The Left Must Be Unapologetic and Honest
The left should ignore conservative columnists’ concern trolling about our rhetoric
Those on the left that spend too much time online (like myself), have been bombarded with a series of pieces across different legacy media about how our approach is alienating countless moderate or center right people and convincing them to join the alt right. It is the latest in a series of “college students are an existential threat to democracy” pieces that have been continually published for years. Never Trump conservatives are eager to plant the blame for Trump and the rise of the alt right squarely on an overzealous left and Tumblr SJWs. But this has even been somewhat adopted by some figures on or associated with the left. In some cases, this argument is made with much more nuance and care than from someone like Jonathan Chait or Conor Friesdorf, but they share critical errors.
This is Who They Are
Traditionally these columns that talk about college students violating free speech by protesting different far right or white nationalist figures speaking on their campuses, or the internet mob piling on those who are politically incorrect. The latest evolution in this series of articles revolves around the left alienating moderate conservatives by characterizing figures like Sam Harris, Ben Shapiro, and Jordan Peterson as a combination of far right, gateways to the alt right, or alt right themselves. Bari Weiss said a piece that describes Harris and Peterson as gateways is the real gateway to the alt right. The insufferable Baseball Crank says that this will lead to an easier alt right “infiltration” of the conservative movement.
It’s easy to see that none of these writers or pundits have a real interest in whether the left succeeds or not. The project of these countless pieces profiling and defending the “Intellectual Dark Web” is to normalize far right positions if they have just the slightest distance from someone like Richard Spencer. And there is absolutely a continuum of right wing views, and some of these figures are not uniformly right wing, but this misses the crux of it all. It’s true there’s a continuum, but what they all share is a commitment to the same hierarchies of white supremacy, patriarchy and oligarchy. Sam Harris routinely denigrates the Muslim world, Ben Shapiro has a long history of racist and islamophobic articles, Jordan Peterson has sympathized with an “incel” running people over and longs for a time when wives were a degree away from being the property of their husbands. Bari Weiss unapologetically defends Israel’s apartheid regime and ethnic cleansing, outright blaming Palestinians for their murder at the hands of the IDF.
They feign worry that if too many people are called Nazi, alt right, or white nationalist, those terms will lose meaning in a “boy who cried wolf” scenario. Their ultimate concern is that all of the professional language and attempts at subtlety will be exposed as being insufficiently different from the white nationalists they claim to be against. They know their differences are primarily aesthetic as they have been with Trump. Accurately describing the views of Shapiro, Harris, Peterson and more is necessary to prevent them from being mainstreamed. We shouldn’t be worried about alienation from those that haven’t been remotely interested in left politics. Falling for these arguments is a mistake, even if one has the left’s best interest in mind.
Tumbling into Trouble
There has been a growing opinion on the left that college students on campus and social justice warriors on social media have been severely damaging the left project. Michelle Goldberg writes in the New York Times that “The sanctimony and censoriousness of the social justice internet is like a machine for producing red pills.” She then cites Angela Nagle, one of the writers that popularized this claim on the left. One of her central claims is that the alt right rose out of opposition to Tumblr identity politics. There’s no evidence that goes to support Goldberg’s claims that brief moments of occasional overzealous internet mobs lead to far-right conversions, or Nagle’s claim that the alt right was a natural result of Tumblr SJWs. With little to no evidence of this trend, it’s hard to believe we should even care about the minor cases it does happen considering how few people are that extremely online.
The fact is the online reactionaries existed before Tumblr made it to the Internet. 4chan, the birthplace of the alt right, preceded Tumblr by 4 years. By then 4chan was already a cesspool of bigotry, racism, sexism and more. It certainly had different factions, but there was no doubt the white nationalist right had a home there. It didn’t have the “alt right” designation at the time, but functionally it was the same group of people. The right wing has been this way for decades, what they have done is simply changed its form in reaction to new elements of society. Taking them at their word that excessive or corny teens on Tumblr caused them to think white nationalism was cool is a grave mistake. There is no way it should shape the left’s actions or message. Sure, we want to differentiate ourselves from people getting mad at a prom dress, but this is no crisis.
Americans are naturally socialized to be resistant to messages against bigotry, but even with all that in mind, most of the public agrees with basic rights for minorities, trans people and more. There are not swathes of people moving to the right, there is a very small handful of reactionaries with a bullhorn making the claim to justify their existence and detestable views.
How Should the Left Shape Their Message?
There is a theme among liberals and leftists that we must constantly be walking on egg shells when campaigning or putting forth our vision for the world in fear of alienating moderates, undecided voters, the white working class, ect. There is fear around whether we might be getting too deep into a politics of shame or that calling Trump a racist will cement his strength with white voters. If there’s any lesson to take from Trump, it’s that it’s better to be honest and unapologetic about your beliefs than to spend your time trying to hedge and appease those that may disagree with you.
Liberals have made mistakes talking about Trump and Trump voters. Clinton’s infamous deplorable line was an incredible political blunder, and separating Trump from the Republican Party and American institutions combine for an incredibly shallow and ineffectual message. But we can’t absolve those that voted Trump precisely because of the actions that have resulted from his Presidency. These actions are what must be emphasized, that’s how we speak truth to power. Bigotry must be talked about as an institutional system of power, that individuals can uphold willingly and unwittingly. This way we hide nothing about our vision for the world while speaking with a level of nuance that can create solidarity among all people.
We should use language that matches the gravity of the problems before us, how capitalism, racism, sexism and more have destroyed marginalized communities and put forth solutions that match. Solidarity is our most powerful weapon against the ruling class and creating that solidarity amongst working people should be our goal. The way we avoid throwing black and brown communities under the bus while bringing in the white working class is by showing that white people have a stake in ending institutional bigotry.
It is better to be honest about the extent of the injustices in our society than trying to avoid them because they might alienate some. The path instead is to show a way in which everyone can contribute to righting those wrongs. One of the most common things said about Bernie Sanders is that he was liked for his authenticity, for how forthright he was about his beliefs even if they didn’t agree on everything. The language we use in articulating our political platform and vision is important, but we don’t need to listen to the right for pointers, and figures on the left shouldn’t make toned down versions of the same argument because it might be politically expedient. Instead we should be brave and bold. In solidarity with all oppressed peoples, we will strike down the depraved and greedy in power, tear apart the institutions that put them there, and create a better world for all of us.
