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Leftists aren’t socialists. They’re just radicals. And it’s important to understand why.
I’ve always presumed that leftists were those who believed in socialism, communism, or other centralized control systems. Because they understood that collectivism was completely at odds with America’s founding documents, majority beliefs, and national ethos, these leftists then became radicals. They figured out that they would first need to destroy Western Civilization, so they could then replace it with a socialist Utopia. This explanation of leftist radicalism, intolerance, and violence makes perfect sense.
But I’m starting to think that it’s wrong. Completely backwards, in fact. I don’t think leftists are socialists who became radicals. I think leftists are radicals who became socialists. It’s a critical point, in my view, because we won’t be able to communicate with them until we understand them.
With the long and consistent history of every socialist state in the world leading to misery and suffering, I just can’t bring myself to believe that leftists really think that socialism works. So I think they’re just radicals, looking for a home. I could be wrong, but I really don’t think so. Let me try to explain. See if you agree.
In decade after decade, in poll after poll, in study after study, one consistent finding is that leftists are more unhappy than conservatives. John Hinderaker and many others have cited a recent study that shows that among young women, leftists suffer from psychiatric disease at approximately three times the rate of conservatives. Such studies are not outliers.
Anything that widespread and consistent likely has many different causes. But I believe that one is due to a toxic combination of individual liberty and an educational system promoting beliefs in social injustice. If you really believe that “the system” is set against you, it reduces your motivation to excel.
Then, those who are less restrained and more optimistic (and less depressed) will tend to be successful. More successful than those who had less faith in their abilities and the fairness of “the system.” Perhaps MUCH more successful. This leads to jealousy and resentment. It also leads to making their depression even worse, so lots of these people who believed the message from the educational establishment will end up on psych meds.
They’re angry at “the system”, angry at the unfairness of it all, and angry that their classmate from high school now has a vacation home in the mountains, while they still live in a crummy apartment. They might briefly consider the possibility that their classmate worked harder, took more risks, and was more resourceful than they were.
But it’s much easier for them to avoid blaming themselves, and instead to blame “the system.”
Even though “the system” allowed their classmate to be successful, they still find a way to blame it for their failures. This may seem somewhat irrational, but it’s just human nature. This may be one reason that leftists hate Donald Trump so much – he is a convenient symbol of an unlikable person succeeding through free markets. “I have a PhD! He’s an idiot! Why is he a billionaire, while I’m still driving a 15-year-old Subaru?” Well, there are many reasons for that. But the most tempting one is that “the system” is flawed somehow.
It’s important to note that it’s not just those who are dissatisfied with their lives who are drawn to radicalism. It is also very tempting to those who feel guilty about being more successful than others, and seek to demonstrate their virtue by attacking the very culture that allowed them to succeed. Thus, the voting bloc for the Democrat party tends to be an odd combination of the very wealthy and the very poor.
Anyway, they now view “the system” as their enemy. They want to destroy “the system.” That person is now a radical, who seeks to destroy American capitalism.
Of course, what can one person do? Not much. Unless they join a movement, or at least support a movement, that also seeks to destroy American capitalism. A movement like socialism. Or communism. Or Marxism. Or whatever. By default, they find themselves to be fellow travelers with communists, even if they don’t completely believe in communism. Even if that’s not what led them to their allegiance.
Mashpritzot hold a die-in protest against Israeli “pinkwashing”
This also explains left-wing gays carrying signs supporting Palestine or other Islamist causes. Islamists would torture those gay people to death, if they were in Syria or someplace. But the leftist gay people support Islam anyway. Because Islamists share Islamists’ hatred of America.
Leftists attempt to discredit America any way they can, for the same reason as Hitler tried to replace the family unit with many and varied government-managed organizations. They seek to weaken us by destroying that which unites us. Weak people seek the protection of powerful forces. That’s a fast way to gain power.
And a fast way to destroy that which the dissatisfied blame for their unhappiness.
So leftists are people who are dissatisfied with their lives (which is becoming more common due to social media and our educational system). They are reluctant to blame themselves, so they blame “the system.” Their hatred of “the system” leads them to support others who also hate American society. So our left-wing political party (the Democrats) becomes the anti-American party, led by those who are extraordinarily sympathetic to our adversaries, like Russia, China, etc.
So leftists are not socialists who became radicals. Leftists are radicals who became socialists. Not by ideology. Sort of by default.
The reason that I think this is such a critical point is that any misunderstanding on this fundamental principle will lead to misunderstandings on just about every other topic we discuss, to the point that we won’t be able to communicate at all.
A typical criticism of a leftist from a Conservative person sounds like this: “Socialism has never worked, you moron! Do you really want to live in Venezuela?” I think that type of thinking is unhelpful, because the leftist of course understands that true socialism doesn’t work, and of course, they have no desire to live in Venezuela. They’re just unhappy, and they find American capitalism to be a convenient target for their rage.
If we want to have meaningful dialogues with leftists, we may need to find a way to address the source of their unhappiness, help them understand the power of gratitude, and somehow change their jealousies and resentments into motivation to work harder. Just attacking their fellow travelers is unlikely to be helpful.
But if we get this wrong, and continue to focus on stuff that leftists don’t really care about anyway, then America will gradually tear itself apart, with increasingly partisan and divisive politics.
What do you think? Am I on to something? Or am I misguided on this point?
I thank you in advance for your input.
Published in Politics
But the media ISN’T GOING TO become neutral tomorrow.
We are two ships passing in the night, my friend.
(That’s me, waving, way off to your starboard side. ;) )
I’m a radical. I’m a radical incrementalist. There is nothing inherently wrong with being a radical or an extremist. There is a lot that’s wrong with leftwing politics, such as just about everything.
Dear @drbastiat,
Leftists are not radicals turned into Marxists. They’re something much worse, nihilists.
Old-time Marxists like Mao, Lenin, and Stalin, while pursuing horrifically wrong policies, really wanted to make their countries great again. Mao genuinely wanted to make China the Middle Kingdom again and Lenin definitely wanted to modernize Russia. Hence, his saying, “Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country.” Modern-day Leftists, on the other hand, are Nihilists. They worship not Marx, but the Joker. Deep down inside their stunted little hearts, they know Marxism is a wildly defective ideology. Still, they’re driven by a compulsion to destroy its far more successful rival, democratic capitalism, even at the cost of winding up squatting on a pile of skulls.
I don’t know if many of them think that what THEY want to do will end up with a pile of skulls, no matter how many times it’s been demonstrated. But any who do, probably still don’t think that THEIRS will be among the pile.
Also, like a radical, when their policy fails, they blame it on others. For example, FBJ treasury secretary pushed modern monetary theory at the start of the Administration, this created a spike in inflation and his team (including VEEP), blame grocery stores and other retailers.
i.e., projection. It’s one of their most-used tools.
Don’t forget Republicans. Democrats could hardly function without Republicans on whom to blame their failures.
Related post: People without meaningful lives seek power over others.
Both the Soviet Marxists and the American New Dealers were very proud of their hydroelectric dams. Many of our present-day leftists want to tear them down.
See these positive thoughts on ‘the machine age’ from the Fabian socialist Sidney Webb and compare with our present Leftists.
And the usual group of malevolent suspects who will use such people to further their own work toward power.
One can only hope. I fear the part that is hard wired and independent of human individuals – the machine which is issuing “paper” to the millions in the welfare system, regardless of whether they are citizens.
Wise words. It’s important to understand that when Hillary Clinton said, in private, about her unrealized ambitions, “I want to run something,” she was not an aberration.
That’s potentially a good thing if what you want to do is create and run your own business.
On a more serious note…
The terms “Leftists”, “radical Leftists” and “socialists” are convenient rhetorical shorthand terms to quickly identify groups that traffic in ideas that are either soft-socialism or aggressive authoritarian socialism and Marxism. Many of the individuals that make up these groups may at one time or another call for complete redistribution of wealth and the dissolution of private property, the re-education of those who openly reject socialist schemes including the now fashionable pseudo-science of climate catastrophe.
To get beyond the blanket labels for these groups of people and more radical, militant groups that call for the demonization of various groups whether racial, ethnic, or simply more traditional, it is helpful to delve into how the more recent generations of leftists, radical leftists, and socialists emerged. Successive generations of those embracing socialist ideology or sympathetic to socialist thinking in America, Canada, Britain and other western-aligned countries emerged from the tumult of the late 1960s, specifically from the Soviet propaganda that was pervasive throughout the radical Vietnam anti-war movement and the radical-chic intelligentsia especially in Ivy League universities and in Canadian, British, and French academia – when many of the more radical protesters joined the ranks of other professors in the academy or the K-12 school system. In the 1970s, my high school history teacher, excuse me “social studies” teacher (what does that tell you?) was a self-proclaimed socialist very fond, like Tim Walz is fond, of Communist China. Later in college, my philosophy teacher was also a self-avowed socialist who I challenged often in class over his feeble arguments against capitalism.
This is all to say that the generations of young minds that have emerged from K-12 schools, colleges and universities have essentially been indoctrinated and marinaded in veiled and not-so veiled socialist dogma, taught that America was founded on racism and continues to target and persecute blacks, Hispanics, and the LGBTQ+ community. Even radical activism taught at the college level is making its way into high schools. Much or all of this instruction, excuse me, indoctrination, never challenges young minds to think critically about the horrors, both historically and ethically, about what socialism has wrought or will continue to destroy if wholeheartedly adopted. Students know that if they dare to challenge their teachers or professors that they risk harming their GPAs. As a result, many have left college, particular young men who have been demonized as misogynists. The indoctrinated graduates, however, venture out into the world pushing DEI, redistribution of wealth schemes and further occupy institutions from K-12 schools, colleges, human resource departments, and higher offices in corporations.
Now about the radical activists themselves. Scratch the surface on the rants of any given protest movement and speak with them for only a few minutes and one learns immediately that they don’t know much about history, actual science or science history, about Karl Marx, about the atrocities and horrors of the Soviet Gulag or Mao’s Cultural Revolution or even how to tell the time on a dial watch.
Many of them can’t even tell you why they are protesting only that a call went out to gather and protest. They even laughably ally their movement du jour with a movement ideologically opposed to their cause, like Queers for Palestine. The funders of these movements, the Soros family, et. al. don’t care if these allegiances make sense. The overriding effort is to cause upheaval and undermine law, order, and create socialist governments throughout the west where they and their elitist comrades are in charge. Canada and Britain are close to completion in this effort. There has been pushback in France and Italy.
Many of the rank-and-file activists may never get beyond their woefully ignorant worldview and ideological possession and sloganeering but occasionally, largely because of long-form video discussions with more conservative and classically liberal thinkers, the scales have fallen from their eyes for just a few of them over the years. To penetrate these poorly developed intellects, it’s also critical to get them away from the group think they wallow in. Communicating with them as individuals is much more effective than trying to communicate over the screams of their sloganeering comrades. This is why there is a better chance to connect with individual radical leftists over a video on a computer or smartphone rather than a large, outdoor rally or gathering.
Exorcising the ideologically possessed can be as physically and emotionally taxing as exorcising demonic forces in individuals. Sadly, some may be beyond saving and those are the most dangerous for the horrors that they can produce. Suffice to say that reaching out and trying to find common ground or a connection with an ideologically possessed leftist may not be as neighborly as Tiananmen Tim suggests, especially if the radical leftist wants to burn your city, your business, your home, take your children, or imprison you.
I’m just starting to read this, but I have to say something, here. Bernie Sanders likes to babble about Denmark that they are socialists. This is false.
What they are doing is welfare capitalism. They have high taxes, and a lot of things are taken care of, but they also take care of the economy. They don’t shew away big corporations that pay the taxes. Etc.
We can’t do that here, because we aren’t demographically homogenous enough, for one thing. We don’t need to do it, either, but government does so many stupid things people look at socialism.
i.e. Shelter affordability went down 85% after Biden got into office. Inflation is nuts.
We are doing too much central planning.
I can’t think of the person’s name right now, but the famous cross-dressing homosexual economist said that the family is communism and then when you turn 18 you need to become radically individualistic. Everybody needs to keep that in mind. that is literally our system and it’s the only system that makes any sense. I wasn’t raised this way for the record. lol
I hate saying this, but far fewer people should go to college. Figure out how you’re going to make money at a trade school, instead. They aren’t developing human capital and they definitely aren’t developing human capital at a fair price.
Reminds me again:
I would say 60% of the country is better off if they develop their human capital. Go to trade school. I loathe saying that, but it’s a fact.
Comments on the photos:
Bernie Sanders has three properties and he’s freaked out about global warming. This is insane. How do you have three properties with that salary?
Elizabeth Warren lied about being a Native American and that’s the only reason she’s where she is. She got paid a ridiculous amount of money at Harvard. She’s a really bad liar about public policy.
AOC said in 2018, that we only had 12 more years before climate change doomed the whole planet. In the meantime, India and China put up a coal powered electricity plant every other week. They will continue to put up a coal powered electricity plant every other week.
BINGO!
Go to trade school. Stonemasons are in a 55% deficit.
Yep
The Ludwig von Mises Institute Is Right About Everything™
Go to trade school and get money. Read great books after that.
It’s just a meme, but there is truth here:
I absolutely love the delivery of this channel. The problem is with what they say. These people are lunatics. Any excuse for anything that justifies progressive politics all of the time. It’s not the news.
What a nice thing to say! Thanks!
I completely agree with this. You would also want the Fed to stop producing so much inflation. Inflation grows government and it makes people need government. It doesn’t have any redeeming value. Furthermore, they lie about measuring it.
The Ludwig von Mises Institute Is Right About Everything™
Beat me to it! That’s one of my favorites.
(Although I think that, in the photo, Robert is working on a traffic signal control box.)
Ignore kedavis unless you are forced to not ignore him.