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What Were They Thinking?
No matter how fruitless the effort, I am plagued with a debilitating habit that I just can’t seem to shake: I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out, beyond the ideology, what people on the Left are actually thinking or what they believe, for them to continue to invest their time and efforts in foolish and dangerous ideas. Every now and then I have some openings in my thought process that allow me to venture into the dark recesses of the minds of the Left. I want to test out my thinking on all of you.
Since it’s difficult to make meaningful generalizations about the countless errors that the Left and particularly the Biden administration have made, I decided to focus primarily on the following areas: border administration (or lack thereof); policy toward China (or the lack thereof); policy on the economy (or the lack thereof) wait a minute, am I repeating myself? Regardless, our negotiating with Iran on the nuclear deal, and finally the mess of managing Covid give us plenty to focus on. I think it’s possible to infer similarities in thinking (or non-thinking, if you prefer) regarding these five areas that would explain how inept and feckless their efforts have been.
Elitism/Arrogance—More than ever, the Left relies on its belief in its own superiority. Whether these people point to their college degrees, affirmations of each other in their enclaves or just their own narcissism, they believe that they are best suited to run this country. Since their actions are driven by their elitist ideology, e.g., Marxism, socialism, wealth accumulation, and social circles, anyone who doesn’t embrace or live within those bubbles is clearly inferior and unqualified to contribute. It is possible to join this cadre, but you must begin by lauding the ideology first, then checking off all the other Leftist boxes.
Idealism/Naivete—These two attributes tend to feed on each other. The Left clings tightly to its ideals, and its naivete about the nature of real life and living as a productive member of society allows it to maintain its idealism. As it continues to live in its bubbles well into adulthood, seeking out others who are as idealistic and naïve as it is, it never encounters the middle class, which often struggles to make ends make; the Left insists that the struggles of “ordinary folk” are caused by Conservatives who have evil goals to quash those who live outside the Left’s elite circles. The ills of society, which are often the outcome of ordinary struggles to survive and thrive, can all be blamed on the capitalistic forces. Once those forces are controlled, or better yet eliminated, everyone will be equal. But of course, some people will be more equal than others; the elite will need to have the power to create and replicate this equality.
Faux Compassion—Although the Left has always claimed to be compassionate, the truth has been leaking out that it could care less about anyone who isn’t part of its in-group. Lately, it has been faced with the inconvenient truth that people are discovering how deluded it is: providing government funding that strips people of their work ethic; thinking people will accept vaccine mandates because it’s for their own good and the good of others; shutting down businesses while it destroys local economies; claiming compassion for those who cross the southern border, promising to provide funding and ignoring Covid infections; allowing drug deaths to skyrocket as fentanyl is carried across the border by cartels. The list is quite long, but the truth is emerging. The Left doesn’t care about anyone except its own agenda and its partners in crime.
Diplomacy vs. Demands—The Left wants everyone to believe that due to its elite expertise, it can finesse diplomatic activities it is involved with. The diplomats went into the latest Iran negotiations thinking that if they made their best offer, the Iranians would be so impressed that they’d simply agree and the negotiations could be wrapped up; the Iranians insisted, however, on further negotiations. I suspect that our elites are prepared to “give away the store” to finish up the Iran deal. We also see the feckless threats made to Russia and China, who are not in the least intimidated by our threats. And of course, our insistence that people should stop crossing the southern border is a farce. I suspect the Left believes that implementing penalties against our enemies is uncouth and will hurt people’s feelings. In addition, it is afraid to make demands because some of us will expect them to follow through, and that could hurt the Left politically when it doesn’t.
Analysis/Action/Paralysis—I’m convinced that since the Left relies on feelings and instincts, even serious decisions don’t undergo any kind of legitimate analysis. One only needs to look at the debacle in Afghanistan: if your “feelings” tell you that you must get out, then it’s important to take action, regardless of the potential outcomes. The alternative to action is paralysis—doing nothing because it just seems too difficult to do—and hope that no one notices.
All of these attributes are part of the Leftist mentality and have been for over 100 years. I guess we can at least say that it is consistent in its ineptitude.
* * * *
Given this analysis, I see no reason for the Left to wake up to the limitations of its ideology, or to take corrective action. These ideologues are headed for the abyss, and either refuse to acknowledge the potential disasters ahead, or simply ignore them. And they are prepared to take all of us with them.
To them, reality is relative and malleable; they will try to reshape impending disasters as opportunities. And since their reality is focused on attaining the ultimate good, which can either be described as the Global Reset or the transformation of America, power is key. They will risk nearly everything to hold onto it.
I’ve always maintained optimism in the face of these calamities; we do see pockets of the country fighting back against mandates, critical race theory, and the lack of a border policy.
But will it be enough?
[photo courtesy of Vadim Sadovski on unsplash.com]
Published in Politics
They are communists mixed with a Maoist cultist mindset. That means all actions are judged against adherence to The Narrative.
It gets simpler when you realize that the core is working to destroy the country they hate most. The main body goes along with the whole program because they truly believe in some individual segment.
Marxist agitation requires a permanent state of crisis.
I asked a related question in 2015: What are the fundamental axioms of ‘progressivism’?
Susan, thank you for thinking hard about these matters so that I don’t have to. I trust you. These days, I hurt myself every time I have to think hard.
Really good analysis. On Iran, anyone who has studied Islam at all would know that negotiating is simply a means of delaying enemy actions until the Islamic side is strong enough to destroy the enemy. Lying to an infidel is not a sin. We still haven’t realized that there is no negotiating with an opponent whose only goal is to kill you.
Our posts are definitely complementary, David. Thanks!
Their ideology drives them. For them, it is all or nothing. Our suffering is merely collateral damage in their battle. They assume they can shield themselves from the harm.
A very fine point, @eherring. I assume they have some magic elixir that will protect them from all things evil.
As a former wild-eyed faaarrr Left true believer and sometime agitator, I think I can offer some insight.
For all the virtue signaling, the single biggest driving force behind Leftisism is simple – Envy. For all the fingerprinting and gnashing of teeth about the Greedy Republicans, most of impetus for Lefty thinking comes down to plain old Envy. Oh, it gets dressed up as Inequality and Equity and whatnot, but the basic motivation is as old as Cain and Able. You have stuff and I don’t. And that irritates me no end. The how’s and why’s of the reasons for differences matter not. Process is irrelevant. Outcomes are what matters. It’s the core logic of the everyday street criminal. You have things I want and I have the will and the means to take them from you. So I will.
It is interesting that, like physics, outcomes are relativistic. it’s not the absolute outcome, but the relative outcome that matters most. An upper middle class Biden wine Mom doesn’t consider themself well off even though their wealth surpasses that of 95% of the rest of the planet. But the “the rich” have more than she and that’s not right. There is an telling bit of research from the field of behavioral economics that illustrates the point. People were asked if they’d prefer to earn 125,000 dollars a year and live in a neighborhood where everyone else earned 150,000; or to earn 100,000 dollars a year in a neighborhood where everyone else earned 85,000. Surprisingly, most people chose the latter. Even though, in absolute terms they’d be worse off. What’s the Biblical analogy? Better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven?
Everything else is an outgrowth of this. They need to feel morally superior. They need to feel intellectually superior The fact that they can force their opinions on you is proof that they are better than you. As such, Leftism requires an ‘other’ for Lefties to be better/greater than. Which is why they never alleviate the suffering their stated wishes are to fix.
When the latest LOC comes out, I have some comments on what I think is going on in the first half.
Amen!
I just don’t get it. I grew up in a barely middle class family, and never thought I would be living such a wonderful life. We worked hard and have been grateful, at times even humble, about what we’ve achieved. (When we moved into our beautiful Florida home, we’d tease each other that we were going to be in trouble some day when the real owners showed up!) Thanks for this insight, @ekosj. I understand what you’re saying, but I still don’t get it.
@kentforrester and @jimmcconnell, I am here to serve!
Honestly, writing for you folks helps me clarify my own thinking, and I love the idea of bouncing it off of all of you. So your comments (of any kind) are greatly appreciated!
Worse, they consider them evil. Labeling opponents as evil justifies everything they do to oppose their opponents, everything… Hate, lies, evidence, deception, rigging elections
You left out other traits. For example, they are bullies and get pleasure by insulting and even inflicting pain. Power gives them their high.
They are the embodiment of the 7 deadly sins that have haunted mankind since the snake tempted Eve. The only novelties today are our foundations: capitalism and the relationship between the people and the government as laid out in the Constitution. Ergo, they must destroy both and our religious underpinnings.
Ah, but we are not entirely beyond hope. We could have a “conversion experience” and “see the light!” Well, probably not . . .
Sometimes this is something as simple as ignoring their own rules or a two-tier justice system.
It would be interesting to go through your list with this filter in mind:
The division of people who believe in G-d vs. those who do not is more irrelevant today. What is a better test is who believes that the Scriptures is a divine book where we derive our morals vs. those who believe that morals are derived from their reason and intuitions. This is the division of people of faith vs. secularists.
It doesn’t exactly explain the difference between Conservatives and Leftists because there are certainly atheist Conservatives and religious Leftists. But the division is a good approximation. Conservatism believes that there are solid moral principles that precede us that need to be “conserved”. Leftists tend towards believing that what is newer or more “progressive” is better than what came before – their latest “best” thinking, reasoning, and intuitions, needs to overthrow what came before.
Much of your list is an outflow of these assumptions.
David, I agree with your assessment for the most part. That is why I have a great frustration with a Leftist friend who is Christian. She is a very spiritual person, but is less commited to conventional Christianity than some (and less appreciative of traditional Christian thought). That makes for interesting discussions between us, but we haven’t discussed the secular beliefs of the Left. She would probably agree with you, too, but would see herself as the exception: she’s not secular, but probably doesn’t see the contradictions in her following Leftist thought. (She also is willing to have rational discussions on these topics, but her naivete drives me crazy, so I’ve asked that politics be offlimits between us.)
She is easily explained.
It would have to protect them from their ideology, then.
I think it is important to avoid painting with too broad of a brush, and instead to engage in ‘market segmentation’. I know an awful lot of people who are on the Left, to one degree or another, and I don’t think their motivations are all the same.
There are obviously some Progs who are convince-able, as witness the fact that we see conversion stories, such as this one:
The Turn
…if we want more such Turns to take place, we need to communicate effectively and to carefully avoid the common Prog behavior of demonizing their opponents in such a broad-spectrum way that their attacks are not taken seriously.
There was a time when I thought that there were Progressives who might shift to the right, but over time I’ve become skeptical about how many people might actually do it. But I would like to ask you a most sincere question: do you think there is a way to criticize the Left in a way that they won’t reject our analysis? (I’m not being sarcastic at all.) Do you think the line is more clear than I do between criticizing and demonizing?
I would be very grateful, if you’d be willing to make an assessment of this post. Does it demonize? If it does, where might it be on the “demonize” scale? David, honestly, I know I sound sarcastic, but I am being sincere.
I don’t think the post is ‘demonizing’, exactly, but I think that if our objective is to create change in the right direction (ie, the Right direction), we need granularity. Different Progs are coming from different places, and are unlikely to recognize themselves or see any fallacies in their thinking when faced with a broad-based critique.
As an example coming from the other side, I’ve seen Progs often attacking conservatives in general (and especially Trumpians) as uneducated, low-income, and bigoted; probably as fundamentalist Christians as well. A conservative or Trumpian who is well-educated, high income, agnostic or Jewish, and who knows himself to not be bigoted is likely to disregard anything else that that Prog has to say.
Turning it around, I’ve often heard it asserted that Progs support government programs because they are lazy and don’t like to work. Yet I know people…for example: a healthcare person, a mechanic, and a successful software entrepreneur…who are very hard-working while being followers of the Democrats and in some cases pretty far out along the ‘progressive’ spectrum.
That is a fascinating proposal, David! But I don’t know if I’d be willing to make the effort. There are so many different “granular” ways to look at the Left, that I don’t know how fruitful an analysis would be, nor what the outline would look like. In one sense, it makes sense; in another, it may be impractical. Or maybe I’m just lazy. I’ll certainly think it over. Thanks.
Thank you so much for that insight! This correlates with something that has bothered me for a long time. America has become a Welfare State. An astounding 1/3 of all Americans receive some government assistance in the form of welfare. This is a statistic that I have to constantly look up to reaffirm – because it just seems so preposterous. But it is true. And this does not include Social Security benefits nor military benefits. If you did that it would be half. In our neighborhood of Cleveland we have a discount grocery store on our block where I shop for a limited number of items. For the 13 years I’ve lived here I’ve anecdotally counted the number of customers who pay for their groceries with Government Food Stamps (at least that’s what they used to call it). Easily half or more of the customers are getting their food free from the Gubmint.
I bring that up because the age-old concept of “if you don’t work, you don’t eat” has pretty much been discarded into the trash bin. Even when I’ve brought this up before on Ricochet, it never gets any serious interest. Working for your keep used to be such an obvious virtue that I doubt if anybody used to question it, but nowadays it only seems to garner adherence in limited groups of people, The Amish, Mormons, Orthodox Jews, and many Christina denominations being some obvious examples.
It seems to me that the envy of which you speak, is a direct outgrowth of modern generations of Americans who were not taught the virtue of earning your own way in life, but instead relying on others to take care of you. This has the gigantic side-effect of ingratitude and self-entitlement which may be the overall most common traits of people on the left.
From a distance my hunch is that she is “spiritual,” but not Christian.
Often folks don’t believe or think about why they hold or support specific left wing political ideas or positions. They support their perception of who they are and what group (racial, ethnic, religious, political) they belong to. It is an identity thing more than it is a philosophical or political thing. Folks must adhere to a certain orthodoxy and certain, often contradictory, political ideas, to be claimed by the Left. It is assumed that when the left gains power and political dominance, supporters will receive protection, comradeship and benefits. And more so, their adversaries, that is those who oppose Leftist orthodoxy, will be defeated and diminished in the struggle. This is assumed to be a zero sum game; the spoils go to the winners. This is played out as communism where the struggle is revolution, and as socialism, where folks elect a socialist state democratically. Both are Marxist and turn quickly totalitarian as the power of the state is dedicated to the elimination of opposition and cementation of the Marxist power and authority.
Leftism is particularly effective in recruiting those marginalized in society as it promises to empower them. In fact, modern Leftism relies on the marginalized for support. Seventy-five years ago the Democrat Party (the old Left) was the party of Jim Crow and the segregated South, representing the marginalized white man in the south. Now it enjoys massive support from Black Americans, especially those in the South, in an amazing switch.
To understand the Left in America, there are two overarching themes at play. First, they must continue to develop and foster marginalized group support. It is their lifeblood. Second, they must take any and all steps to cement their authority in the face of opposition. They can never miss an opportunity to consolidate power and gain advantage, whether that is using a crisis to accumulate discretionary funding designed to be used to reward support (including satisfying the bureaucratic state), whether it is the manufacture of crises to be used to gain “temporary” powers that otherwise would be prohibited or whether it is abuse of their authority to alter the traditional mechanisms of governance to favor themselves; i.e. court packing, engineered statehood, erosion of election rules accountability, court packing, jerrymandering, elimination of the filibuster rules, abuse of congressional oversight, etc.
They are nothing if not practical in their approach to power, even if their policy proscriptions seem irrational and stupid. Abortion? Designed to satisfy their “feminist” support. Open borders? Designed to dilute demographic opposition and create a new “marginalized” constituency. The proposed federal takeover of elections is simply a power grab, that it can also be used to alienate the opposition is just a plus. The purge of the unwoke from our military is a bold attempt to convert a traditionally conservative military into a Democrat stronghold, etc. COVID mania is a godsend, justifying massive power grabs and spending sprees and also used as justification for liberalized voting practices designed to be manipulated to favor Democrats.
Inflation, the result of so many bad economic policies, is the one thing that the Left failed to account for. Why? Because they are oblivious.
But to finally answer your questions about what supporters of the Left are thinking? They aren’t. They identify with Democrats, support them and the Democrats pander to them and their particular peccadillos. It’s like a kind of legacy.
A few more observations. Not all Democrats hate America and free markets or see our country as a miasma of competing clans in a zero sum struggle for dominance. Some love our country and see it as an experiment in the triumph of individual liberty. They also see just how silly and destructive Leftist policies can be and how quickly these policies can wreck success and pervert liberty. We’ll see whether the unhinged leftists in Washington can consolidate power and continue to wreak havoc, or whether they will be soundly thumped to drift back into obscurity in the margins of our politics.
It does from me, Steven!! The points in your comment are spot-on, and too many people are just as you describe them.
Excellent analysis, Doug. I wonder what it would take for the quiet, moderate Left to come out of hiding. We really do need them to join us. Thanks.
One more thought for the moment..during the Spanish Civil War, the writer/aviator Antoine de St-Exupery was sent to Spain by the French government as part of a mission to rescue French citizens who might be in danger. In his essay ‘Barcelona and Madrid’, he wrote:
Let us, then, refrain from astonishment at what men do. One man finds that his essential manhood comes alive at the sight of self-sacrifice, cooperative effort, a rigorous vision of justice, manifested in an anarchists’ cellar in Barcelona. For that man there. will henceforth be but one truth-the truth of the anarchists. Another, having once mounted guard over a flock of terrified little nuns kneeling in a Spanish nunnery, will thereafter know a different truth-that it is sweet to die for the Church.
…the point being the degree to which people’s views are influenced by their personal experiences.