Three articles hit my inbox on Monday that shared a feature: incredulity. Incredulity that ideological left-wingers are charging forward with efforts that might make the Microsoft Zune seem like a once-in-a-generation success.
Matt Yglesias is disheartened that the League of Conservation Voters is using checklists like the one that led to Kamala supporting taxpayer-funded gender-affirming surgery for illegal immigrants who are in prison for flag burning, with a complimentary bottomless mimosa brunch for members of MS-13 (if memory serves). Jonathan Chait is unconvinced by speakers at a progressive conference who argued that Democrats can win by chiding Americans for having “unacceptable” opinions (“unacceptable” is a descriptor that an activist actually used). And Jesse Singal noted that progressive New York Times staffers’ attempt to marginalize Bari Weiss only turned her into a media megalodon, sort of like when someone in a movie gets thrown into a nuclear reactor, is presumed dead, but comes back at 100 times their original size to exact revenge.
Will these progressive efforts achieve their goals? That depends on what their goals are. I think that Yglesias, Chait, and Singal are right that these groups’ nominal goals are a pipe dream; imagining that the US is on the cusp of a progressive revolution requires the amount of self-delusion normally only found in standup comedy and May-December romances. But what if activists’ real goals are something else? I think that decorum might be keeping us from talking plainly about what’s really happening.