So, pot calling the kettle black, but I plan on addressing this in my article. I'm looking around at my news feed and everyone is losing their crap over Yang and his Israel support. Now, I already covered this, and I get it, Yang screwed up, and he's kind of cringey with his stance on this.
However, let's call a spade a spade and move on, shall we?
The problem is, the left is blowing this out of hyperbolic proportions. It's just crazy. I'm seeing people go on about how Yang is a progressive traitor, and how he's not progressive, and he's crap, and blah blah blah, and it just annoys me.
Here's the thing. I can be purity testy as fudge. I can flat out be insufferable on stuff. HOWEVER, here's the thing, I pick my battles. There's a handful of issues I REALLY care about, and a bunch of issues I don't really care about at all. If you cross me on a big issue of mine, I'm going to rip you for it. But if you tend to have less than pure views on more minor issues, well, I can be a bit more flexible.
From Sam Seder, to Vaush, to the overall left online, I'm seeing hatred and hostility everywhere toward this. And in light of my "you can't make people care" argument, I really just...don't care. like I don't get how people can get so morally outraged over EVERY issue no matter how small. I mean, Yang is running for mayor of NYC. He's not gonna exactly influence our foreign policy with Israel.Hhe just put forward a cringey pandery statement, that's all. I don't understand why everyone has to scream and freak out over it and show this overly exaggerated moral outrage. His position sucks, I agree it sucks, but get over it.
The way I see it, no one is gonna be perfect on every issue. Bernie comes close, and I guess Bernie is the reason the left is acting as crazy as he does. Besides UBI, he is the standard bearer for progressivism. But here's the thing. Bernie is unique, and most people aren't Bernie. Even then, Bernie himself isn't enough for the nuts like Jimmy Dore. Even Bernie is a sell out to some people (and don't get me going about how the left is treating the squad right now, it's ridiculous). But for most, he's the standard.
Maybe it's the autism, but I don't see how people can have the mental stamina to be perpetually morally outraged over every issue with this amount of vigor. Again, I'm like yeah, it sucks, and then I move on. I only show actual emotion and outrage when I get crossed on my big stuff.
As I was saying, you can't agree with people on everything. You're gonna find disagreements with people. To me, it's about prioritizing those agreements and disagreements. That's the purpose of those metrics I made. I literally made entire metrics to purity test people. And you know what? At the end of the day, I look at who scores highest and vote for them. As you know, some issues matter a lot more to me than others. I just can't imagine screaming and hating on candidates because they're bad on a few issues here and there. Guess what, no one is perfect, and everyone is gonna be bad on something. I can't even pass 100% on my own purity tests applied to myself because even I have to compromise with reality, and you can look at my metrics post below this one for proof of that.
If I can find a candidate who I agree with, on the big issues, like 70% of the time, that's HUGE. And that's just the BIG issues. Considering how many dozens, hundreds of political issues out there, I think the outrage I see toward people is ridiculous. Some purity tests are just so annoying pedantic, and honestly, given how little those issues influence my vote, I just don't get why people get so uppity over them.
Wanna know how much Yang's stance on Israel lowers my stance on him? Eh, maybe 5 points on metric 1 at most (given I was overly generous to his foreign policy instincts, in reality it should only influence me by 1-3), 0 points on metric 2. That's it. And given how cringey most people in the US are on Israel, and how there's this cultish circlejerk of "we must support Israel" among both republicans and democrats that I quite frankly view as creepy, I generally assume most Americans support Israel by default. Not everyone is as far left as Vaush, who tonight in his segment on Yang was LITERALLY talking about supporting Native Americans reconquering the US.
I mean, what the actual fudge? I look at this and I'm just like, this is insane. These leftists are insane. Maybe, despite my Bernie and Yang support, I'm not as progressive as I think I am, I mean outside of economics I'm basically just a mainstream democrat, but I really just don't get how people can spew stuff this insane.
It's not even just this, and it's not even the commies and Bernie Bros either. Like, I see this on a lot of issues. I see people who are more establishment, hawkish liberals who insist we must "do something" about China's genocide of the Uyghurs. I mean, China's a nuclear power and second largest economic powerhouse in the world. Do you think they care what we think and do you think we can actually do anything to them? Liberals sometimes get so self righteous about foreign policy issues and all the crappy stuff other countries do, but it's like, what are you gonna do about it? Invade them? Threaten relationships with them?
I mean, just condemn them and move on. That's all you can do. I really don't want to get into being the world police like it's the Clinton or Bush eras again. We should assert our interests, protect our allies, but otherwise just back off. I mean, that's not saying we shouldn't call stuff out as we see it. Obviously what is happening in China is horrible, just as what is happening in Israel is horrible. But honestly, I'm getting tired of the perpetually outraged virtue signallers who will scream about stuff until their voice goes numb, when in reality, we can't do much about it, we shouldn't do much about it, and all of this crap amounts to self righteous grandstanding that doesn't get anything done. I'd rather not waste energy tilting at windmills, and if I do tilt at windmills, I'd rather focus on issues I REALLY care about.
Same thing with Biden acknowledging the Armenian genocide. Brutally honest, I never even heard of this one other than Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks apparently being a former denier and people being outraged over that (never mind the fact that the dude is progressive as fudge and that seemed to largely be a result of cultural brainwashing and seemed totally separate of his stances on American politics, which are normally quite good). But, okay, it happened. Sure. But people acted like it was such a big deal when Biden acknowledged it. Wanna know how much that changes the world? Not at all. People were acting like Biden was so amazingly progressive because he acknowledged a war crime in another country that has nothing to do with us from 100 years ago. It just baffles me. Like, again, am I wrong? Is this one of those things where being autistic I just lack empathy and the emotional bandwidth to put energy into these things?
Idk, I just feel like the left just goes bugnuts over issues that seem relatively minor and irrelevant to the scope of US politics, and seem to focus on tons of virtue signalling and perpetual outrage, and I just don't see how this is helpful. I've seen people being ripped to shreds just for not doing this socially performative BS.
Now, again, this is separate of my actual stance on my issues. To cover my stances:
Israel = bad, but it's complicated and there's no easy solution
Armenian genocide = happened
China's treatment of Uyghurs = bad
Wanna make that clear given how hyperbolic and virtue signally people are and how they'll rip me apart if I dont actually discuss my beliefs. My stances are actually fairly left. But, at the end of the day, like many other overly socially performative issues that ultimately don't seem to really affect me, they're not exactly gonna motivate me to condemn or praise random American politicians, or commentators, if they don't hold the exact issues as me. because I prioritize. If I was perpetually outraged at everyone, I would find no one to agree with or work with. I already find it difficult as fudge given how nuanced and esoteric my politics are. But you think I'm gonna hate Cenk Uygur, someone I agree with like 80-90% of the time on his show, because he has backwards views on one issue? Am I gonna drop Yang because he is wrong on one issue? No, of course not, that's stupid. If you purity test people too hard, you're eventually gonna run out of allies. As I said, I can't even pass my own purity tests perfectly.
Then again I feel like the hard left IS developing this problem. Again, I've seen Jimmy Dore rip Bernie for being a "sell out" and a "sheepdog for the democrats." And again, the lefties are ripping AOC and the squad, often unfairly, because they don't just openly defy Pelosi and force a vote on Medicare for all. Okay, say that she did that. She would piss off the third most powerful person in the country, have no power, and probably be thrown out of office as she's ineffective and faces a more corporate friendly primary challenger. Let's hold our people accountable, but the lefties are starting to remind me of how nuts the tea party and the Trumpers got. While I can be a purity testing blowhard, at least I try to keep the criticism substantive, focus on ideology, set standards that can be realistically met, and I pick my battles. That's the big thing, I focus on what's realistic (at least to me), and i pick my battles. Something I feel the left needs to learn these days.
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