Dear Abby: I’m a liberal Democrat and my entire political party is full of insufferable nags. What do I do?!
That was the entire point of New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg’s article this week wherein she fretted that normal Americans are perhaps drifting to the political right because the left has become so indefensibly annoying.
“For those who get most of their politics online, this can be what the left looks like — a humorless person shaking her head at others’ insensitivity,” she wrote. “As a result, an alliance with the country’s most repressive forces can appear, to some, as liberating.”
Without saying it outright, Goldberg was getting at the left’s defining qualities today. Its allies have become so miserable, so toxic, so angry and weird that it’s repulsing voters. They call people “racist” for any reason at all. They push for the sexualization of children in public schools. And they shut down all discourse that threatens their delicate ideology.
Look what’s happening with the Elon Musk-Twitter drama. A billionaire wanted to buy a publishing company — not something unheard of — and it was an unnecessarily drawn out, messy fight for him to do it because the left wing and Democrats believe they alone dictate what counts as fair discourse.
Goldberg declared the left “stagnant,” but what she really means is that it’s miserable. It’s stuck in a rut because its activists are singularly motivated by negative emotions now. What do they talk about these days? Persecuting Trump supporters who were in Washington on Jan. 6, Covid as a means of controlling the populace, and “equity” for anyone who claims to be oppressed (i.e. the Democrat voter base).
“When the left becomes grimly censorious, it incubates its own opposition,” wrote Goldberg. “The internet makes things worse, giving the whole world a taste of the type of irritating progressive sanctimony…”
She says this like it’s a problem created by the right, or even unassuming independents who must not be able to distinguish between the “online” left from the real left. It’s not. It’s people like Goldberg who wanted to teach children about transgenderism and how it sucks to be white. That people were repulsed by their weird fixations isn’t their own fault. It’s the fault of the left for being so creepy, unhappy, and maladjusted.
Look at Florida. The hottest controversy there now is whether kindergarten teachers should be able to explain to students what it means to be “gender queer.” Leftists are adamant that they get to talk about sexual identity with kids. It’s dumb. Even a majority of Democrats in that state know it’s dumb.
Look at the reaction to the district judge in Florida who struck down the airline mask mandate. Leftists are furious that they can’t tell people to cover up their noses and mouths anymore (at least for now).
Look at the election of GOP Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin. His central campaign theme was that public school kids shouldn’t be instilled with the idea that being white is an irredeemable sin. The left nearly needed an exorcism.
Look at your own encounters with these people. The funny thing about left-wingers is that they feel absolutely no reservation about showing up to a social function and popping off with their political opinions on race, sex, and equity.
Any normal person thinks to himself, “I’d rather not.” Leftists don’t. They see it as their duty to ensure that everyone knows how they feel (miserable).
You don’t like it? Tough.
Goldberg knows her movement is an emotional and mental mess. She just can’t bear to break the news.
They’re always angry. They’re always upset. They’ve lost their grip. Goldberg could have just said that, but instead, she whined about conservatives and independent Americans who aren’t into the gross and distasteful things that the movement she belongs to has produced.
“In the short term, however, it’s frightening to think that backlash politics could become somehow fashionable, especially given how stagnant the left appears,” she continued.
The left doesn’t “appear” anything. It’s undeniably vulgar, and fewer people want to be part of it. Maybe Goldberg should just admit it and stop making excuses for how awful the left-wing Democrat movement is.
