The Anti-Anti-Left

The Anti-Anti-Left
Critics of the Trumpist right must not excuse left-wing illiberalism and extremism

Cathy Young
Dec 1 · 7 min read

In recent years, those of us who have criticized leftist excesses — be it “cancel mobs” on campus or online, Antifa violence, morally troubling iconography, or assorted episodes of identity politics gone mad — have often been chided for a misplaced sense of priorities in the age of Donald Trump and the Trumpist threat to democracy.

Today, as the Trump era limps to a close, variations on this theme continue: liberal and centrist attacks on the left and on “wokeness,” we are told, not only serve as a distraction from malfeasance on the right but also play into the hands of the “right-wing propaganda machine,” as Laura K. Field puts it in a well-received recent piece in The Bulwark.

There is no question that Trumpism is a preeminent danger; Trump’s post-election assault on democracy proves it in abundance. But there are also real dangers in ignoring or downplaying illiberalism and extremism on the left.

Field has a valid point when she argues that some analysis of the left’s negative impact on the Democrats’ performance at the ballot box (evident not only in their relatively poor results in the congressional and Senate elections but in Biden’s closer-than-expected win) has relied on iffy data — specifically, exit polls that may be unreliable. I agree that, especially in an election that relied heavily on voting by mail, extrapolations from exit polls (supplemented with surveys targeting mail-in voters) require caution — particularly with regard to specific demographics such as college-educated whites. But does this necessarily undercut critiques of the left?

For instance, Field rightly challenges Andrew Sullivan’s claim, based on early exit-poll data, that college-educated white voters skewed toward Trump much more than was expected: in fact, it appears Trump’s biggest net loss in support across any demographic from 2016 to 2020 was college-educated whites, especially men. But the critique Field cites also mentions a different demographic with which Trump did have an unexpectedly good showing, though not enough to save his bacon: Hispanic voters. This apparent fact is a pretty huge slap in the face to “woke” ideological premises. It even supports a claim made by critics of “wokeness” such as Georgia State University Ph.D. candidate Zach Goldberg: that white progressives are the main driver of the recent years’ leftward shift on social issues and are now substantially to the left of minorities.

What accounts for the apparent rightward, pro-Trump shift among Hispanics?

In our explanations, we (and by “we” I mean anyone, but specifically anti-“woke” liberals and centrists) should avoid the “everything validates my premises” mindset: it probably wasn’t the word “Latinx” wot done it. But there is a lot of evidence that the shift was in large part a reaction to the surge in far-left progressivism: many cited fears of socialism/communism, concerns about the Democrats being anti-oil industry, and social justice protests that turned violent. (Abortion is also a major factor, but that’s not a change from earlier years.)

Of course, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are not radical leftists, and attempts to portray them as such by pro-Trump propagandists have been egregiously dishonest (such as repeated claims that Biden did not really condemn this past summer’s protest-related violence). But the perception that radical leftism or “wokeness” is influential in the Democratic Party and in mainstream progressive circles is hardly unfounded.

Back in August, in an article warning that the protests could become a liability for Democrats in the election, I pointed out numerous instances in which both mainstream progressive outlets and a number of Democratic politicians were reluctant to condemn violence and lawlessness.

[IMG]https://miro.medium.com/max/320/1*7PMb9msUADHfLueN7nmgUw.jpeg[/IMG]
The Politics of Riots
Accounts of police brutality and protest-related violence are rife with political bias, right and left. It may help the…
arcdigital.media

Some blamed far-left violence on “far-right provocateurs,” as did Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes after a progressive state senator was beaten up by protesters. Some backed down from statements condemning both police brutality and rioting, as Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) did on Twitter. Seattle mayor Jenny Durkan (and some mainstream media outlets) defended the city’s cop-free anarchist enclave before the rainbows-and-roses fantasy ended in two murders. And even the criticism of riots has often been weak compared to the Democrats’ full-throated condemnations of racism.

On a related issue, it’s unquestionable that “defund the police” and/or “end policing as we know it” are slogans that have a sizable following among Democrats. (Although “defund” doesn’t mean “abolish,” using eliminationist language to refer to issues of safety and policing is just terrible branding.) In June, a majority of the Minneapolis City Council actually adopted a pledge to dismantle the police force and replace it with a new system of “public safety.” (Now, some council members are backing away from it and saying that “dismantle” is up for interpretation.) Abolition or even significant reduction of policing, by the way, is not a popular stance with the black community.

Field also objects to a passage from an article by Damon Linker in The Week listing other left-wing causes that (1) may have contributed to the Democrats’ poor down-ballot performance and (2) are currently crashing on the rocks of that poor showing. Those include Supreme Court-packing and other institutional changes that would boost and eventually entrench Democratic power, an effort to “[r]ewrite the nation’s history, with white supremacy and racism placed ‘at the very center’,” and “‘equity’ not just in opportunity but in outcomes.” She suggests that, since none of these things are part of the official Democratic agenda — simply “controversial proposals” or rhetorical mishaps that don’t reflect the party’s consensus view — the entire passage is essentially a right-wing smear.

And yet, once again, all of these represent a fairly large turf staked out by progressives. (Just look at what’s happening in public schools systems in progressive strongholds like New York or Seattle.) It’s quite true that the Kamala Harris campaign video on “equality vs equity,” which ends with a suggestion that “everyone should end up at the same place,” doesn’t make her a communist, as a chorus of right-wing screechers proclaimed on Twitter. At the time, I actually defended Harris against accusations of this sort. But I also think there is a bit more here than a “clumsy” video, as Field suggests: it’s the fact that “equal outcomes” ideas are in the air in the progressive world and are part of background noise in the Democratic Party.

Trumpism is odious. But anti-Trumpism can pull in the direction of a knee-jerk “anything opposed by Trump and/or Trumpists must be fine” mentality and of reluctance to criticize the left for fear of enabling the right.

Call it “anti-anti-left.”

But here’s the basic problem with anti-anti-leftism: the odiousness of Trump doesn’t make bad things on the left any less bad.

It doesn’t mean that “anti-racism” training based on Robin DiAngelo-style “all whites are racist until proven innocent” ideology — which Trump recently tried to cleanse from the federal workforce with a clumsy executive order — is fine.

[IMG]https://miro.medium.com/max/320/1*a8xTNlwFlq9iRg4yJ-YEcQ.png[/IMG]
Dear White People: Please Do Not Read Robin DiAngelo’s “White Fragility”
A destructive book full of bad reasoning and bad advice is topping the bestseller charts
arcdigital.media

It doesn’t mean that an intolerant “cancel culture” on the left is a myth (only that Trumpian populism is no less intolerant when it has power).

[IMG]https://miro.medium.com/max/320/1*wCNUfNgxysrUmGSb-HOdcA.png[/IMG]
In Defense of The Letter
The chilly climate for dissent is real
arcdigital.media

It doesn’t mean that Antifa is a harmless group resisting right-wing extremism.

[IMG]https://miro.medium.com/max/320/1*aIY7kAtzBpd9AMVeRl6j3g.jpeg[/IMG]
Anti-Antifa
Antifa may not be “terrorists,” but they’re not the good guys, either
arcdigital.media

It doesn’t mean that the Black Lives Matter movement lacks an extremist component, or that the violence linked to the past summer’s “mostly peaceful” protests was negligible.

[IMG]https://miro.medium.com/max/320/1*7PMb9msUADHfLueN7nmgUw.jpeg[/IMG]
The Politics of Riots
Accounts of police brutality and protest-related violence are rife with political bias, right and left. It may help the…
arcdigital.media

Even the apparent trend on the center-right toward a more sympathetic view of the concept of “systemic racism” has its problems. This shift is almost certainly, at least in part, a reaction to the Trumpist tendency to respond to racism with a wink and a shrug, though it also reflects cultural changes that include a greater willingness to confront the horrors of America’s racial history. And yet the “systemic racism” framework also requires a great deal of caution. The acknowledgment of structural problems (e.g., a police culture that often encourages racial profiling and abusive behavior) is one thing; sweeping claims that modern American policing is racist by design and that the intent to subjugate racial minorities is baked into our institutions are something else. Some remedies to address “systemic racism” involve needed scrutiny of biases and strong commitment to reject bigotry. But other proposals, such as Ibram X. Kendi’s “Anti-Racist Constitutional Amendment” and “Department of Anti-Racism,” would take us down the road of velvet totalitarianism — a coercive, state-engineered overhaul of a wide range of societal practices to eliminate all racial disparities, accompanied by extensive speech policing.

Kendi is not a leader in the Democratic Party. But he is hardly a marginal figure: he’s a best-selling author anointed as a leading anti-racism expert by the media and the corporate world. In August, his Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University got a $10 million grant from Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter.

Yes, the Democratic Party has won the national election with a largely centrist message. But it’s equally true that right now, left-wing extremism and illiberalism occupy a not-insignificant space in the Democratic Party and in once-liberal cultural institutions. Keeping the Democrats on the centrist course — and stopping the creep of cultural illiberalism — requires strong pushback. Anti-Trump, anti-“woke” liberals, moderates and centrists: Resist!

Written by
Cathy Young

Russian-Jewish-American writer. Associate editor, Arc Digital; contributor, Reason, Newsday, The Forward etc. https://www.patreon.com/CathyYoung

A call to disarm? Or just holster? No more head chopping? (But I like that GIF.)

I am not just Anti-Trump, but everything he stands for too. I am, though, an extreme moderate. In the tradition of Ben Franklin. And I am not a centrist. But I am an anti-woke Liberal. I'm not even sure what that's supposed to mean. Why?












I've always been awake.

This doesn't mean I'm asleep.

Tell your fucking president that I don't give a fuck about him and his assembly - and that if, in one hour, you don't deliver me the twenty-two I will blow you up.

François Henriot









The Online Library of Liberty



The French Revolution, vol. 3

Accordingly, his intellect grasps nothing and yields him nothing; he is a sententious and over-excited declaimer, an artificial spirit always on the stretch, full of affectations,68 his talent reducing itself down to the rare flashes of a sombre imagination, a pupil of Robespierre, as Robespierre himself is a pupil of Rousseau, the exaggerated scholar of a plodding scholar, always rabidly ultra, furious through calculation, deliberately violating both language and ideas,69 confining himself to theatrical and funereal paradoxes, a sort of “grand vizier”70 with the airs of an exalted moralist and the bearing of the sentimental shepherd.71 Were one of a mocking humor one might shrug one’s shoulders; but, in the present state of the Convention, there is no room for anything but fear.

Thank you dilby.

Critics of the Trumpist right must not excuse left-wing illiberalism and extremism


you lost me right there

the lame attempt to equate americans protecting America with anti American leftist burners of small businesses

Critics of the Trumpist right must not excuse left-wing illiberalism and extremism


you lost me right there

the lame attempt to equate americans protecting America with anti American leftist burners of small businesses Originally Posted by nevergaveitathought

The rational left and right shouldn't pardon me or the illiterate. Trouble is - I like being spanked.

Just keep calm and resist

Just keep calm and resist Originally Posted by rexdutchman

What are you recommending we resist, RDM?

What in this thread makes you feel like resisting what?



Another great thread BP. Where do you keep finding these nut jobs? Actually the biggest question is by what means are they finding you? How much time a day do you spend scouring the dark web for looney tunes commentary from legitimate crazy people.

Between you and IFFFFYYYY, we just can’t escape the conspiracy editorial.

Which isn’t news. Nor required to be based in fact. Or reality.

I absolutely think you believe this crazy shit with all your soul.

They got you, sucker.

I thought this article was interesting as it talks dealing with left wing extremism of the violent kind. seems to suggest to encourage other soft core leftists and liberals to push back on extremism.

so the actions by the extreme left is similar to Robespierre extremism? off with his/her head??? chop chop!

I've actually never heard of meat pies until recently, and I got to be honest, they look pretty damn good.