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Notes -
It depends. A lot of people do hold politically correct opinions out of fear. And for me, the tell is exactly what was in the blog post — the opinions are incoherent, contradictory, and don’t stand up to the slightest scrutiny. Saying “I’m obviously right and you’re a [sneer term] for disagreeing,” isn’t the position a person who had a coherent theory about the world or their politics. And from my observation this tends to crop up in higher levels of society. If you’re a parole and paid hourly, nobody gives a fuck. But once you start getting into the higher levels of business and politics, it becomes necessary to hold the right opinions. It even, at high enough levels, becomes necessary to protest or donate to the right causes. Failing to do so can limit your career, cost you friends, even family.
It was really obvious to me when Trump came about. I didn’t vote for him, and I think he’s an ass, but really, as far a things he did, he was either a 1990s era democrat (keep in mind that democrats had at that time favored a border wall, and championed “don’t ask, don’t tell”) or perhaps poor judgement. But people seemed to lose their minds, not only at him personally, but at people who might have some modicum of support for him or anyone not personally opposed to him. In 2016, people bragged about walking out of thanksgiving dinner because someone at the table was pro-Trump. But, these same people were conservatives before, and you did eat with them. In the same time period, people were harassing diners they knew were republicans out of restaurants, shaming people for wearing red hats, etc. it was extremely performative, very loud and very public. Even today, people feel the need to blow the “I’m not a filthy heretic” trumpet in any news discussion or political discussion.
And what’s changed is our panopticon. In 1996, you could plausibly keep your opinions to yourself. In the age of social media, it’s almost impossible for you to do so without taking extra steps. And I think people are afraid of their social credit going down if they’re discovered to have crimethink on their social media or know people who do. And I think everyone knows it at this point, we have an informal but effective social credit system enforced by HR departments terrified of discrimination lawsuits, and workers who know this have to be liberal enough to not trip the “thought crime” alert. So they organize protests, they bitch about “evil republicans” online, and purge their friends list of any filthy conservatives.
It's always amusing to me when people say, "why does the Left freak out over Trump? He's just a 90's Democrat."
First of all, that's not really true, but we'd probably disagree on that, but also, that doesn't matter.
A 1965 Democrat who ran the median 1965 Democratic planks on social issues would've likely been more comfortable in the GOP as well - as we saw happening in the South during this time. Social change happens, and people uncomfortable with that social change align with the political movement that'll stop that change.
Well, the freak outs included warnings against literal Nazism. If the 90's democrats too were literal Nazis, I think we're overdue for some Nuremberg trials. It might also mean that maybe Nazism isn't all that bad. Take your pick.
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Yes, it is. That theory is "I belong to a group with actual power and you don't".
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