Posted on 12/27/2023 7:12:29 AM PST by MtnClimber
The only thing more uplifting than watching several prominent liberals drift rightward is the cluelessness of those on the left as to why it’s happening.
This drift is obvious enough, since it includes journalists once heralded by the left such as Matt Taibbi (who won a Young America’s Foundation award) and Glenn Greenwald, and Democratic politicians, including Tulsi Gabbard, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (whose speech at a Daily Caller award ceremony drew many loud cheers from the conservative audience), and Sen. John Fetterman (who recently declared that “I am not a progressive”).
Celebrities such as Russell Brand, David Chappelle, and Bill Maher (who “has been riding an asphalt roller over the far left,” according to Townhall) are part of the shift, as are a handful of prominent business leaders, Elon Musk for instance.
That’s to say nothing of the fact that surveys show once tried-and-true liberal constituencies – Hispanics, Asians, blacks, working class, and the young – are abandoning the Democratic party.
It’s not as though these people are suddenly small-government conservatives. They just are waking up to the fact that the left is a cesspool of hatred and intolerance and are looking for the exits.
All of which has caused a lot of confusion on the left. Case in point is a commentary by the New York Times’ Michelle Goldberg, who manages to come up with some theories to explain the realignment.
One is that “celebrity defectors … lurched right after a cancellation or public humiliation.” (In other words, for petty reasons.)
Another is that “the culture of the left is simply less welcoming,” and “people go where people accept them, or are nice to them, and away from people who are mean to them.” (An incredibly odd admission given that the left is supposedly all about “diversity” and “inclusion.”)
But then Goldberg settles on the notion that “Liberals and leftists have lots of excellent policy ideas, but rarely articulate a plausible vision of the future.”
Translation: Even though the left controls every major institution in the country, most notably the news media, it just needs better public relations.
Goldberg’s column was inspired by a 5,700-word behemoth by Kathryn Joyce and Jeff Sharlet in the far-left In These Times about the same topic.
These two start by saying that “It’s easy to dismiss many of these high-profile defectors as crackpots or spotlight-seekers, as never truly serious in their political principles or as plain grifters.”
But, after much mental exertion they decide that “Maybe there’s a kind of gravity to the slide, the black hole of fascism sucking toward it all the loose particles of those whose commitments were never complex or whose convictions were snapped by despair.
“That’s what makes fascism so scary when it genuinely flares. It consumes. It grows.”
When in doubt, the left always invokes fascism, ignorant of the fact that national socialism is a leftist dream, not a conservative one.
In any case, the reason the left is puzzled is because it’s so completely blind to the poisonous fruit of its own ideology, something that is finally dawning on common-sense Americans.
For some, it was the totalitarianism of the COVID apparatchiks, who, among countless other wrongs, forced a solidly liberal top executive, Jennifer Sey, out of Levi Strauss because she dared to say that schools shouldn’t remain closed. Sey later noted Levi’s is “trapped trying to please the mob — and silencing any dissent within the organization. In this, it is like so many other American companies: held hostage by intolerant ideologues who do not believe in genuine inclusion or diversity.”
For others, it was the coordinated silencing of dissent by big government and Big Tech (which, by the way, is the very definition of fascism), and the fact that so many on the left, including “democracy dies in darkness” journalists, were cheering it on.
For many in liberal cities such as San Francisco or New York or Chicago, it’s skyrocketing crime, abandoned storefronts, sidewalks full of homeless tents and human waste, and legions of illegal immigrants housed in bus stations, hotels, and abandoned schools. All of it the result of leftist policies.
For still others, it is the many forms of brutal intolerance the left shows toward anyone who doesn’t fall in line with whatever that day’s dogma happens to be, whether it’s school shutdowns, “transgender rights,” the climate “crisis,” or critical race theory. The left is constantly burning former friends at the stake for being heretics.
For many parents, it’s having the government call them domestic terrorists because they complained about lockdowns and gay pornography in their school libraries.
Now, it’s the left’s virulent antisemitism that was always there but only became glaringly apparent in the wake of Hamas’ genocidal attack on Israel.
The intolerance, bitterness and hate, the unquenchable desire for control, disdain for free speech, and fanaticism have always been features – not bugs – of the left, something we’ve been saying here for years.
The only reason leftists have been able to pretend otherwise is that they had better PR. But that, too, is failing them.
We can only hope those on the left continue to scratch their collective heads about why people are leaving their ranks, until one day they end up in the dustbin of history. Where they belong.
I wonder if anyone has done a serious analysis of why Air America failed? My guess is it’s because of a basic difference in how the American left and right are composed. The left has a small elite who are politically engaged and informed plus a big base of zombies. The zombies won’t listen to talk radio and the elite cohort is too small to be a supporting radio audience. Conservatives OTOH have a base of informed middle class types that’s big enough to support talk radio. Also, liberals already had outlets like NPR and really all the mainstream media catering to their worldview, so they had less reason to seek out talk radio.
I can only speak for the liberals that I know.
They are all self-loathing and don’t like the fact that you are happy.
I recall the “Occupy” movement, anti
big business, and I pictured an Air
America host berating big companies
but they couldn’t lure advertisers
because of the attitude.
In NH host Deborah “Arnie” Arnesen
referred to SUVs as “FUVs”, big
contributors to global warming.
Lost her show after advertisers—
car dealers—pulled out.
Alternative weekly Boston Phoenix
owned WFNX (and other stations in
New England). The paper was a big
Occupy supporter. Yet when it was
time to sell, they sold to ClearChannel
(now iHeart), the biggest radio corp.
Because that was the most lucrative
offer. Their Premiere Radio syndicator
distributed Rush, Hannity, Beck, etc
Sister stations WRKO and WXKS are
conservative talk.
WFNX is now a country station.
Ha!
Jay Leno joked about Air America.
“They want a network to counter
all the right wing media. The Left
has TV, movies, internet, music, magazines,
newspapers, books...other than
that, they have nothing!” (Paraphrase...
Leno called himself social moderate
but fiscal conservative).
The “South Park” guys have skewed both
Left and Right. Leftists hated the
“Film Actors Guild” bits in Team
America. One of the two guys said
“We hate conservatives but we really
f-—ing hate liberals.”
(...and the Boston Phoenix
eventually went out of business..)
I recall Air America. It failed impart due to shoddy programming, but mostly because it revealed that liberals are humorless, juvenile and obtuse, and not interesting to listen to.
White leftists are starting to notice how much some other leftists hate them.
Starting with Jewish leftists realizing that the rest of the Left regards them as white people.
Air America had unfunny hosts, hosts that were constantly angry, and monotonous. They skipped the one thing that makes a radio show profitable. Entertainment. I recall they were begging from donations and only lasted as long as they did because the hosts worked for free and liberal billionaires kept writing them checks. They didn’t even try to be an entertainment outlet. They went full activism but what’s the point when nearly every single media outlet is full commie. What’s one more turd in the liberal honey bucket?
Straka’s “testimony” of his conversion from liberalism is very interesting. Not enough people hear it. He is being silenced as much as possible because the truth he tells is so powerful.
“liberals are humorless, juvenile and obtuse, and not interesting to listen to.”
And the potential audience is too busy shoplifting, playing video games, and watching black reality shows. Radio isn’t something they’re attracted to.
Ultimately, political affiliations come down to a sort of optimization function…a nonlinear program of “Maximize aggregate personal and economic utility, subject to how much nonsense can I tolerate in my selected political camp.”
100% conformity and compliance rarely happens outside of a cult. Even in the best of families does everyone agree all the time.
The Starting Point for most individuals’ political optimization process are Third Rail topics. For most folks, the Big Two are guns and abortion. This is why the Dems and Repubs are so visibly opposite on these issues.
Nowadays, the second-tier of Third Rails is illegal immigration and parental rights. On FR these are slam dunks; but some pro-union Dems dislike wage depression and lots of Repubs like their “free” public skoolz. Nonetheless these cause probably 80/20 splits OR they are low-passion issues.
From there, it gets a little more challenging but manageable:
- Taxes? Clearly Dems are all Tax the Rich, though increasingly some conservatives are singing that statist tune though they transcribe it to a populist key signature.
-Back the Blue? Clearly the left is pro-defund and the right backs the police, though the poles are flipped on the FBI.
-Govt regulation of personal non-criminal behavior? Conservatives favor free markets (unless it’s Big Tech when they suddenly favor breakups) while liberals favor regulation of every dimension of the economy (except for Big Tech that plays ball with Bidet); the big exception is drug legalization, where both sides are generally fractured.
Interestingly, sprinkled amongst the remaining (and generally lesser-ranked) issues are topics that can make or break a Defection. The BIGGEST one that I can see, is race. This became an ascendant issue under Obama…prior to 2009, everyone GENERALLY got along. Under Obama, race became a weaponized lens through which MANY non-racial things became THE object. Crime? It’s because or racism. Wealth? Disparity because of race. Success or failure? Race. This weaponization caused Masks to slip a little or a lot. BLM is the most blatantly visible mask-slip/fall on the left, followed by nonsense in public schools and universities pushed by race-baiting losers in tweed blazers. The right also had its own slippage, with people chest-thumping “why can’t I have white pride, the blacks this and the blacks that…” from their moms basement.
Amidst this optimization process, people land left or right.
But migrations happen when, say, the emboldened racists on the left explode after October 7 and go “full bigot.” Some liberals suddenly see the Truth/that the Outgroup was never THAT racist in general, but their Tribe IS.
For this lot, they can live alongside gun-toting, pro-life, anti-immigration Deplorables after all.
The big question for us is, will we welcome them or not?
They can’t scratch their heads they are so far up their butts
Right, they probably thought that’s how talk show hosts were supposed to be — angry, since that’s the left’s caricature of conservative hosts. But the best conservative hosts aren’t angry. They’re happy warriors, with the best example being Rush Limbaugh (and the exception that proves the rule being Michael Savage...although if you spent enough time listening to him you’d know that deep down he was a big softie too...).
I certainly hope so.
Liberals are well meaning but wrong. Leftists are evil.
Excellent response, and you pose the question:
“The big question for us is, will we welcome them or not?”
I definitely would. I’m not a purist, and have been chastised for my less than purist leanings here on the Freep.
Could you imagine….
Proof in the Universe that there is God, and He answers prayers.
the culture of the left is simply less welcoming
Because the left, if you will, are a bunch of self serving, self righteous, and self important cretins, crones, and bastards. They “know better than anyone “.
Imagine if you will, a recent time where gay men and lesbian women were still understanding that in biology, there may be different desires and preferences, but there were only two actual genders.
I have, too. I am very conservative in my own opinion. I will vote for the most conservative candidate running, even if there is no Republican to vote for and one of the Democrats is just a little to the right of the other(s).
Why, you may ask. I have lived most of my life in towns that vote 85/15 for the liberal over the conservative, or for the Dem. over the Repub.
Phil Scott, Republican governor of Vermont, is far to the left of my family, but I happily vote for him because he vetoes crazy progressive policies (unless they override him).
If I was a purist, I could not live in this beautiful state, period. When I was a kid, Republicans almost always won in Vermont. Conservatives such as Barry Goldwater did not win. Vermont will never be a conservative state, but I believe the GOP will begin to rally here in the not-too-distant future.
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