The prevailing narrative of the last election has been that “the Left went too far” with all of the “wokeness” and people were so frightened by that, they were forced into the loving arms of Donald Trump — a man who attempted to steal the previous election by force. A man who is dismantling the federal government, starting a whole ass trade war, and speaking with absolute glee about the horrible human rights conditions of a prison he is currently sending random asylum seekers with the wrong tattoos to, and to which he is “contemplating” sending American citizens. A man who has openly courted white supremacists, violent extremists, and lunatics who think people eat babies.
They had to do it, you see. Because people wrote/said “Latinx.” Because three trans girls somewhere wanted to play field hockey. Because people who were angry about police constantly killing unarmed Black people said “defund the police.” Because they heard about people putting their pronouns in the email signatures! What else were they to do?
Kamala Harris, herself, did not go too far. She was very pro-police, she barely mentioned trans people aside from saying that she would “follow the law” as far as their rights were concerned, and, aside from abortion rights, she mostly steered clear of literally anything or any topic that could have reasonably been described as contentious. But still, she lost because “the Left just went too far.”
After all, think of all the people on the internet, with absolutely no legislative power whatsoever, who had opinions that Washington pundits and consultants are pretty sure people in middle America (like me?) did not like!
It’s confounding to a lot of people why relatively insignificant things like email signatures hurt Democrats so much more severely than, say, palling around with Proud Boys or the censorious Moms for Liberty hurts Republicans. Why is it that no matter what they do, “the Right has gone too far” never seems to stick?
I can tell you exactly why. It’s because they carry it off.
It’s because when someone confronts them with an “extreme” person or belief from their own side, they don’t take responsibility for it, they don’t dwell on it, and they don’t denounce it and try to distance themselves from it. They say “Well, I disagree, but we have freedom of speech in this country and they have the right to their opinion just as anyone else does.” Or, at most, they encourage empathy. Because gosh, that person is just a good, patriotic American who is scared of losing their country, and people like him have been pushed to those views by people on the Left who … “have just gone too far.”
When discussing Charlottesville, the only thing they have had to say was that Trump’s comments, re: very fine people, were deliberately misinterpreted by the media as him saying he loved Nazis when in fact the people he thought were so fine were just regular racists who didn’t want to see Confederate statues torn down.
When discussing January 6, they now just say they don’t want to talk about it, or they say those people were patriots, that they were treated unfairly, something to that effect. It no longer sticks. There are no longer any consequences to supporting them or even believing that the 2020 election was stolen.
Why? Because they carry it off. Because they don’t acknowledge that anything “hurts” them. Because they act like everything they do is great and everyone who likes them is great.
Every day is a new day and nothing from yesterday matters, what are you even talking about?
Narratives are a funny thing that way. Say you go out with friends to a bar, and at some point during the evening, you go to the bathroom and come back with toilet paper attached to your shoe (it happens, I’ve done it) or your skirt tucked into your tights (this also happens). If you laugh about it and fix it and you never bring it up again, it doesn’t become part of your story. If you do keep talking about it (fair, because it’s pretty funny) or if someone else does and you get super embarrassed about it every time, it does.
One thing I’ve noticed is that, at this point, absolutely no one talks about “Defund the Police” more than moderate and centrist Democratic-leaning pundits who want to talk about what a bad idea it was, how it’s the worst phrase ever invented and how it cost Democrats elections. Half of the people freaking out about “woke” were also, ostensibly, Democrats. In fact, they were some of the first and the loudest.
It’s clear that the people who do this think that independents and moderate Republicans will look at their willingness to criticise and call out what they and others love to call “the excesses of the Left” and go “Oh good, so there are still some sane, sensible liberals/Democrats/whatever out there. Perhaps I’ll reconsider my vote!”
The problem, however, is that this doesn’t happen. It’s literally never going to happen, and you know how I know it’s not going to happen? Because that’s not remotely what we do on the rare occasions that someone from the Right criticizes Trump or the far Right.
We say, instead “See? They’re so wacky on this vaccine stuff that even Mitch McConnell sees it!” If anything, it’s more evidence, to us, that the Right is terrible. So why would it be any different for them?
Democrats could easily do their own version of what Republicans do when confronted with the extreme beliefs of their base. They could point out that the “excesses of the Left,” are neither the “I Want Candy” montage from Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette nor the Trump administration’s horrific on-camera deportations featuring Kristi Noem, her extensions, and the absolute worst of human nature, but rather “being too inclusive”? Or “wanting people to not be murdered by police”? Perhaps they could say “These are good Americans who just want everyone to be treated fairly and kindly, who want their fellow Americans to have homes, food, health care and education.” Instead of, well, whatever Gavin Newsom is saying these days.
You will notice, also, that you will never see people on the Right publicly arguing against anything on the grounds that “people won’t like it.” They might disagree on something, but not based on “But what will the others think and say?!?” That’s not even, for the most part, on the table.
It is, however, at least half of all debates on the Left.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t disagree. Debate can be great and interesting and can help people understand ideas better than they might by listening to a straightforward monologue. What I am saying is that debates should be focused on the merits of specific ideas and policies, not on telling people they hate something before they’ve had a chance to make up their minds.
Outwardly worrying about what other people will think (with regards to anything) doesn’t come across as considerate or reasonable, it comes across as insecure, weak and calculating.
It’s okay, and in fact much better, to say “I don’t like this and here’s why.”
This is all a very long-winded way of saying that worrying about what other people think or will think is a bad look. It’s true in all aspects of life. There is nothing less cool than someone who is worried about whether or not other people think they are cool.
Ultimately, “the Left has gone too far” works … because it works. Because people react to it, they freak out and they retreat.
The Right can never “go too far,” despite the fact that they’re out here destroying the economy and sending people off to terror prisons, because they don’t take collective responsibility. If someone from their side says or does something horrific, they don’t all scramble to “distance” themselves from it. They say, at most, “Oh, that’s just that person.” They stick to their guns even when people don’t like what they do, and they do it for so long that people start to assume “Well, maybe they’re onto something.”
Take a moment and consider the way the term “socialist” hurts every Democrat but Bernie Sanders, who actually is a socialist. Sanders, like it or not, is pretty consistently rated as the most popular member of Congress. For the last three months, he’s had a net favorability rating of +7. Most other people are not doing so well right now!
The Morning Consult poll also found that Sanders was the most popular politician in America, with an approval rating of 69 percent.
Sanders is not hurt by the term “socialist,” because he’s not frantically trying to prove to everyone that he’s not a socialist. He presents his thoughts, ideas, and beliefs without freaking out about “Oh, what will the others think?!?!” and that is a thing people tend to respect.
Now, I happen to agree with Bernie Sanders, ideologically, on most things. But that doesn’t mean that Democrats who believe different things can’t do some version of that themselves. They can keep their eyes on their own papers without worrying what people on the Left are doing (we have no damn legislative power anyway, but we’re also not going away any time soon) or what others might think, and just advocate for what they believe in, for what they think will actually be good for this country and the people in it.
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