Okay, I'm not saying this to be mean, and as I said, I'm fully pro choice myself. But, honestly, watching the left wing backlash to the fall of Roe v Wade is making me cringe. We just discussed "What's the Matter with Kansas" and with that still fresh in my mind, I can't help but notice that many of my pro choice allies are extremely cringe.
Look, here's the problem with the culture wars in this country. It's all backlash. You understand you're just giving the right ammo right? The right is enjoying the taste of liberal tears right now. You guys are all being so hyperbolic that the right is reveling in the moment. This is mobilizing them.
Thomas Frank talked a lot about backlash politics in his Kansas book. How the right seems motivated by owning the libs. How the pretentiousness and self righteousness of the libs alienates and pisses people off, and some people want nothing more than to see these people cry. And you're giving them exactly what they want.
Really. It's like the left doesn't know how to do politics. I'm pro choice, and unapologetically so. And I actually have a sick "own the cons" mentality on the subject since I'm an ex conservative and not opposed to fighting fire with fire. I'm the kind of person that given my rammstein obsession will unironically respond to pro lifers being uppity with the praise abort music video.
But the rest of the left seems to go in a different direction. I'm seeing a lot of identity politics here. Don't people realize that's alienating by now? Jesus. How many elections and moral battles do we have to lose because the left decides to frame things in the worst ways possible?
Most people I see are doing this stupid explicitly gendered stuff that's alienating. Going on about how we need to start regulating male bodies now because they're the source of pregnancy and how men have no right to have an opinion on the subject.
As a man who won't shut up, I agree with you, now please shut up with this crap. All this stuff does is add fuel to the fire. We need to deescalate these stupid culture war spats, not play into the right's hands.
I defend abortion on the basis of secular politics, science, and sound philosophical considerations about the harm abortion causes and doesn't cause. I support it on the basis of personal freedom. As a childfree person myself, I don't ever want kids. I have skin in this game too, as a man. I am pro choice for primarily libertarian reasons. And that's how you beat the right on the culture war. The SJWs need to shut up already with their stupid identity politics. Do you not understand how much of a turnoff it is? it's a turnoff even to me, and I'm an ex conservative myself. For reference, I'm not above the backlash effect, despite my philosophical ideas. it's why I spend so much time dragging SJWs. I'm alienated, and I philosophically agree with them. That's how alienating they are.
Also, stop blaming people who refused to support Hillary for this already. As one of those people, you're doing nothing to with me over. Wagging your finger at me and blaming me doesn't solve any of the root problems that caused me to defect from the democrats in the first place. Heck at this point given how short my stint as a "democrat" really is I've spent more of my time on the left arguing with and fighting with democrats, than actually supporting them. How you could turn an ideological convert like me off in one election cycle is just baffling to me. it's like you guys want to lose, or are so out of touch you don't know how to reach people.
But hey, sit on your high horse. Be self righteous. Continue lecturing us about how we need to settle for less and vote for democrats because "privilege". See how well that works again. It didn't work last time, what makes you think it will work this time? Sometimes you need to meet people where they are. And the democrats would do a lot better to drop the pretentiousness, the smug sense of moral superiority, and the identity politics. That just causes the backlash effect. Do you understand? When you talk like that, people WANT TO SEE YOU FAIL. Even me to some extent. Because again, I'm an ex conservative who reformed myself to some form of left wing politics.
And speaking of which, before you say I'm cutting off my nose to spite my face....all you guys really have to do is embrace, UBI, medicare for all or at least a strong public option with automatic enrollment, and free college/student debt forgiveness. Seriously. I only hold out like this because you guys are literally refusing to give me the policies I want, telling me I need to check my privilege and vote for other people over vague social issues, and then get rabid on me when I say no. You work with me, I work with you. You work against me, then much like the conservatives, I kind of low key revel in your failure in a schadenfreude type way. I don't really want to see the left fail ideologically mind you. And I find trumpism and the right to be increasingly scary as well, so I really don't want that either. But that's the thing. i don't want any of this. This political landscape is hell to me. We have a right wing that's scarily right wing, and a left wing that's embroiled mostly in social issues and identity politics and still right wing on stuff I care about more. This is hell. We are in hell.
You know, I didn't like Yang's "centrist" framing when he formed the forward party, but I've warmed up to it a lot. On culture war issues, his mentality is exactly what we need. Nominally left wing, but doesn't really engage with that stuff, often to the point of alienating the left who insists he bow down to the altar of identity politics and focus more on the threat that is "white supremacy". Uh...maybe that would cease being an issue if the left wasn't so obsessed with idpol. Seriously.
Yang focuses on economic issues and political reform mostly. He ignores the drama and focuses on pushing UBI, human centered capitalism, and more recently, electoral reform like ranked choice voting. He's focused on actual solutions to America's problems. Not just a circlejerk of who is more moral on social justice issues.
Be like Yang. I bet he doesn't support the fall of Roe v. Wade either. He's a cultural liberal without any of the pretentiousness or self righteousness. That's how you win on those issues.
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