How Poor Presumptions of Motive Reduce the Left to Endless, Feckless Purgatory
As I lurk in the social media shadows by way of casual Youtube, trying to focus on personal anecdotes in hopes of using them to make a broader point in The Discourse, it turns out that two things just keep on happening:
- I’m absolutely terrible at writing personal anecdotes, but more importantly,
- The Online Left is more addicted to infighting drama than I am to good coffee.
Where many a pundit keep losing me is not in criticism of politicians, but when that criticism evolves into poor presumption of motive.
To be clear, I do not mean if someone is taking corporate cash, then acts in favor of said cash — at that point, you have objective evidence they’re “selling out.” Rather, I’m referring to presumptions weighed on little to no substantive cause and heavily on emotional outrage, aimed at the small block of flawed electeds who aren’t paid off.
It’s critical we keep the good and the bad in mind where such politicians are concerned, too. Healthy skepticism towards them is only democratic, but if we only cherry-pick one side or the other and only listen to perspectives that agree with our own beliefs and biases about others, we learn nothing and go nowhere in a hurry.
The reason this nuance matters is not because of some politician’s feelings, either. Poor presumptions of motive, understandable as cynicism can be in this climate, also undermine incentive to demand better from the vanishingly few worth even half a demonstrable damn. After all, why bother demanding someone better use their leverage if they’re Too Far Gone? Why bother pushing someone you only hear is doing wrong if they’re so clearly just a Judas whose one true dream is to be ice cream buddies with Uncle Joe in the Rose Garden?
Unfortunately, the pundits who dunk on the motives of a certain class of politicians are then attacked by another band of pundits — the ones who insist the first group of pundits are the grifters and “sell outs,” instead, while doing little to lend or even acknowledge legitimate critique of politicians. Worse, a few even paint a false equivalency that what amounts to fair criticism is “disloyalty” — as if anyone should be blindly “loyal” to a politician (even the ones you like).
News flash to the latter class — you’re supposed to punch up, not left. You, too, need to better learn how to agree to disagree, rather than presuming the worst of others. In the grand scheme of things, it is more reasonable by default to throw salt at a politician than at another in your own tent, so try not doing very thing you’re crying about other pundits doing.
Such presumptions, though, often lead to the first group counter-dunking the second, and thus the cycle of Online Left life in 2021 continues to do what it does best: The Discourse, as a never ending cycle of leftists gnawing on one another’s arms like algorithm-tainted zombies.
In spite of the myriad directions doubled down on by these various factions, they stem from one common denominator in terms of thinking: that of stubbornness to strategy, to the point of moralizing a given approach as the One And Only True Way™, and everyone who believes otherwise is weak, likely a fraud, and probably just a terrible person.
Even those few politicians worth any semblance of a damn are buying into this migraine-inducing mindset. On the whole, just about everyone, pundit and politician alike, seems to have learned exactly all the wrong lessons from Bernie’s loss — even the man, himself, to a point.
Rather than clinging stubbornly to a strategy of caution or to one of absolutism in a neverending spiral of Einstein’s definition of insanity — not to mention acting like a bunch of toddlers shoving each other on the playground — we should be more willing to work through our differences towards the important, popular policies we know damned well most Americans support (and whom we should better galvanize to help make it happen). Above all, we should be pushing for better from politicians (especially the few who aren’t bought off) and encouraging said pushes. Those cynical at this juncture should at least be more willing to utter three magic words: “prove me wrong.” Why? Because, at a bare minimum, politicians don’t deserve the luxury of your silence.
It’s also not a thought crime to demand better of those you like and believe can be pushed — in fact, we should be doing far more of it than we are, rather than rely on blind faith they will/won’t do something. Never forget for a second that politicians work for us, not the other way around.
And if the first time you push for something fails, don’t throw in the towel and stop with a salty hashtag — keep finding ways for legislators to make something happen, then demand it of them, and keep calling on others to join you in said demands. Be a pest, because you know they deserve it if it’s taking this much to make them listen! One can do that and still work towards whatever their preferred party, strategy, or shiny toy happens to be.
Instead of moralizing strategy and putting down others, demonstrate what can work better and try to prove one another wrong. We can work cooperatively in this way, rather than acting like another band of cutthroat political capitalists, always trying to step on one another to appease the algorithm gods.
For the sake of a more humane society, the planet, and not having a whiplash Return-of-GanonTrump (or worse) in 2024, I hope we can finally figure that out.
