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One of the many things that fascinates me about leftism is how passionately committed its followers invariably are to its rapidly changing ideologies. I mean, how can they even keep up with it all, let alone pretend to believe it all? Just in the last several years, they’ve gone from George Floyd as an innocent victim of murder by police, to men in women's sports, to climate catastrophe, to the reversal of Roe v. Wade, to the hidden menace of gas cooktops, to immigration policy, to the Ukraine war, to demonizing those who “don’t believe in science,” to deifying transsexuals and demonizing those who do believe in genetics, to supporting Palestinians in Gaza. All of these came and went quickly. But leftists were furiously intense about all of them, like an ideological Whack-A-Mole game.
Just think about those last two. How can you support transsexuals and Palestinians? At the same time? A transsexual would be immediately thrown off a tall building in Gaza. Whose side would leftists take then? It’s hard to say, I suppose, but they’d certainly be passionate about whichever side was selected for them.
Brendan O’Neil has a good article up in Spiked, in which he touches on this sort of thing. He describes the left’s passionate devotion to their flexible ethics with this wonderful phrase: “…theirs is a curiously parasitical ‘virtue’ forever looking for a new host to attach itself to so that the world might see how good and holy they are.”
I wonder if that’s all it is? I wonder if leftists are simply those who believe in nothing in particular, and their resulting emptiness compels them to loudly and fervently proclaim their belief in whatever is in the news at the time? Like Greta in the adjacent picture, moving on seamlessly from climate protests to Palestinian protests - do any of them actually believe in anything? Does the topic even matter?
Leftism has its roots in Marxism and socialism. And probably a few other things – worse things, perhaps.
But what if the average leftist is simply an empty shell, following his/her parasitical virtue around from cause to cause? Bellowing about whatever they’re told to care about this afternoon. Is that really all that motivates the average American Democrat voter?
Surely not.
But that would explain a lot. Wouldn’t it?
It becomes even scarier when you consider who is in charge of the Democrat party right now: No one in particular.
So you have tens of millions of empty shells wandering around, desperate to hide their own emptiness with virtue signaling, looking for something to get angry about. And this army of serial cause-followers is being led by no one in particular, toward a goal of they're not sure what. Think of the potential destructive force. The mind reels...
It seems that the leftist movement is not moving toward anything in particular, at any particular moment. The leftist movement resembles Brownian movement. But much more violent.
It seems odd that such uncontrolled random eruptions always seem to eventually lead to more powerful central control. But I think that the resulting chaos leads some to yearn for stability - stability enforced by centralized control systems. That seems scary, but hey, government is just the name we give to the things we do together, right? Seems harmless enough, right? After all, we have elections and everything!
Gosh.
Surely there is some underlying ideology guiding the average Democrat voter. Surely they’re not just empty shells following their parasitical virtue around. Surely. But that would explain a lot. Wouldn’t it?
That might even explain why a loose cannon like Trump is so effective against today's left.
Wouldn't it?
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My own speculative armchair-psychologist take is that the Left is desperate for a ‘great cause’ to call their own. Their great grandfathers won WW1, their grandfathers won wW2. Their parents won the Cold War, the economics wars, and freed Eastern Europe. What’s left for them? They need some dragon to slay. Maybe humans have been struggling for survival for so long that we are incapable of operating without an existential crisis? All they really needed to do is kick back and enjoy the fruits of their progenitors’ successes. But no. They keep inventing crises that absolutely need to be solved and only they are capable of resolving. But since none is genuine, each crisis is eventually unsatisfying and a new one is required.
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The human heart is an idol factory. (A line from someone famous--was it John Calvin?)
The attempt at no religion can become one of the worst religions of all.
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No, this is it. They are empty vessels.
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My dear Dr. B,
I believe you've hit the nail on the head, just not hard enough.
(Huh, that phrase has only one hit on google.)
Indeed, these positions you've listed are nothing like political ideologies, or any ideologies, by any reasonable definition of the term.
These are Talking Points. They are developed by Democrat Party operatives, and are widely distributed to politicians, activists, allies, and journalists.
Because those politicians, activists, allies, and journalists are all on the same team, they will all support the talking points and cheer them on. Voices in unison are amplified, multiplying their effect.
The talking points are designed for impact. They don't have to be accurate, they don't have to be correct, they don't have to be consistent, they don't even have to make sense. Their purpose is to provide something to rally around.
The furious intensity you noted is also tactical. More excitement, more passion, gets people more involved, rooting for the team. And observers watching on the news will assume that it's very important. Which further multiplies the effect.
No ideology. They're just playin' on the team.
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