I couldn’t read the linked article but this sounds like a nightmare—the real life example that fits every stereotype of liberals that the Right promotes.
If you see your fellow liberals pulling this Red Guard/Cult crap, call it out loudly and early. No good faith liberal (or anyone really) should have to be cowed by such nonsense. Our side is supposed to be about free thought, tolerance and reason. And when the shrill extremists (whether they are in good faith or not) tramp on those core values to score virtue points from an unseen referee, they make it that much harder for us to accomplish any real world liberal goals.
And whatever their claim of special class, it sure takes some seriously entitled privilege to willingly repel allies at a time when real victims are suffering as a result of our being out of power.
I had no idea about the lesbian bar nonsense until I read this article in the Atlantic today, but it really is ground zero as to how conservatism remains viable despite being consumed by MAGA over the past decade 😒🙄 The other thing it highlights is that just being part of a marginalized group does not insulate one from also being an insufferable narcissist.
In A Few Good Men, Colonel Markinson tells Santiago's parents " Your son is dead for only one reason: I wasn't strong enough to stop it." Why weren't liberals strong enough to stop this shit?
I think it's fair to say this kind of fanaticism-and the inability to give any sort of grace-*is* bad faith. Something that has nothing to do with oppressed groups is going on here.
great piece, Stephen, I was staying away from details on this story, but the owner's tragic surrender to her tormenters is awful. I only experienced the very fringes of this dynamic in really minor skirmishes online during the 2016 campaign, when a couple times someone I didn't know hopped on a comment of mine and 30 more chimed in with "gfy" and other epithets. and that was pre-Elon Twitter. but the whole "you must submit to correction from the community" following a personal confession of wrongness drove me off real fast. I've always been fascinated by the McCarthy era and the peculiarities of demanding confession and betrayal of friends, and many years ago read Navasky's great book Naming Names, and learned that all the naming was a ritual required to be readmitted to the community—the Committee already had full lists of all Community Party members. but it's so chilling that no level of self-debasement satisfies the jackals; they dehumanize their targets so any level of abuse is not only allowed but somehow heroic in their addled minds. I hate that these jerks are as rotten as their counterparts on the right, and that they give credence, at least in this case, to yet more both-sidesism.
Not just this case. There is a reason left wing politics have a hard time getting real traction in this country despite the egregious excesses of the right.
I couldn’t read the linked article but this sounds like a nightmare—the real life example that fits every stereotype of liberals that the Right promotes.
If you see your fellow liberals pulling this Red Guard/Cult crap, call it out loudly and early. No good faith liberal (or anyone really) should have to be cowed by such nonsense. Our side is supposed to be about free thought, tolerance and reason. And when the shrill extremists (whether they are in good faith or not) tramp on those core values to score virtue points from an unseen referee, they make it that much harder for us to accomplish any real world liberal goals.
And whatever their claim of special class, it sure takes some seriously entitled privilege to willingly repel allies at a time when real victims are suffering as a result of our being out of power.
I had no idea about the lesbian bar nonsense until I read this article in the Atlantic today, but it really is ground zero as to how conservatism remains viable despite being consumed by MAGA over the past decade 😒🙄 The other thing it highlights is that just being part of a marginalized group does not insulate one from also being an insufferable narcissist.
Just as an aside, I mused about this very thing the other day…https://substack.com/@jddrew/note/c-346360782?r=1659j
In A Few Good Men, Colonel Markinson tells Santiago's parents " Your son is dead for only one reason: I wasn't strong enough to stop it." Why weren't liberals strong enough to stop this shit?
Because they are terrified they’re next, mostly
That is a really, really sad story. And unfortunately this kind of fanaticism also leaves one susceptible to people who engage in bad faith.
If these extremists were acting in bad faith—if they were in fact right wing chaos agents—what would they be doing differently?
I think it's fair to say this kind of fanaticism-and the inability to give any sort of grace-*is* bad faith. Something that has nothing to do with oppressed groups is going on here.
great piece, Stephen, I was staying away from details on this story, but the owner's tragic surrender to her tormenters is awful. I only experienced the very fringes of this dynamic in really minor skirmishes online during the 2016 campaign, when a couple times someone I didn't know hopped on a comment of mine and 30 more chimed in with "gfy" and other epithets. and that was pre-Elon Twitter. but the whole "you must submit to correction from the community" following a personal confession of wrongness drove me off real fast. I've always been fascinated by the McCarthy era and the peculiarities of demanding confession and betrayal of friends, and many years ago read Navasky's great book Naming Names, and learned that all the naming was a ritual required to be readmitted to the community—the Committee already had full lists of all Community Party members. but it's so chilling that no level of self-debasement satisfies the jackals; they dehumanize their targets so any level of abuse is not only allowed but somehow heroic in their addled minds. I hate that these jerks are as rotten as their counterparts on the right, and that they give credence, at least in this case, to yet more both-sidesism.
Not just this case. There is a reason left wing politics have a hard time getting real traction in this country despite the egregious excesses of the right.