Can’t See The Trees for the Systemic Forest

So over on 𝕏, I'm engaged in an argument -- I guess I'd call it that -- with, of all people, former tennis great Martina Navratilova.

Very briefly:

The topic is a recent court case in Australia, in which a man who self-identifies (not at all convincingly) as a woman sued a women-only organization for admission, and won. It's an awful decision, Martina and I agree about that. But she characterized it as an example of "the patriarchy," and that prompted me to respond:

I agree that it's wrong. Patriarchy? I don't know. Thuggish, fetishistic men? Yes, absolutely.

As tepid as that was, it didn't go over well, neither with her nor with several other women on her thread. A pointless back-and-forth ensued until I got tired of repeating myself (It happens. It takes a lot.) and stopped reading the comments.

But it got me thinking about something the left does, something that I think fools a lot of people into supporting it. I'll try to be succinct.

Example 1: The Patriarchy

1. The problem, Martina and I agree, is that men are invading women's spaces. They're doing it under the banner of "trans," this idiotic gender-identity movement that's latched like a lamprey onto the now wholly irrelevant gay rights movement.

2. The Democratic Party is the party of trannies and other gender-queer fruitcakes. It was Obama who ordered schools to let boys into the girls' locker room; Trump who reversed that diktat; Biden who re-instated the practice (surprise, right?).

3. So Martina and her fellow liberals are told to ignore the specifics, and to focus instead on the patriarchy. Never mind that the immediate problem is a product of leftist cant: focus your anger on the patriarchy, and know that we, the Democrats, are the party fighting against that vague and not-quite-definable evil.

See how that works? Vote Democrat because, even though we're creating the immediate problem, we oppose the sinister force that's really behind it all.

It isn't just the patriarchy, a phrase that always puts my teeth on edge.

Example 2: Systemic Racism

Too many young black Americans have a problem. Their educations are terrible, they kill each other far too often, and they come from broken, drug-addled homes. They're in thrall to a dysfunctional sub-culture that locks them in mediocrity and failure.

The Democratic Party, unsurprisingly, is the brain trust behind the bad policies that condemn so many young men to a challenging, often too-brief existence.

But by not focusing on the policies, by ignoring the specific, immediate problems, and by talking about systemic racism, the left distracts from and absolves itself of responsibility, and replaces the very real policy problems with an amorphous villain, systemic racism. And it's the Democrats, of course, who are leading the fight against that bogeyman.

Example 3: Mass Illegal Immigration

Back when Kamala 2.0 was Kamala 1.0 and still the "border czar," her mandate was to stem the inflow of illegal aliens. Of course, we all know how to do that. It's pretty easy: Control the border.

Now a porous border is the immediate and wholly predictable result of Democratic Party interests as implemented via Democratic Party policies. The problem is that most Americans don't want a porous border. What to do?

Simple: Redefine the problem as something other than the actual problem. Make it, once again, vague. Say it has to do with "addressing the root causes of mass migration." Tell the American people that we, the Democratic Party, are on it.

(Pro tip: Try to pin it on climate change, because otherwise you risk getting into uncomfortable discussions about cultural differences, which might imply that some cultures are better than other cultures, and that's a slippery slope. Climate change makes the West the villain, and that's always firm ground.)

Anyway, I think this is one way that the party that causes most of the trouble manages to claim the moral high ground and convince its followers that it really cares, and that people who really care will give that party their votes.