Liberals are not on the left, they’re centrists.
Or maybe we can stop nitpicking language and elect people who want to solve problems instead of exacerbating them.
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Rogan’s podcast has become an important node in the “Intellectual Dark Web,” a loose network of “classical liberal” writers, scholars, and speakers who claim to have been marginalized by elitist progressives intent on maintaining identitarian orthodoxy. These people inveigh against political correctness and identity politics in publications like Quillette and on YouTube videos and one another’s podcasts. They claim to be personally liberal—like Rogan, they mostly all claim to “go left on everything”—even as they profess reactionary ideas. They take the fact that their theories and opinions are unpopular among their peers in academia and the media as proof that their peers are suppressive.
Second, and often simultaneously, many of them are selling the notion of re-establishing the straight white male at the center of the universe. They do this indirectly, by rejecting, rebuking, and mocking the ways in which members of traditional minority groups have begun to find and assert their voices and priorities via digital media. They imply that these “social justice warriors” are overly sensitive, or that they act as bullies by expressing displeasure with “politically incorrect” speech, or that they are uniformly inconsistent and insincere.
Joe Rogan is fully invested in the idea that people—progressive liberals, mostly—are too quick to take offense at things that do not offend Joe Rogan.
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Especially economically reactionary ones, but also those (as the article notes) defending the rights of the downtrodden white male. This has been a standard approach by a lot of them who post on left-leaning sites like this one: “I smoke pot and am for gay marriage and am an atheist, so why are you liberal snowflakes calling me a fascist just because I try to make the case for white supremacist ethnostates?”
Rogan’s schtick back in his standup and “News Radio” days was that he was an intelligent but uneducated and macho working-class white guy who fell for every conspiracy theory in the book as long as it had a minimally convincing narrative (for comic effect the sitcom would sometimes make the conspiracy theory true).
He’s basically modified that into his current act by not playing it for laughs all the time. Politically he’s just another Reason magazine style libertarian who styles himself an “independent thinker”, which again works well with his act as long as he doesn’t bring on a left-wing guest who’ll challenge him by asking the host difficult questions in response (which the “breadtube” people would).
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Yeah.
And I think this ties into what @anon50609448 said above. Two people might utter the same exact words and still mean very different things. Language- especially political language- is more and more about tone and framing due to deliberate obfuscation and manipulation over time.
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There needs to be a re-centring, based on political philosophy rather than the two moving targets that are the Democratic and Republican parties. It is beginning to happen, but the
Not really. It seemed to me that he believed in a milder form of one nation conservatism.
If I only focused on differences then I would be with the anarchists saying “Don’t vote, it just encourages the politicians”. Instead I compromise, and people still find it hard to believe that when I supported Bernie in 2016 I really was trying to meet half way. Most of the time it isn’t that I agree with 90% of what they say, but that I think that 90% of what they say doesn’t go anywhere near enough, but is better than the alternative. The problem right now is that we are running out of time for some of these problems and we are being offered compromise solutions that would have worked 20 years ago but will only delay the inevitable now.
Also, those 10% of differences can also be very important. A TERF or tankie may share political beliefs with me, but the differences are critical as they are a threat to my life. If people aren’t voting for a candidate who has a history of homophobia, transphobia, racism or sexism it isn’t because of some purity testing, it is because that candidate holds beliefs that are dangerous to them. Ignoring this is effectively blaming the victim for not getting over their abuse. We can and should do better than this.
I’m going to flag this conversation to get it moved, I think we are going too far off topic.
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For example, “All lives matter” is a white supremacist slogan that supports police brutality and murder.
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As an example, progressives and many liberals characterise the Democratic party establishment as corrupt and compromised. A privilege-blind straight white guy (especially an unsophisticated one like many of Rogan’s fans) might respond by saying “yeah, both parties are equally bad, so why should we support a presidential candidate from one over the other? Vote Libertarian/Green/stay home even if you live in a swing state”. I’ve seen that too many times on this site in response to one of Cory’s articles about the DNC establishment.
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Obama’s to the right of an Eisenhower Republican…
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Yep, or when “Freedom of Religion” means refusing to allow contraceptive coverage for employees.
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And then there’s the classic “right to work” slogan that’s used by union-busting right-wing billionaires who want the right to exploit workers.
Heck, the Second Amendment has been twisted into something that mainly allows dangerous or irresponsible yahoos to carry their deadly fetish objects wherever they wish.
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I can translate that new-speak balloneyshit:
“Right to work” = right to work at insecure employment for poverty wages.
“Freedom of Religion” = "Freedom to shove my religion down everyone else’s throats.
Got any more of these? I can do this all day.
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You and me both.
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A small quibble.
It’s more like “right for an employer to offer work at insecure employment for poverty wages.”
There’s no way they’d ever mean “right to work” as “every person has a right to a job”.
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Right to Work (on my terms). “My” of course, being the employer.
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Pro-Life – supporting the right to life of a cluster of non-cognizant cells but not that of a pregnant woman or, often, that of a prisoner on death row.
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Simpler: “pro-life” = women are chattel.
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Pro-life =
Spoilered because it contains info involving traumatic life events.
if it can’t survive unaided, it must be protected at all costs. If it can, who gives a shit.
It, because cells aren’t human. But “Pro-Lifers” also tend to support keeping someone on life support for as long as possible.
“Death Panel” is a group of doctors trying to explain that Josie cannot survive on her own and maybe the kindest thing to do is turn off life support.
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Whereas a group of insurance company employees tasked with finding any way at all to refuse to pay for your treatment and getting bonuses for the number of people they are able to effectively kill is not a “death panel” at all.
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I dunno, “vague signals of values” seems to be full of even more bullshit. I mean, how many politicians say they are for this or that, and then vote on or support policies or other politicians that contradict there supposed values? The “family values” or “sheep dog” mentality voting for a “pussy grabber” being an obvious example. Or Trump making religious statement when he doesn’t even know the words of the Nicene Creed, nor has he ever attended church that hasn’t been part of a PR op.
Everyone wants to label everyone else and decide which “camp” they are in. Though I do agree with your sentiment of trying to solve problems vs exacerbating them.
You could probably get me to agree with this statement. But there are A LOT of people who would not be convinced he is anything other than… what ever he is in their minds. (Communist, liberal, neo-liberal, democratic savior, cool dude, etc)
Of course that 10% can be a deal breaker. Depends what it is. No one will find someone they are aligned with 100%. Politics has often been voting for the lesser of two evils/choosing between giant douche and shit sandwich. But it definitely seems worse lately.
Completely understandable and certainly would be a deal breaker. I wouldn’t suggest one to overlook something like that. But like in my example. I don’t think Yang has made any statements that would lead me to believe he is opposed to any of those groups - just the opposite.
It’s also very hard to find an actual pure soul who doesn’t harbor any of those biases. The best often one can do is find one who at least isn’t openly biased and hope they are self aware enough in their decisions. ETA - someone that pure probably isn’t cut out for politics.
While I understand peoples’ wariness to have the government have too much power over their lives, some seem to be so hyper-focused on it, that they aren’t paying attention to the control private groups have on their lives.
