So, it's quite clear there's some significant shifts in tone in my views as of late. When i started this blog, I was a fiery Bernie Sanders progressive, but as of late, I find myself more at odds with the progressive movement. I started off being conciliatory toward the SJWs, but then became more hostile to them over time. I'm clearly burning a lot of bridges with the left as of late, and I want to address this.
I came over to the left, from the right, in 2012. I was raised a very staunch Reagan and Bush conservative, who was a fundamentalist christian in my teenage years. I listened to Rush Limbaugh, I held consistently right views on most topics (minus death penalty). But then, over time, I shifted. When I went to college I realized the religious fundamentalism was harmful and I slowly drifted toward libertarian positions on social issues. On economics, I started drifting to the center, but then the tea party temporarily drove me overwhelmingly right. However, I quickly realized my mistake, and realized that the problems with conservatism were ideological, as in, i had issues with their entire perspective of the world. I became an atheist around this time, which shifted me hard left socially. And the recession shifted me hard left on economic policy. I ultimately joined the democrats, and sided with them in 2012. In 2013-2014 I expanded upon my ideology, shifting toward the human centered capitalism I have today. It was like a little bit of Bernie Sanders, and a little bit of Andrew Yang. More Yang than Bernie, but Yang wasn't a political force yet, so I identified as a Bernie supporter in 2016.
Which is where my tensions with the democrats began. In retrospect, I really only had a temporary honeymoon period in which I was super pro democratic party. My relationship became strained with them just 3 years later over the Hillary/Bernie divide. I never really got into traditional democratic party politics. My ideology isn't shaped by the historical forces that influenced their party, but my own personal journey, and Hillary's entire stance toward the democratic brand...alienated me. On economics, I got to the point where I was to the left of Hillary and more in line with Bernie. I decided early on our economic system was fundamentally broken and we needed a new new deal. While the democratic platform was...okay, it failed to address a lot of major issues. I believed we needed stronger solutions like UBI, M4A, and free college. And that was what my idea of a new new deal was. And Bernie prominently supported 2/3. He didn't support UBI, but UBI seemed to be a pipe dream at this point and not even in the conversation, so I let that one go for future election cycles. Ultimately, the most important thing was moving the overton window left first. We cant have any nice things if we don't.
But, we got Hillary. ANd she rejected all 3 of my priorities, and promoted social issues. And that's where I started becoming more at odds with democrats on them. Everything with the democrats was obnoxiously sectarian. Everything was about race, gender, and sexuality. And if you weren't equally as concerned about those issues, you were racist, sexist, etc. I never had a good relationship with the SJWs. I kind of learned about critical theory in college so I can at least speak their language and understand where they come from, but I just don't identify with it as a cishet white male, and I just never really felt strongly about these issues. You could influence me to move a bit to the left on them when tied to my own priorities, but otherwise, I don't care all that much. And I remember watching the whole gamergate thing play out in 2013 and I just decided to avoid that dumpster fire. it seemed like pointless drama between overbearing SJWs looking to push an agenda and gamers who literally did hold sexist attitudes at times. it was just one of those situations where no one wins. And I remember SJWs tried to push into the atheist movement with atheism+, and that being a failure as no one really cared or was interested in a brand of atheism specifically around those issues. But then in 2016 Hillary started sicking those guys on the bernie people, and it just ended up alienating me big time. I dont see myself as sexist or racist. Hell as I said if these guys weren't so hostile they could likely get me on their side. But because they instead decided to pick a fight with me due to insufficient zeal for their causes, they ended up driving me the other way.
And then trump happened. And the left went into insane damage control mode. And this is where I ended up just tuning out for 2 years. The SJWs were screaming "not my president" and bashing in storefronts, and i ended up explicitly ending friendships with people who were quite frankly radical nutjobs who were okay with literally assaulting people and commiting property destruction to fight their political opponents. I mean, I'm normally pretty tolerant toward other opinions as long as we're not actively fighting constantly, but advocacy for any type of violence is a line I just won't accept as far as friendships go a lot of the time. And then between the democrats being obnoxiously centrist and the SJWs being overtly leftist, I just got alienated. The progressives were my big island of sanity at this time, as at least they cared about medicare for all, and free college, and had some significant anti democratic party sentiment, but eventually cracks started forming too.
When Yang entered the political mainstream in 2019 with the joe rogan interview, I was instantly won over. This dude was literally studying the same issues that fundamentally influenced my views, and came to the same conclusions as me. It was uncanny. I had to support him. But this started costing me support. UBI suddenly went from far left wing idea to a right wing one. Progressives turned on it, hard. Suddenly Yang was trying to destroy welfare, and I was like "yeah, so?", I mean, isnt that the point? Welfare sucks and is the legacy of moderate democratic gains over time leading to a broken system, followed by further compromises and cuts compromising it further. It's terrible. No one should defend it, but suddenly progressives did and it was weird. I continued to try to be conciliatory, recognizing yang wasnt perfect on healthcare or free college, but they just kept being hostile to it. I did temporarily go back to bernie for various pragmatic reasons, but after 2020, I just kind of was done.
It became obvious that the progressives had morphed into being borderline socialist and pushing tons of ideas i wasnt huge on. And while I liked some like M4A and free college, I disliked other like the green new deal, and let's be honest, none of them are for a realistic UBI. And over the past year, I've kind of cut ties with the three major factions in the democratic party. I've gotten to the point where I'm just BEYOND tired of the centrists. Like really, I just despise them as holding back progress and being more similar to republicans than I am now. At the same time, I also have cut ties with the SJWs and racial advocates. I'm a little more sympathetic toward them than the centrists, but not a ton. And I've had enough with progressives who hate on UBI and it seems more and more like my ideology is diverging from theirs.
The real question is, how much of this is really a shift in me, and how much is a shift in the environment around me? Ultimately, it's more of the latter.
On social issues, I was explicitly won over by the democrats NOT being the crazies I was raised to believe they are. I was never for open border on immigration. SJWs seemed ridiculous and a target of scorn from more mainstream lefties. I was primarily influenced by the atheist movement at the time, and this caused me to shift significantly left on issues like abortion, gay marrage, and set the groundwork for me to be pro trans, but I never really got into the circlejerk. Friends who I had around 2013-2015 started becoming insufferable post 2016, as I had friends shunning me for not being as far left as them on social issues. And I got screamed at by an ex friend for using the wrong pronoun by mistake when they were trans. And yeah, i just got alienated. The environment, due to the clinton/trump dichotomy, led to increased polarization on social issues that didn't previously exist. The right moved further right, to being explicitly racist on race issues, while the left moved to be more insufferable. The 2016 election cycle became politics, and both sides just radicalized. And I was just unaffected by this, because much like gamer gate a few years prior, I didn't care. I never cared much for social issue fights. They're not my cup of tea. And when I left conservatism I never shifted to far left positions now considered purity tests today. I mean, the idea of screaming at someone for not explicitly supporting palestine wasnt a thing in 2012. Hell I felt I was a far leftie in 2012 on the palestine issue simply for having a "both sides" perspective afforded to me by atheism. Now that's considered unremarkably centrist, with me being called an anti semite by the pro israel side and an imperialist by "the left." On immigration I always held onto some elements of being not super pro immigration. I believed closed borders were necessary for liberalism to work. Now I'm lambasted as a right winger for not being for abolish ice and crap. And it just goes on. I've seen lefties bashing atheist thought leaders who in the early 2010s I respected like Christopher Hitchens , Sam Harris, and Bill Maher. Now, I don't really agree with these guys all that much either, and I consider Bill maher to be obnoxiously pro centrism, but still. It really just goes to show how much has changed. Society has changed in the past decade, specifically in the past 5 years. The left is now way further left than it used to be socially, and I just don't fit. I went from being far right, to comfortably left in 2012, and now despite being like, center left, I'm hated for not being on the cutting edge of the far left.
What of economics? Well, let's face it, I'm left of the democratic party. The democrats' centrist wing is pathetically center right. They made their shifts in the 90s and while they've slowly drifted left, they aren't amazingly so today. Biden might be the most progressive president since LBJ, but that isn't really saying much at all, given how far right the overton window has been since then. And even then, LBJ literally sparked the UBI discussions of the 60s and 70s with his great society being such a broken and flawed program. At the time it was championed by the right, as a more efficient and libertarian alternative to welfare (and this later did influence my views on the topic), but it was then championed by the left in the form of george mcgovern who was rejected by the democrats, and then the parties shifted far right since. So I come across UBI in 2013-2014 and I'm basically like, this is what conservative me would see as utopian leftism. And while it has roots in right wing ideology, that branding of the right is long dead and its effectively a far left idea today. Medicare for all, and free college also seemed ridiculously far left at the time. Bernie made M4A and free college a bit more mainstream, and purity tests of the progressive wing, but they never got on board with UBI. They went with UBI's biggest competitor, the job's guarantee, and as an ex conservative, what i saw as an inefficient and authoritarian alternative to UBI. You see, I guess there was a little conservatism left in me as I always found democratic approaches to solving problems horridly inefficient, but that drove me to support what i considered ideas to be further left. But as the sanders movement set the bleuprint for modern progressivism, I just didn't fit in this new paradigm. As society crystalized around me, my views didn't change, but society changed around me.
That said, now yang is considered to be this centrist or something for supporting UBI and wanting government to run...efficiently. It's weird. it's not really me that's changed much, it's society has changed around me. I just keep picking the side that represents me best as I go along. And then when I end up reaching disagreements with those factions, I cut ties.
The fact is, when I really look at it, I don't think my views have changed much in the past 7-9 years. I mean, maybe I did go a little left as the country did in 2016-2020 or so, but then I basically snapped back, as tensions grew with the factions I supported. That's what I described recently on the race issues like BLM. Like, I can sympathize with george floyd, but then the movement turns into basically arguing against a police shooting of every brown person ever. Oh, he had a knife and charged at the cop? Why didn't he disarm him? Why shoot him? Uh, because the cop's life is in danger? Duh.
For the most part, society just shifted around me. The overton window on a lot of issues, particularly social issues is radically far left, and I just cant keep up. On economics, the democrats maintained their centrist branding which alienates me, but at the same time, the progressive wing is just too crazy left for me, and I consider myself, and the yang gang, for that matter, to be a new form of left wing that isnt as radical as the socialists and progressives, but isnt as moderate as the centrists. It's just different. People struggle to place it on a spectrum, because it just doesn't fit. As I keep saying, it's simultaneously radical and moderate. It would radically change society, without undermining our fundamental institutions as they exist. And people just can't wrap their heads around that. Well, as yang and Scott Santens would say, its not left or right, its forward. But to me, forward tends to imply some level of progressivism. it's simply "alt left."
That said, overall, between now and 2012, I'd say roughly 80-90% of my apparent political shifts are just the environment around me changing what the left right spectrum looks like, and 10-20% is me actually having a change of heart. I don't think I'm becoming more conservative as I age all that much. I'm just discovering I was just never that radically left in the first place, and I just sound a bit more conservative as a result.
I really don't think lefties today know what conservatives look like today if they think I'm conservative. I WAS conservative. Trust me. I'm not that any more.
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