Smug cruelty on the left is pushing more people right

The left has become a status game based upon privilege (and shame) hierarchies. They really need to stop with the self-flagellation. It is morally and logically incoherent.

During Trump’s first presidency, late night show host Stephen Colbert did a skit about Trump and his family, mocking the internal family systems of the Trump dynasty. I don’t recall all the specifics, but the punchline is unforgettable; a Stephen Colbert playacting one of the Trump kids shouting “Please just love me, daddy!”

Several books, including from Trump’s own family, seem to support the idea that Trump’s entire family is somewhat dysfunctional—love was always conditional upon success, emotional deprivation, withholding of love. All the things you’d expect from a grandiose narcissist.

And while all of that may be true, have we really come to a place where can openly mock people for their family trauma? Like, let’s just stop and get our moral bearings for a second. Is this okay? Is this who we want to be?

At the time, I was one of the audience that ate it up. After all, Stephen doesn’t just come up with his bits out of thin air. He’s got a whole team, a gigantic audience, and plenty of surveys and research that goes into his tone and delivery. He wouldn’t have that power if people didn’t give it to him. Sure, you could frame him as a sort of court jester—speaking truth to power through sarcasm and wit. And while this is one of the most important roles of satire and comedians, something about it just didn’t sit right with me.

At that same time, I was a member of an old, tightly knit, small online community. You know, back from the Web1/Web2 days when people were just on forums all the time, before the “digital town square” of Twitter and Reddit and Facebook took off. As a dyed-in-the-wool progressive, I argued with conservatives all the time. I made progressive friends in those online spaces.

I couldn’t find this meme that I’d seen so I had to ask ChatGPT to recreate it. It really stuck with me, and I think captures one of the big reasons that America has shifted right.

They were some of the most miserable people. Interestingly, we all had our own family trauma, which is important to note, given the left’s reaction to Trump’s family trauma (turns out, we’re all equally traumatized!) These folks would gripe and grouse about everything—bad pay, stupid people, general incompetence, maliciousness in the world. It was often a microcosm of suffering and self-pity. I figured it was okay to join in on the grousing and whining. Ah, but this group reacted poorly to me joining in.

The reason? Privilege.

You see, I’d worked hard to get a six figure tech job, therefore I had no room to complain. At least, according to them. My family trauma, long history of being bullied, chronic illness, neurological differences—none of that mattered to these “progressives” because privilege; your argument is invalid. Once, they were on a tirade about how the whole system is inexorably fucked because of just how irredeemably stupid people are. I agreed with them. I added to and extended their argument. I’d frequently complained about how the burden of competence often fell to people like me to clean up the messes that others made.

Ah, but that was a bridge too far. “Progressives” want everyone to be equally miserable and also all bear equal responsibility. No one is allowed to stand out, and implicitly, meritocracy is bad. An unspoken rule of the road for progressives is that “no one is better or worse than anyone else.” Which is kinda silly. That’s a value that has (I think) slowly been eroding as “progressives” (I use scare quotes because I’m a real progressive, most self-assigned progressives are not) have become more self aware. Wait, isn’t judging people by the content of their character what we’re supposed to be doing? Isn’t judging people by their merits a good thing?

I left that group when they ganged up on me for becoming ‘problematic’ after achieving some small fame and success on YouTube. The message seemed to be “you’re too privileged for us now, and you’re not allowed to be miserable or angry like us.”

That was a club I was happy to leave.

It doesn’t stop there. On the internet, I’ve had people just assume that I’m a bad person because I’m a white guy. I’ve been labeled colonizer and oppressor and I’m like “you know I’m Ashkenazi right?” Ironically, most “progressives” do not understand the implication there. I would not be American if not for Nazis running my people out of Germany in 1930s. The best reaction I got to pointing that out to a “progressive” online was “oh, I guess that counts.” Yeah, it does count.

It’s pretty easy to find Colbert mocking Trump.

I thought progressives were supposed to believe that racism and sexism were bad? And before you say “oh that’s a thing of the past.” I still get it often enough even on this platform. I wrote a community note last week that said “Things are gonna be okay” and I had several comments saying “typical white man” as though you could assume that I have no trauma, no intergenerational issues, and my life has been peachy keen based on the color of my skin and the Y chromosome in my cells.

And the left still tolerates this sort of behavior because of grievance politics. The unspoken rule goes something like this “he who has the most grievances is always right.” But who has the most grievances? It follows a template, a scalar value that is mostly based upon—you guessed it—privilege. And see, privilege is a great status game because you are allowed to make guestimates on someone’s privilege based on numerous status signifiers. Their race and gender, apparent wealth and job title, and so on.

The more privilege someone has, the more cruel you’re allowed to be to them.

What about the fact that I’m autistic and I’ve been forced to mask my entire life? “That doesn’t count because you have passing privilege” is the answer from the left. What the hell is “passing privilege”? The fact that I have to code switch, just like black people do, in order to not get harassed in life? (Code switching, for the uninitiated, is when you have to don an entire social persona, and act in a prescribed role.)

Racism and sexism are supposed to be bad, but the “progressives” struggle with this.

Bullying and hate are supposed to be bad, but the “progressives” also struggle with this.

This facet of the left reminds me of the Zoidberg meme. The entire social platform of the left seems to be based upon who should feel the worst about themselves. This odd self-flagellation isn’t working anymore.

The primary reason is because their entire platform has been subsumed by narratives around privilege. Privilege, to them, is the devil. Privilege is everything wrong with society. Anything that makes anyone different, better, or more capable is not to be celebrated or even respected. It’s downright evil. It doesn’t matter that some people demonstrably contribute more to society. It doesn’t matter that some people are just born smarter or stronger—they should feel nothing but guilt and shame for being born different.

I know, it sounds pretty absurd when you say it out loud like this, and before you say “Dave, you’re just building a strawman argument” I am not—I’m literally describing the lived experience of people interacting with “progressives.” I even had someone on Twitter recently tell me that my experience as an autistic person is invalid because “they live in a progressive area and neurodiverse people all get the accommodations they need!”

The hell they do. Unless you’re a card-carrying autist, you’re told to buck up and get in line and stop complaining. We call this survivorship bias. Unless a “progressive” can virtue signal for helping you out, you don’t exist to them. They love mentally categorizing everyone into neat little buckets—“victim” or “villain” so they can be the “hero”. By the way, this is a reference to the Karpman Drama Triangle. IFYKYK.

Survivorship bias. For every autistic person you’re aware of, there are more you are not aware of. DEI and woke narratives do not care about this, because the Establishment does not recognize you as lacking privilege.

None of this is to say “I’m defecting and switching conservative!” I am still a progressive, albeit a disappointed one. I was raised on values like “judge a man by the content of his character, not by the color of his skin.” The American left simply does not embody that value, plain and simple. It has drifted way off into la-la land. Groups of people often struggle with those values they espouse the loudest. The company that shouts about their great work-life balance usually has a really terrible work ethic and demands a lot. The right, with their “family values” continues to champion adulterers, sex offenders, and absentee parents. Meanwhile, the left with their “equality” continues to struggle against racism and sexism.

So when Stephen Colbert shouts “please love me daddy!” mocking Trump and his family, it’s really just kinda cringe. We could be using this as an opportunity to talk about the role of intergenerational trauma on families, or what it means that Americans don’t find this problematic.

Some of the other values on the left that I can’t stand are as follows:

• “Racism and sexism are bad… unless it’s against white men and anyone else with ‘privilege’” (then cruelty and bullying are fair game!)

• “America is a shitty country that deserves bad things and is full of bad people” (a weird kind of self-loathing, see Hillary saying “basket of deplorables”, see also some Democratic congress people dumping on America lately)

• “Meritocracy is bad because equality is good, at all costs. Any inequality must be maximally stamped out!” (even to the point of ensuring everyone is equally miserable)

• “Privilege in any form is bad, because inequality is bad, even stuff you were born with. Earned or unearned, you should feel guilty and ashamed of any privilege you have.” (this is particularly hard for me. I was born gifted, autistic, white, and male - all things that the left wants me to feel bad about).

• “Those with more grievances should have more power, even when they use those grievances as a cudgel.” (or when those grievances are totally fabricated in the first place)

And yeah, I know the default reaction to this by “progressives” is “No, you don’t understand, that’s not what the academic theory actually says!” Followed by “We’re not actually saying any of those things, but (the inevitable ‘but’) you need to understand the role of privilege!”

To that I say: The map is not the territory. Let go of your vaunted, smug, pretentious narratives and look at how you actually behave. Look at how you actually treat people. Look at the values you’ve actually cultivated. Look at the people you’re actually gaslighting and alienating.

I’ll leave you with one final quotation that, I feel, captures something that everyone could embrace, progressives and conservatives alike. If your party consistently makes people feel like shit, maybe don’t be surprised when no one turns out to vote for you.

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Maya Angelou

Editorial note: when I refer to the “left” and “progressives” I’m generally referring to politicians and thought leaders, not voters. Consider this letter to the DNC, rather than registered democrats (though some voters need to read this too)

Feedback note: it was recommended to me to provide some concrete takeaways about how the DNC can course correct, and what “true progressive” values ought to be.

First, I would say “cruelty is bad no matter who’s doing it, or why.” Yeah, the right certainly has their fair share of cruelty, but two wrongs don’t make a right. Like Michelle Obama said “When they go low, you go high”—the left has not been going high.

Second, I would say “find a new status game other than grievances and privilege.” This status game is self-defeating, alienating, and just spreads misery. The progressive core needs a new central value, a new axiomatic grounding.

Third, I would say “focus on coming from a place of strength and coherence.” The right is unabashedly self-assured, a value that confuses the left. Many on the right may be “morally repugnant” but they are internally consistent and aren’t weak.

Finally, I would suggest “maybe fairness is the new central value.” Equality is one thing, but taken to its extremes, it becomes self-defeating. Joe Biden originally won, in part, because of his views on fairness. “If you work your whole life and can’t retire comfortably, that’s not fair.”