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I think we are collectively stuck in a sort of counterpoint/anti-establishmentarian state of mind. Everything must be explained and understood in a way that jives with the assumption that the establishment is rotten. And this is an idea that permeates both sides of the political spectrum. The left claims it is rotten from systemic prejudice. The right is a bit more complex and varies based on the part of the political spectrum, with the alt-right exhibiting the most purity in this respect.
But they all have their preferred poor babies and elites. And I think that’s really how they each connect into the counterpoint/anti-establishment framework, through populism.
The left fails to understand their considerable influence in the institutions they champion, and their downfall will be their religious commitment to perfection, as required by the revolutionary and ideological underpinnings that define them. i cannot fathom an outcome that would lead to this collective acceptance that social justice has been achieved, and it’s time to move on. I think it will probably just fade away, as it already has to some extent, as people fail to see these convictions as an accurate description of the world and, probably more precisely, will fail to see the provided solutions as having merit.
I find the right to be harder to analyze. I think a big part of it is that I am in a progressive bubble and don’t know any republicans. The only views of the republicans I am exposed to are those provided by progressives who would characterize republicans as unspeakably evil regardless of what the republicans were actually doing. it leaves me with this feeling that I don’t actually understand the Republican Party. I don’t actually know what they are like, as I don’t actually know anyone who identifies as a republican or even right leaning. And the media I consume, Bloomberg and Reuters (while I do believe is among the highest quality out there) does have a bias and I don’t believe it accurately reflects the republicans. The articles appear to be very unbiased, but the issues and perspectives the authors feel warrant an article, as well as what the author finds problematic about those issues and subjects, are where the bias is evident. The bias is more structural than anything.
I think the biggest reason I don’t know what’s up with the right is that there just isn’t as high a degree of political involvement on the right, except among the alt-right. On the left, especially among progressives, the spirit of activism is much more core to their identity. So they’re much more outspoken about it. But on the right, they aren’t, as a whole and philosophically, based on the assumption that injustices are rampant and need to be remedied. They’re, philosophically, the establishment party. And defending the status quo just doesn’t rally people in the same way that claims of injustice do.
And I think at this point in time there is a view that being overtly right-leaning is a liability. That it can get you cancelled, that can get you alienated. And it has merit, especially when businesses are going out of their way to demonstrate their foundational commitment to progressivism. That’s very alienating to anyone who leans right, and if you lean right the feeling is that if it becomes apparent that you do not support progressive objectives you are vulnerable to alienation. Those who share a bias don’t see the bias. Progressives don’t see the threat of alienation, they don’t see the threat of cancellation because they are the ones perpetuating it, and they simply are not threatened by it.
I think there’s a latent yet widespread opposition to the institutionalization of progressivism.
The right in the US is a collection of interest groups and not something top down. Hence, no overarching narrative. You’ve got rural people, you’ve got religious people, you’ve got certain business interests- all of which believe they’re being targeted by the government for progressive-ish reasons that mostly are not the same. You’ve got people who are sympathetic to those groups for whatever reason. You’ve got pro-growth libertarians. You’ve got populists. You have a much smaller group of racially conscious and socially conservative but not driven by religion- sort of alt-right adjacent.
These groups might agree on some things in broad strokes. But, they’re going to have different views on root causes and very different narratives.
I'm pretty confident that the left is also a collection of interest groups. We're just in closest proximity to the Extremely Online segment. The Internet makes it easy to claim membership in half a dozen issues at once, but the people who take one seriously are way less likely to get along with the others.
To clarify, are you talking about interest groups like non-whites, non-straights, non-cis, etc.? All of these groups don't necessarily disagree in the way that hydroacetylene is arguing. That is to say, I'm not aware of black progressives claiming that homophobia isn't a problem, or that there is even one specific root problem in the country - they seem to argue that there are as many problems as there are bigotries.
In contrast, a modern atheistic alt-righter is not going to agree at all with a religious conservative on the problem facing society, though they may just strategically delay that fight.
I think this is a difference between the modern left and right: right-wingers, at least in America, seem somewhat more likely to be single-issue wonks (hence the disparate coalition that has been the GOP, between business libertarians, evangelicals, and nationalists); left-wingers tend to glom onto multiple causes at once, only favoring one thing over others when the zeitgeist calls for it.
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No, I mean anti-racists, feminists, communards, gender abolitionists, tone police, et cetera. It’s way easier to add a bunch of hashtags on a tweet than it is to show up to rallies for competing causes.
The relationship between LGBT advocates and Black advocates might be a good example. Black Americans are not particularly trans-friendly. Intersectionality attempts to paper over this with discussion of how poorly the Black LGBT population is treated, skirting the question of who perpetuates such treatment.
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