As we're all aware, lots of people have dedicated their lives to scolding the left over "wokeness" & related issues. My favorite part of their articles is always where they hand-wave at the rising tide of reactionary illiberalism & violence from the right. They can't ignore it...
... but to take it too seriously might raise questions such as, "if that's going on, why are you talking about THIS?" So there's a real art form: you acknowledge it enough to check the box, but not so much it renders your focus absurd.
It's this drek from Thomas Frank that got me thinking of it. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
There are lots of people on the left obsessed with attacking "liberals" & Dems, to the point that a) if the right makes BS attacks on Dems, they'll echo them, & b) if Dems try to blame Rs (or anything else) for some part of their troubles, they'll mock & dismiss it.
So for instance, we're living through an extremely obvious epistemological crisis, with RW media cranking out deranged fantasies & conspiracies & a growing portion of the populace in la-la land. The RW has a giant, coordinated media machine ...
... that has no compunction about lying. And the left just doesn't. And it fundamentally skews every political debate. It's becoming difficult to govern a nation with no shared body of facts. But Frank must dismiss all that with a wave of his hand, yada yada it, to get to ...
... the REAL issue here, which is Dems making excuses. He's built a career & an identity grinding this axe, shitting on mainstream Dems, so he's not going to let any fancy talk about epistemological crisis distract him.
It just seems like it ought to be possible to believe BOTH that the Dems have lots of faults & ought to fight harder & more effectively ... AND that the immediate crisis facing the country is a rising tide of reactionary illiberalism & violence. Admitting the latter ...
... doesn't disqualify you from pointing out the former! Some of these liberal haters tie themselves into such bizarre contortions to always, always be against Dems. "The problem is not fascist propaganda, it's libs trying to do something about it." F'ing really?
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