Friday night on Real Time with Bill Maher, Chris Matthews broke out the old chestnut that if Democrats ever want to get back to winning elections, “liberals” and “coastal elites” — you know, the intelligent, enlightened, educated people who live and work in our nation’s centers of commerce, technology and the arts — have to stop “condescending” to the “working class” people of “faith” who live in that vast, rural stretch of “middle America.”
This is what we’ve been hearing ever since the Jan Brady Election and the oh-so-economically-anxious middle-American working-class Christian-conservative primal cry of “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!!” that took place just over a year ago. Never mind that this particular shoe is never on the other foot, which no one but me seems to want to acknowledge let alone examine. Even after Democrats won big last Tuesday, their cohorts are still being cautioned not to get too cocky (which is fine), and to knock off the “condescension” (which is most assuredly not fine).
Granted, more and more people are recognizing and rejecting Both-Siderism, including the folks here at DK, but every now and then someone pipes up with something we need to start “blaming the left” for, usually something along the lines of “political correctness,” “identity politics,” “safe spaces,” “trigger warnings,” “SJW” or “condescension,” all of which are really part and parcel of the same general idea: liberals can be really, really annoying sometimes.
In one of my prior diaries calling BS on Both-Siderism, I had an exchange with a commenter who criticized me and the post for “fail[ing] to acknowledge one iota of blame to those of us on the left.” My response to which was, “start with something for which we are genuinely and legitimately to blame; don’t make sh** up or pretend that certain things are blameworthy when they’re not.”
Here’s what this person came up with as things for which “the left” is “genuinely and legitimately to blame”:
So safe spaces, trigger warnings and shouting conservatives off of campuses hasn’t been done by the left?
Whether these things have been “done by the left” (whatever that means) or not, three things stand out to me when I think about this. One is that they seem, if not wholly imaginary, wholly anecdotal. Two is they don’t seem to affect very many people directly; I, for one, am not in college and would probably feel free to ignore all this if I were; this is something people are hearing about, not actually experiencing. And three, if this is the worst thing “the left” can be credibly accused of doing and “blamed” for, I’ll take that any day of the week and twice on Sunday over the worst excesses of the other Side.
But back to “done by the left” for a moment; what does that mean, exactly, “done by the left”? It’s certainly not a product of Democratic governance or progressive policies, let alone part of the national party platform. In fact it has nothing to do with actual policy; more on that presently.
Extreme political correctness isn’t a problem?
No, it isn’t. Income inequality is a problem. Wage stagnation is a problem. Lack of health insurance is a problem. Deteriorating infrastructure is a problem. Police brutality is a problem. Pollution is a problem. Climate change is a problem. Housing and employment discrimination is a problem. Nuclear proliferation is a problem. Radical Islamic Terrorism™ is a problem. The cost of higher education is a problem. Predatory lending is a problem. Obesity is a problem. Domestic abuse is a problem. Alcoholism is a problem. Gun violence is a problem. Suggesting that people be considerate, thoughtful and inclusive instead of mean, nasty and offensive, and taking exception to or calling out mean, nasty, offensive behavior, is not a problem.
And it’s certainly not a problem that an enactment of or a change in public policy can solve.
The air of superiority and condescension to anyone who voted for Trump as intellectually inferior doesn’t permeate this website and liberalism in general?
No, it doesn’t. Criticism, scrutiny, and challenging fact-deficient proclamations of opinion or belief (i.e., calling BS on BS), is not “condescension.” Charlie Sykes, in his fake mea culpa in Newsweek, harped about poor, innocent, well-meaning conservatives feeling ”attacked” throughout the Obama presidency. Not criticized, not scrutinized, not challenged, not even merely ridiculed, but attacked. Irrespective of the [in]validity of these purported feelings, feeling “attacked” is not a problem that an enactment of or a change in public policy can solve.
I’m not sure when, how or why this whole narrative conflating “liberals,” and by extension liberalism, the Democratic Party, and basically the entire blue color-war team, with “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings” and “shouting conservatives off of campuses” and “extreme political correctness” and “identity politics” and “superiority” and “condescension” and “snowflakes” and “SJWs” all these other annoying behaviors and characteristics got started, but it’s all over the culture now. We saw it caricatured on last Sunday’s Family Guy, and it pops up on every political talk show when someone needs to find something to blame on “the left” and Democrats so they can show that Both Sides® are Just as Bad™.
But when, how and why it got started, whether there’s any validity to any of it, and whether there actually are any real people who behave like the caricatures on last week’s Family Guy, is beside the point. When you distill all of this down to its essence, it means three things: (1) “liberals” are sensitive, annoying, and obnoxious; (2), that is the single biggest, most pressing problem we have in America today (again, not income inequality, not wage stagnation, not lack of affordable health insurance, not deteriorating infrastructure, not police brutality, not pollution, not climate change, not discrimination, not terrorism, not the cost of higher education, not predatory lending, not obesity, not domestic abuse, not alcoholism, and certainly not gun violence); and (3) voting Republican, or in particular voting for a self-evidently unqualified, ignorant, vulgar, demented racist gangster, to enact and/or change public policy, is a rational solution to that problem.
Forgive me, but what the high holy ever-loving f***?
First of all, if being sensitive, annoying and obnoxious is the worst thing “liberals” can be accused of, and if having sensitive, annoying and obnoxious supporters is the worst thing the Democratic Party can be accused of — and I’m still waiting for someone to come up with something worse that can legitimately be “blamed” on “the left” or on Democrats — not only can I live with that, but it does not move me one inch off of my support for Democrats over Republicans. I’m not even going to get into the worst things the GOP and its cohort can be accused of. If nothing else, Democrats at least have an actual policy agenda. Republicans don’t; to the extent they do, it’s purely rhetorical and not practically achievable; to the extent it is, it’s horrifying.
Expanding access to health insurance, and setting minimum coverage standards, is policy. Building and rebuilding public infrastructure is policy. Raising the minimum wage is policy. Establishing workplace safety standards is policy. Setting immigration enforcement priorities is policy. Proscribing discrimination in the public sphere is policy. Incoherent slogans about “freedom” and “limited government” and “personal responsibility” are not policy. Masturbating to the words “capitalism,” “free markets” and “Job Creators” is not policy. Whingeing about "political correctness" and the "liberal media" is not policy. And being annoyed by liberals (be they real or imaginary) is not policy; in fact, it has nothing to do with policy.
What I’m trying to figure out is, why are we letting anyone get away with presenting, discussing and treating these non-policy issues and so-called “problems,” even if we concede that things like “extreme political correctness” and “safe spaces” and “triggering” and “SJWs” and “feeling attacked” might be political issues or problems, as if they were policy issues or policy problems? More to the point, why are we letting them influence how people vote, or even accepting that they do or should influence how people vote? Elected officials are there to make, enact and execute policy, not to assuage feelings, engender other feelings, or to make other people seem less annoying.
John Oliver touched on this in his season finale the other night, talking about how der Drumpfenführer his minions have taken whataboutism and trolling, inter alia, out of the right-wing blogosphere and into the realm of actual policy and governance. From Rolling Stone:
Oliver showed a reaction clip from Fox and Friends, where the commentators celebrate how much Trump is "trolling" the media by standing with military leaders in light of military threats from North Korea. ("It's beautiful to watch," said one of the reporters.)
"Who benefits from mass confusion about whether or not we're about to go to war?" Oliver said, dumbfounded. "Are there thousands of unemployed factory workers across the midwest going, 'well, the plant closed down and I lost my health care but somewhere a Washington Post reporter is scared of dying so things are looking up. MAGA!'"
Exactly; who benefits? Well, we all know who benefits, so the real question is, what can be gained, apart from political advantage for the GOP? What can be gained or achieved from treating sensitive annoying obnoxious politically-correct SJW liberal snowflakes with their campus safe spaces and trigger warnings and condescension as a grave, urgent and overriding public policy problem, let alone one that actual policymaking, or electing Republicans to make and enact policy, can fix? Even if we forgive the Charlie Sykeses and Andrew Sullivans of the world for clinging to this as the only trenchant criticism of the left and/or of Democrats that they can muster up, why are the Bill Mahers and the Chris Matthewses still breathing life into this virulent strain of Both-Siderism?
