So, it finally happened, the thing that tribalistic leftists have been predicting since Ana Kasperian started pushing back on her nonsense. Ana has finally "left the left." So, I'm going to go over her article, respond to it, that sort of thing. Because I've had some strong opinions on this topic in the past, and I kind of sympathize with her in some way. I admit, myself, I kinda realized I was never the kind of crazy left the so called "leftists" like to push on people in a tribalistic way, and I'm not the kind of person to let myself be pushed around, but let's see what Ana says in her own words.
Independent and Unaligned
You're right, I've changed.
After Trump came onto the political scene, and especially after he was elected in 2016, the us-vs-them mentality immediately took shape. Anyone who refused to “resist Trump” was seen as a threat to the country, and I was fully on board with that mindset.
It all felt righteous at first. But eventually, the tactics deployed to fight Trump became repetitive, boring and ultimately fruitless. Polling shows that he has increased his support among Black and Latino voters despite wall-to-wall coverage on his unsavory, racist or bigoted remarks. Several years of media raising alarm over Trump’s threat to democracy has only resulted in a tight presidential race between himself and Kamala Harris.
I mean I'm gonna be honest, I was never even on board with THAT. I was a Bernie or buster who basically got pissed off at the democratic party, voted green and then checked out of politics for a while. If anything, I hated the kind of cult like behavior the left was starting to employ, and when I did post, i was deeply critical of the mainstream left. The fact was, I didn't leave conservatism just to put up with THIS nonsense. so I never really was on board with the left during the "resistance" years. I largely just stayed out of it. I had my views, and I disengaged from the left because ever since leaving Christianity, I have this defense system up where if I detect people are trying to manipulate me to their way of thinking, I'll just quarantine myself like an anti virus keeping a virus away from an OS. The fact is, in a lot of ways, the groupthink of the modern left IS a mind virus, and I've been heavily critical of it over the years.
For Ana to not recognize it does come off to me as naivete. I can't blame her. Unless one has had the strong epistemological soul searching that I've had, it's easy to be swept up in stuff, most people have never truly "left the cave" and most aren't capable of looking at things rationally and objectively. There's always a sense of "us vs them" and tribalism, and if you dont identity with every part of the tribe, your credentials are questioned. With me, my big "leaving something" moment came in leaving Christianity and conservatism. So it was relatively easy for me to not be swept up in stuff a second time and to realize it for what it is. But yeah, I understand not everyone has the same views i do.
I can’t help but acknowledge that the only thing that was accomplished by resisting Trump was less understanding and more division among Americans. I personally became reluctant to challenge my “side” or engage with voters who disagreed with me. In turn, I became less knowledgeable about the people and world around me. I saw Republican voters as an evil monolith and that was a big mistake.
Yep. Kind of went into the whole tribalism thing as I said. However, one thing I will say. Just because the left is wrong doesn't mean the right is right. And as someone who "left the right", let me tell you, I DID THAT FOR A REASON, and while not all people who identify as right are evil, I would largely say their ideas are morally and intellectually bankrupt, and by my own ideological and moral standards, I would go so far as to call the modern GOP "evil."
This does not come out of a sense of tribalism, but of my soul searching experience. I've decided for myself, using my secular standards, to figure out what "good" and "evil" are...and the GOP is...quite frankly, evil by those standards. Their views are so devoid and counter to what I consider "good", that they have literally no value, and if anything have negative value in the modern world. The individual people in the moment, sure, they arent always evil. Heck most of the time, they're just brainwashed and caught up in something like pretty much every resist lib out there. But yeah, if you consider what their goals are, and what they're trying to do, they're...shall we say, "regressive." And I stand by that.
My evolution started in 2022 when I was sexually assaulted by a homeless man in my neighborhood as I was walking my dog. That horrible experience alone didn’t change me politically, but the treatment I received from the far left and some progressives after sharing the story did.
I was told that by publicly sharing what had happened to me, I was stigmatizing my “unhoused neighbors.” Others accused me of feeding into racist tropes because they assumed that my attacker was black. But I had never even disclosed the man’s race.
He was white.
First, let me just say it's horrible she experienced that. Second, let me just say that yeah, I can see the left acting like that. Something something privilege. How dare you criticize a POC (even though the person wasn't POC), how dare you criticize a homeless person.
This is where nuance comes in. Homelessness in America is horrible. I feel bad for it, I don't think it should exist, I support solutions that solve the issue. But...as long as homeless people exist, and as long as poverty and desperation exist, well....the risk associated with homeless, poor, and desperate people doing criminal acts is...well...a thing. And it should be acknowledged as a thing. This is kind of why I sympathized with Yang in his 2021 mayoral race. He was criticized too for making comments about homeless people and how people shouldnt feel unsafe in their neighborhoods. And the left attacked him for it. Even though he would be for a UBI, which would solve the problem.
And I'm of a similar perspective. i live in a BAD neighborhood. The kind where you hear gunshots at night. The kind where my family's car has been shot up before by people deciding to have a shoot out in front of my house. And it sucks. And I'm afraid to go outside at night. I'm afraid to go outside during the day. And it sucks.
But at the same time, I understand that sociologically, it got here because of a bunch of complex and interlinking factors that kind of drive me to my current left wing views. I understand things like white flight and urban decay. I understand that the so called "job creators" have no incentive to "create jobs" in areas where poverty and crime like this exists. And that things will never ever improve when left to the free market. I understand that the only real solution we have to fix areas like mine is a UBI, and that it would go further to stabilize things than anything else. We would have no poverty if we had UBI. Homelessness would be relatively rare. And crime would go down, if anything. Social dysfunction like crime comes from complex sociological factors that drive people to do such things. Policies like UBI would reduce the necessity that drives such things.
But yes, merely pointing out "oh, I feel unsafe in my neighborhood", or "I dont like being around homeless people" or something like that is enough to drive self described leftists nuts where they're like how dare you think that way check your privilege, blah blah blah, and I can understand why Ana felt the way that she did. She literally was a victim of a crime and the left was telling her to STFU and check her privilege about it. Jesus christ. You see how this leftist brainrot doesn't resonate with people? Jesus.
Not only did I suddenly see the flawed thinking of some on the left, I also witnessed their cruelty and hypocrisy in real time. These terrible traits that I had associated solely with my political opponents were obviously not exclusive to their tribe. I was stupid for ever thinking that was the case.
Yes yes, both sides do tribalism. I will still say, despite the above, one side does tend to be closer to the truth than the other though. The important thing about being "unaligned" and a rational thinker is you can analyze the situation from all angles and then make a judgment call that aligns with YOUR value system. Like I just did.
Is the "i dont like crime and criminals in my neighborhood" mentality of the right justified? Yes. Is the "the root cause of these issues still systemic and best solved through some variations of left wing policy"? Also yes. Nuance is important. When people fear Ana leaving the left, they do so because they fear she will get sucked into the group think of the other side. And it's easy to do. I thought I was "on the left" until I realized I really wasn't one of them, that my ideological background was different, and I won't always align with them. And while I am still vaguely "left", I'm also deeply critical of "THE left." If that makes any sense at all. You can have your cake and eat it too. Really.
That doesn’t mean everyone on the left thinks or behaves in the way this small group of lunatics do. Far from it. But it does mean that there are factions and flaws on both sides of the aisle and no one has a monopoly on truth.
In light of the above, I'm just gonna say that reality does have a liberal bias. Just saying.
Then there was the insane reaction to one of my tweets in March 2023:
For reference this is the infamous "birthing person" tweet.
All hell broke loose after I posted those words. Most “friends” in left-wing media didn’t bother reaching out privately to discuss their disagreement with my personal preference. Instead, many self-described socialists took it upon themselves to profit from conflict by publicly attacking me with monetized videos.
A smaller leftist YouTube show put out five separate videos skewering me about the tweet, while conveniently erasing the advocacy I had done on behalf of the transgender community throughout my career. They even went as far as drawing a link between my tweet and trans suicides, which sadly wasn’t the most unhinged outcome of the debacle.
TYT’s volunteer YouTube chat moderators quit over the tweet, and someone reported me to Human Resources. An on-air transgender contributor even resigned from the company after being urged by online mobs and leftist shows to do so. Curious that not one of those shows hired her after she took their advice.
I never apologized for the tweet and I never will.
That whole experience forced me to come to terms with the intolerance on the left and it allowed me to publicly reject the ideological shackles that kept my world small and less informed.
Yeah. And that was really just some of the most insular terminally online nonsense that you see when dealing with internet leftists. I mean, SJWism is a cult. And you're just support to unquestioningly uphold their social norms and values, and if you don't, you're excommunicated. "Burn the witch", blah blah blah. And yes, I am making a parallel to Christianity there with that reference, because social justice ideology is literally just the right's current zeitgeist of religious fundamentalism. It's cut out of the same cloth, and does the same thing to people's brains.
And you know what? Ana shouldn't apologize and she should be proud for breaking through the group think there. There's a reason I never jumped on the social justice bandwagon. THis is why. As a free thinking "secular" humanist (secular in quotes as I'm spiritual now but I still hold a secular political ideology and my views do have a ton of intellectual debt owed to the new atheist movement), I never could jump on board with this stuff. Because it involves turning the brain off, not questioning things, and going with the group think. And I wasn't willing to do that at the expense of my priorities.
Today I’m less certain and more curious than I was four years ago. I’ve made humiliating mistakes while covering political news because I was previously unwilling to consider or understand the perspective of Americans who vote differently from me.
Just because you left a certain left wing cult doesn't mean the right is in any way justified. You can just be an independent minded leftie like me.
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two to three written pieces that dig deeper into the big stories of the week with the intention of finding truth rather than promoting a political side.
video posts sharing details on breaking news and political events.
a weekly podcast beginning in November that will feature long-form discussions and debates with guests from all walks of life.
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Won't be subbing but yeah, that's the end of the article.
I know Ana will never read this, my personal political blog with like 3 viewers or whatever, but I do have some advice in case she ever does.
So, with me, I left the right in 2012. I left fundamentalist Christianity, I became a "new atheist" and a "secular humanist", and I build up my worldview from there.
What you (Ana) need most right now, is a coherent epistemology or a worldview. You need to figure out who you are and what you stand for. You're ideologically unmoored, which is a good thing. It allows you to do introspection and to look at things from a new perspective. But...in order to not fall into another "trap" so to speak, you need a coherent set of values guide your thinking.
I talk about worldview and epistemology a lot on this blog. All of my views come from my epistemology. These the views behind your views. These are what anchors you to reality. You need to figure out where you stand in regard to what worldview you espouse.
Think about things like this:
Do you believe in god or not? What impact does this religious belief have on how you view reality?
What is morality, really? Does it come from god? Do humans make it? What are its goals? Who does it serve?
What do I believe about the history of humans and where morality comes from, and where states come from?
What do I believe about human nature? What about free will?
How should humans organize themselves? Should we be more individualist and/or libertarian? More collectivist? What are our rights? What are the limitations of state action? What is okay and not okay?
From these kinds of questions, you tend to get some political ideas. Heck, the reason I'm so harsh on conservatism is I generally know what the answers to those questions are for those guys, and I fundamentally don't agree with them. Likewise, I also understand the left disagrees with each other on these questions. We're not necessarily a monolith. And the reason there's so much infighting among "leftists" is because there are tons of different ideologies that view these kinds of things differently.
But anyone who leaves a worldview should figure out where they stand, in crafting the next. And it's best for people to figure this out for themselves, rather than just adopting some other guys' ideas. Heck, just adapting someone else's ideas instead of figuring out things for yourself, is how people get in these positions. Most peoples positions on things come from their social environments, their upbringing, etc. And people end up being in these tribes as a response. But sometimes people question their views. And sometimes people leave their ideologies and then form another. Given Ana is just "leaving the left", now, she's literally having her "leaving the cave" moment like I had in 2012. But where she goes from here is really up to her. And I hope she uses her newfound intellectual freedom responsibly and doesn't turn into a right wing ghoul in the process, I really don't. Sometimes people overcorrect from one side to the other, they adopt a worldview, and then they become everything the polar opposite of where they started.
Even I did it. I just did it before the modern zeitgeist where the polar opposite of fundamentalist christianity was "new atheism" and that whole zeitgeist. If you leave SJW politics and go to the polar opposite, that means becoming an alt righter. And for the love of God Ana, I'm just gonna give a warning, DO NOT GO DOWN THIS ROAD! Those guys really don't have the answers. If anything, that's how you end up going down the road to literal fascism.
Obviously, reality is nuanced. I mean, I expressed it in my views myself. You can both be not a fan of literal crime, while also understanding the sociological origins of most crime. It's fine. I do it myself. So does Yang. You can be for trans rights while also recognizing that the weird cultish behavior around language and "birthing persons" is unhealthy. You can be "left" in a sense, without being part of "the tribe." If anything, it's best NOT to be.
I mean, on this issue, look no further than Kamala Harris. Pretty progressive lib, has a history in criminal justice and as a prosecutor. Even gets a lot of crap from the left over it, but you know what? I've had criminology professors that remind me of Harris before back in college. It's fine. if anything, I feel like that kind of position and nuance is lost in this modern age of tribalism. The left as a whole has picked up a lot of really awful habits and beliefs since the 2016 election cycle. Hell, thats where the left really started to go "wrong" for me. And I really have diverged from it then.
I'm still "left" in a vague sense, but I also understand I'm politically homeless, I dont have much of a "tribe", if one at all, and I really dont fit in anyone's box. Even the Yang Gang has exhibited toxic tribalism before, and I've called them out on that too. And called Yang out on his own shortcomings too. I crap on everyone. And that's one thing that I'd recommend. Understand who YOU are, stick with it, and then don't be afraid to call out anyone else's crap. Even someone you agree with. Even someone like say, Cenk Uygur, in Ana's case. Because we all know that guy does occasionally need to be brought down a peg when he gets going on his insane rants on occasion.
Anyway, that's my response to Ana leaving the left. I largely support her decision, but think she also needs to have some discipline in who she listens to and stuff like that. There is a such thing as being so open minded your brain falls out. And I really do think Ana should take some time to herself and retrain her brain to figure out who she is, what she's for, and then stick with it. In my case it took about 2 years I'd say for me to really grow into the person I am today. I left religion in 2012, but I wouldnt say I came to anything resembling my current views until late 2013-2014ish. By the end of 2014, yeah i am who I am, but that was 2.5 years later. It really does take that much time to sort yourself out after leaving an entire worldview when it's all you've ever known.
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