Shapiro’s EMPLOYER (Georgetown) on his sanctimonious tweets.
“I don’t want this person fired, but…..” Yeah, that means you want them fired.
And your final comment may indicate why: you appear to imply that Shapiro’s tweet came from racism on his part. And I’m opposed, more or less 100%, to jumping to the conclusion that pretty much everyone (especially someone who - god forbid - gets a word wrong) is racist. This assumption of guilt on everyone’s part is possibly the most recognizable aspect of modern Leftism: and it is completely at odds with the assumption of innocence that a free and open society depends upon. That’s a main reason why Leftys now feel so far away from me, and no doubt they feel even further away from a more “moderate” citizen.
If you insist on letting your imagination determine what everyone's motives are, there's no point in continuing to discuss this with you.
Also, I'm not suggesting Shapiro is a racist, and I certainly did not post anything to that effect.
And just to call out your BS even more clearly, I'm much more civil libertarian (as far as that goes) than I am "Lefty", and civil liberties include the right to criticize others for their public speech, whether the recipient of that criticism likes it or not.
Yep. Swatting a fly with a howitzer.
& ( ( ( Ilya ) ) ) did Sonia Sotomayor the same way.
Dude has a predilection to disparage jurists whose robes more closely match their skintone.
And yet he (Shapiro) recommended an Indian (ancestrally related to the subcontinent of India) for the Supreme Court.
Why? Who knows. Human psychology is complex; and, as such, it cannot and should not be reduced to the simplistic idea Kevin mentions in his post: “everything is racist.”
Reductive ideas, by their very nature, will misunderstand a complex world.
Ever hear of model minorities?
In ( ( ( Ilya's ) ) ) world, Indo-Americans like Sri Srinivasan in the year 2010 were just about as white as Pollack union guys who helped Reagan sweep into Washington in 1980.
That isn't "left" either. Educate yourself.
I don’t think he should be fired, and I wouldn’t accuse him of racism on the basis of a single tweet. But that tweet was not simply a ‘misspeaking’ or ‘inartful’. It was thoughtless and careless, in the most literal sense of those words. The man was given a lectureship at a prestigious university; he’s being paid, no doubt quite well, to share his ideas with students; he damned well had better think before he speaks or tweets. Georgetown seems to have appointed a lesser candidate.
The political meaning and constitution of "progressive" seems to be ever-changing, and today doesn't really seem to completely mesh with the progressive upsurge in the 2002-2008 period.
This guy gets it. To me, a leftist can be racist or antiracist. You support the commons, your a leftist. It's why the left hegelian movement was the real birth point of socialism and Fascism. Brothers.
Nation of Childen Doesn't Want to Behave Like Nation of Rational Adults, Film at 11.
Idk. What could be more joyless than storming the Capitol for nothing and going to prison for it? That seems to be what conservatives are in favor of.
I dunno. They seemed pretty "joyous" as they strode down the once-hallowed halls of Congress, yelling for "Nancy" to "come out". Gleefully digging through documents and swiping anything that wasn't nailed down that they could carry away.
I'm looking forward to the justice system wiping the stupid grins off their faces.
Totally. A lot of these clueless fucks thought they were engaged in cosplay. I mean, Viking horns? Ignorance is no excuse, of course: I hope every last one of them is harshly sentenced. Something needs to penetrate the fog so the rest of them are made aware insurrection and sedition aren't cool.
Agreed with prejudice, Mr. Drum. This goes back, of course, to the 60's where entitled white college students decided that their privileged perspective gave them x-ray vision into all things good and evil in the world, mostly evil. Santa, it turns out, is actually a CIA operative overthrowing nascent social democracies around the world. Who'd a thunk that human behavior is inherently complex, that people are neither bad nor good, and that change is a process of acceptance, commitment, and time? (And, ummm, relationships?) No! That cannot be! What do we want? Everything our privileged lives promised us, projected onto the world at large! When do we want it? NOW! Wannit now! Wannit NOW, dammit!
Has there ever been a more covertly narcissistic and patronizing ‘movement’ than modern American progressivism? Of which, of course, I am part. I do not know. There is right action, and doing good is a real thing. I’m not sure that privilege is the best foundation from which to understand and actualize either.
This may or may not be what you had in mind, but when you mention “patronizing” progressivism I think of “defund the police.” Speaking just from memory, that’s a slogan opposed by a majority of basically every demographic group. Black peoples also opposed the “defund” movement (or, rather, a majority of black people opposed it.) So, how patronizing is it for white, young, generally privileged progressives to basically try and assert (though not explicitly) that black people just don’t really know when something is for their own good?
Exactly. And get very self righteous about it. At the core it's narcissism, hiding behind "social justice" or whatever. Maybe even well intentioned, depends on the person, but even then trying to fill the inevitable hollowness of privilege engendered narcissism.
Many progressives don't support the covid vaccines.
Most liberals I know are exactly as upbeat and enthusiastic as they've always been--riding a peace train to a better world. And we stay optimistic because we know we're winning. Even since Reagan. Funny that. All the things we feared about Reagan came true and just got worse and worse. But we survived anyway, and thanks I think a lot to our parents and grandparents before us we're doing pretty fucking great. Yes I worry each month how we're going to pay the mortgage. Doesn't matter. Liberals are on the march--ever forward. I'm with them. Lots of stuff would have been shittier without them.