I think it's clear at this point that the American Left has really become more of a "hyperliberalism."
AOC calling for a Goya boycott, the rise of Antifa moms, Joy Reid "supporting" the very symbolic M4A issue now because it no longer confers political power, and lefties joining every silly online panic — total and complete fusion. Cultural liberalism has swallowed the left.
It's very reminiscent to me of the 2000s era liberal activism, with the focus being on Democrats being "tougher" and showing some "backbone," but now with an extremely woke edge added for emphasis.
Liberals are very angry about mailboxes being hauled off to reeducation camps, but the Left is even *angrier* and demands accountability. Show some BACKBONE you LOSERS. We must be allies to blue mailbox bodies who must exist in non-mail spaces.
The way you see these leftist influencer-politicians throw an “#M4A” into their instagram posts so no one will notice it’s just typical narcissistic, self-promoting social media usage is probably the best metaphor for leftist politics I can imagine.
The dirty secret is that for the professional class Left, M4A and other social welfare policies are loosely held, performative moral posturings that help justify the culture war that they really care about. It would be unseemly to not also support the "substance."
People are very in denial about what happened over the past four years. It's hyperliberalism now.
Do you really think the Left didn't have to fundamentally change in order to accommodate this? Just a total Stockholm Syndromization.
Ross Douthat was completely right about this.
nytimes.com/2020/06/23/opi…
That's ok. It was a potentially useful strain of reformism for American politics at one point. It's probably not any more. Life goes on.
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