This is the feedback loop that is moving the political and cultural center of gravity to the left:
1. Tiny group of left-wingers says something crazy on social media
2. Larger, but still small, left-wing echo chamber picks it up
3. Lazy reporters write "Internet on fire" story
1. Tiny group of left-wingers says something crazy on social media
2. Larger, but still small, left-wing echo chamber picks it up
3. Lazy reporters write "Internet on fire" story
Once the nutball left-wing meme gets a signal boost from legacy media, suddenly it becomes the center of opinion for the online Left, the "mainstream" opinion, the thing "everybody" believes. That's what terrorizes other media outlets and corporations into compliance.
And of course most big corporations now have Woke Left agents riddling their management structure, ready to activate at the first hint of a social media crusade and urge the top brass to take a knee as quickly as possible.
It's a system that inherently works against any sort of "conservatism" or defense at all. Where do normal people go to tell Trader Joe's they DON'T want their products renamed? How could the normies ever generate the kind of social media heat that would get them noticed?
There is literally no way to play defense on this stuff. The game has been rigged so that normal people never get to roll the dice. Your opinion is not consulted. You have no voice in corporate boardrooms or major media editorial boards.
It's like the statue jihad: there is no real way for the people who don't want everything torn down or renamed to defend tradition. People who have jobs can't spend all day on vigilante statue-defense detail. No one is asking for their vote on keeping the old America intact.
Because the Right was long ago frightened away from making populist appeals or taking a firm stand on social issues, there isn't much to slow down the social media-driven lefty crusades. Normal people have been told they lack the moral standing to speak up.
It all happens so fast that the battles are over, the window of political possibility shifted, before the normies even know they're in a fight. They just turn on the TV and see that perfectly harmless words and symbols have been redefined as "offensive" in the blink of an eye.
Remember how we always used to hear that it was time for a "great national discussion" about whatever the Left wanted, and that "discussion" was really supposed to be a one-sided lecture, where they talk and we were expected to listen in reverent silence?
You don't really hear that little cliche about "national conversations" any more, because the Left doesn't even think you deserve THAT minimal courtesy. They're not interested in even PRETENDING to persuade you. They have all the "national conversations" between themselves now.
The Left's internal Great National Conversations are all shrieking panic attacks held in a matter of hours on social media. They lack even the thin pretense of exchanging ideas that the old Great National Conversations had. They're vicious power struggles between lefty factions.
The results bounce up to legacy media in that feedback loop, and presto change-o, the New Normal is established so fast that even left-wingers of the older school can be left reeling in shock as they're abruptly redefined into reactionary enemies of the latest crusade.
Yesterday's feminist heroine becomes today's hated anti-trans bigot in a nanosecond, yesterday's sincere liberal gets canceled because the meaning of "free speech" has been changed. What chance do the rest of us have, when we aren't respected or consulted at all? /end
