9 ms·

The Self-Isolation of the American Left

38 points by johntfella 5y ago

stathibus 5y ago
This phenomenon is not exclusive to the left. Trump populism works exactly the same way. For some reason, only the left is called to take responsibility for it.
- arp242 5y ago
  I don't know what you've been reading, but there's a mountain of criticism of populism – including Trump's flavour of it – and then some. Speaking purely for myself, I would rather criticise my "own side" (i.e the left in my case) than the "other side". I feel it's considerably more constructive and helpful. It's also exceedingly vexing to see someone make bad arguments for a position you broadly agree with.
- playpause 5y ago
  > For some reason, only the left is called to take responsibility for it Wait, what? The right is frequently called to take more responsibility for its extreme elements – moderate Republicans being accused of playing down the seriousness of the Capital invasion, etc. And rightly so.
playpause 5y ago
This article is flagged – can anyone who flagged it please give your reason? (If you didn't flag it, please don't speculate as to why it was flagged.)
- Miner49er 5y ago
  I believe it was flagged by moderators, since it can't be vouched for.
AndyMcConachie 5y ago
Fuck off David Brooks. There are more strikes happening in the USA now than ever before in my lifetime. Most Americans want free, or at least cheaper healthcare. These are not isolated beliefs. The fact that this jerk wants to label a few things 'The American Left' and then decry them as isolating just means he either isn't paying attention to what Americans actually want, or intentionally ignoring obvious trends. Frankly he's isolated and out of touch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMqZ2PPOLik https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMqZ2PPOLik
- dang 5y ago
  Please don't take HN threads further into ideological flamewar. It's a tedious internet genre that degrades the forum and in the end just burns it to a crisp. We're trying to stave that off here, if possible (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=stave%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...). I'm sure you can make your substantive points thoughtfully—can you please do that instead of name-calling and fulminating? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: I just had to ask you about this not that many posts ago. If you wouldn't mind reviewing the site guidelines and taking the intended spirit of this site more to heart, we'd appreciate it. You're welcome here, and we don't need you to change your views, but we do need you to stick to the rules.
- blueflow 5y ago
  Toning down would probably prevent your post from being flagged. Being right and being able to bring it across in a non-offensive way are two different shoes.
  - efields 5y ago
    No “fuck off David Brooks” is correct sentiment.
- dls2016 5y ago
  Of course he avoids discussion of any topics with a direct material impact on working class people and instead engages in the same “culture war” crap he’s trying to rail against.
Clubber 5y ago
>Modern progressivism is in danger of becoming dominated by a relatively small group of people who went to the same colleges, live in the same neighborhoods and have trouble seeing beyond their subculture’s point of view. I think that this small group of (highly political) people's voices are getting quieter and quieter. The citizenry is very keen today of BS detection, and very skeptical of traditional news; rightfully so. Traditional news lives at the mercy of advertisers. Russell Brand recently did a segment about Pfizer and CNN with a montage that was pretty funny. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5xqP-aPwOU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5xqP-aPwOU A lot of this is thanks to the loosening of the stranglehold of traditional news outlets in solely defining narratives.
- arp242 5y ago
  What do you see replacing "traditional news outlets"? I have a number of strong criticisms, but I don't really see the alternatives as better, or at least not the alternatives that we have right now.
  - Clubber 5y ago
    Civilian journalism.
    - arp242 5y ago
      What does that mean? How does that work? This is really vague.
      - Clubber 5y ago
        There are plenty of examples, but here is one so you get the idea. This guy is a former cop who, in this video, is explaining how many police cultures work, how they are trained, how the justice system bureaucracy works, and why there are so many issues with police and civilians. You don't get this from traditional news. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhqFDV6iaXI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhqFDV6iaXI There are many, many, many examples. There are a lot on YouTube, but that just happens to be the distribution model de jour. Blogging, substack, etc are also viable distributors. When I grew up I always saw journalism as Walter Cronkite (I'm dating myself), Dan Rather, NYT, etc. Those are just corporations who practice journalism for profit. Journalism itself, as defined by the founders in the constitution, isn't limited to that. I believe we are currently experiencing a revolution in journalism, or perhaps a return to its roots. It's exciting. "News is what somebody does not want you to print. All the rest is advertising."
zdw 5y ago
Citing rotten tomatoes popularity numbers when internet vote stuffing on behalf of whatever axe someone wants to grind is extremely common is not particularly valid. The problem is that there's a tendency for everyone to stake a philosophical/social position and starts defending it to the death, demonizing the opposition, and not really talking or understanding differing opinions - they're just blather to be yelled louder than.
- arp242 5y ago
  Yeah, I don't think the RT numbers are all that meaningful as such. However, I do think he has a decent point: how important is some comedian making some joke, really? Is it really something worth protesting or walking out over? It all seems like a misplaced priority to me. A day has 24 hours. Your life has ~80 years. Your political clout is even more limited. You really need do need to prioritize, and if you look bad in case A people won't take you serious in case B either. During those Netflix protests the attitude was fairly aggressive; signs of counter-protesters were destroyed and were treated in a way that was less-than-peaceful. I found myself wondering: if Gandhi and MLK are praised for their peaceful resistance in situations that were many many times worse by any standard, then how come we've somehow come to accept this as "normal"? If they could protest peacefully then so can you. And yes, every community has its share of cranks and we shouldn't judge an entire community by that, but if you don't all out the cranks and even encourage them then it's a bad look on the entire community. At best I feel these kind of antics are just an ineffective and pointless waste of time. More likely I think they're actively harming the cause in the long run. Anyway, I have always been on the left and always will be, but I have a strong dislike for American Liberals to the point where it's just becoming the left's version of Fox News and all of that. Not quite there yet, but moving in that direction fast.
endisneigh 5y ago
America is just too big. Time to split up or cede power completely to the individual states as originally was intended (but not really since Federalist vs Anti-Federalist was a thing). Ultimately geographic and socioeconomic factors are what fuel the division. No amount of politicking can override reality. Either America strikes down dissidents (whatever that means to you) or we accept the oscillations that is the never-ending American culture war (not to imply other countries don't have similar problems). When one group believes in big government and the other believes in small government in contradictory and circumstantial ways, there's no reconciliation.
- RappingBoomer 5y ago
  one group believes in small government? What group is that? Not the GOP, certainly. In 2017, trump asked congress for huge cuts in many departments/agencies (e.g,. EPA (-33%), DOL (-21%), and many others)...however, congress offered a budget to trump that had no cuts, essentially, and actually increased the budget....who controlled congress (senate and house) in 2017? The GOP controlled both senate and the house... so which group wants smaller government?
  - endisneigh 5y ago
    There are plenty of groups that advocate for smaller government - one being "Citizens Against Government Waste." I intentionally refrained from naming specific groups since that wasn't really the point.
- Clubber 5y ago
  Like you said, one of the issues is we have a strong federal government that passes one-size-fits all laws for everybody (Hamiltonian model). Traditionally the country was governed by states, so each state had its own set of rules to live by (Jeffersonian model). We've moved from the Jeffersonian model to the Hamiltonian model starting around the 1900s and WWI. Both have their issues. Of course a split up would negate the power of groups, meaning, each individual independent region would be weaker than the whole. This is what Lincoln was talking about during the Civil War about secession. We want to design a system so that we get the benefits of a large, powerful union but also the benefits of independently run states with none of the bad things that both can provide. Ideally each state would run itself in the way the citizens want, that also don't violate minority civil rights, while having a strong defense of a union of states.
hanselot 5y ago
History is cyclical, and the further you pull back the pendulum, the harder it will swing back... Be warned, those perpetrating vile violations of human ethics with their groupthink and historical revisionism. You will suffer the same fate as every attempt before them. Finding balance is the answer, obviously.
AnEro 5y ago
>Martin Luther King Jr. were among the great champions of progressive ideas in the 20th century. But they didn’t exist within an insular, self-validating community whose values and assumptions were often at odds with those of the rest of society. Okay I was going to take this seriously but, saying MLK wasn't 'at odds with society'??? "While many people of all races admired King and Parks in the 1960s, the majority of Americans did not and found the civil rights movement both wrong and unnecessary. Activists like King and Parks were reviled, red-baited and called extremists in their own time. " > https://time.com/5099513/martin-luther-king-day-myths/ https://time.com/5099513/martin-luther-king-day-myths/ I'm sorry people are at odds with tiny changes in their work place and there is schools of thought to implement change in workplaces to deal with that resistance, but an ideology around 'we need to and can do better by changing' is supposed to not generate that resistance? I think he's the one that needs less time on twitter if he's taking terminally online people as if their represtives of their respective movement.
- drcongo 5y ago
  It's lucky that the author put such a ludicrous claim right up top in the first sentence, because that will save an awful lot of people having to sit through the rest of his twaddle.
- throw39444 5y ago
  > Okay I was going to take this seriously but, saying MLK wasn't 'at odds with society'??? I don't think you're reading it correctly. MLK's values and assumptions were indeed not at odds with society. He was highly religious (Christian) and his arguments with regard to civil rights were largely based on unity, compatibility, harmony rather than divisiveness, detachment, or malice a la Malcolm X.

38 points by johntfella 5y ago

This phenomenon is not exclusive to the left. Trump populism works exactly the same way. For some reason, only the left is called to take responsibility for it.

arp242 5y ago
I don't know what you've been reading, but there's a mountain of criticism of populism – including Trump's flavour of it – and then some. Speaking purely for myself, I would rather criticise my "own side" (i.e the left in my case) than the "other side". I feel it's considerably more constructive and helpful. It's also exceedingly vexing to see someone make bad arguments for a position you broadly agree with.
playpause 5y ago
> For some reason, only the left is called to take responsibility for it Wait, what? The right is frequently called to take more responsibility for its extreme elements – moderate Republicans being accused of playing down the seriousness of the Capital invasion, etc. And rightly so.

playpause 5y ago

This article is flagged – can anyone who flagged it please give your reason? (If you didn't flag it, please don't speculate as to why it was flagged.)

Miner49er 5y ago
I believe it was flagged by moderators, since it can't be vouched for.

AndyMcConachie 5y ago

Fuck off David Brooks. There are more strikes happening in the USA now than ever before in my lifetime. Most Americans want free, or at least cheaper healthcare. These are not isolated beliefs. The fact that this jerk wants to label a few things 'The American Left' and then decry them as isolating just means he either isn't paying attention to what Americans actually want, or intentionally ignoring obvious trends. Frankly he's isolated and out of touch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMqZ2PPOLik https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMqZ2PPOLik

dang 5y ago
Please don't take HN threads further into ideological flamewar. It's a tedious internet genre that degrades the forum and in the end just burns it to a crisp. We're trying to stave that off here, if possible (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=stave%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...). I'm sure you can make your substantive points thoughtfully—can you please do that instead of name-calling and fulminating? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: I just had to ask you about this not that many posts ago. If you wouldn't mind reviewing the site guidelines and taking the intended spirit of this site more to heart, we'd appreciate it. You're welcome here, and we don't need you to change your views, but we do need you to stick to the rules.
blueflow 5y ago
Toning down would probably prevent your post from being flagged. Being right and being able to bring it across in a non-offensive way are two different shoes.
- efields 5y ago
  No “fuck off David Brooks” is correct sentiment.
dls2016 5y ago
Of course he avoids discussion of any topics with a direct material impact on working class people and instead engages in the same “culture war” crap he’s trying to rail against.

Clubber 5y ago

>Modern progressivism is in danger of becoming dominated by a relatively small group of people who went to the same colleges, live in the same neighborhoods and have trouble seeing beyond their subculture’s point of view. I think that this small group of (highly political) people's voices are getting quieter and quieter. The citizenry is very keen today of BS detection, and very skeptical of traditional news; rightfully so. Traditional news lives at the mercy of advertisers. Russell Brand recently did a segment about Pfizer and CNN with a montage that was pretty funny. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5xqP-aPwOU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5xqP-aPwOU A lot of this is thanks to the loosening of the stranglehold of traditional news outlets in solely defining narratives.

arp242 5y ago
What do you see replacing "traditional news outlets"? I have a number of strong criticisms, but I don't really see the alternatives as better, or at least not the alternatives that we have right now.
- Clubber 5y ago
  Civilian journalism.
  - arp242 5y ago
    What does that mean? How does that work? This is really vague.
    - Clubber 5y ago
      There are plenty of examples, but here is one so you get the idea. This guy is a former cop who, in this video, is explaining how many police cultures work, how they are trained, how the justice system bureaucracy works, and why there are so many issues with police and civilians. You don't get this from traditional news. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhqFDV6iaXI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhqFDV6iaXI There are many, many, many examples. There are a lot on YouTube, but that just happens to be the distribution model de jour. Blogging, substack, etc are also viable distributors. When I grew up I always saw journalism as Walter Cronkite (I'm dating myself), Dan Rather, NYT, etc. Those are just corporations who practice journalism for profit. Journalism itself, as defined by the founders in the constitution, isn't limited to that. I believe we are currently experiencing a revolution in journalism, or perhaps a return to its roots. It's exciting. "News is what somebody does not want you to print. All the rest is advertising."

zdw 5y ago

Citing rotten tomatoes popularity numbers when internet vote stuffing on behalf of whatever axe someone wants to grind is extremely common is not particularly valid. The problem is that there's a tendency for everyone to stake a philosophical/social position and starts defending it to the death, demonizing the opposition, and not really talking or understanding differing opinions - they're just blather to be yelled louder than.

arp242 5y ago
Yeah, I don't think the RT numbers are all that meaningful as such. However, I do think he has a decent point: how important is some comedian making some joke, really? Is it really something worth protesting or walking out over? It all seems like a misplaced priority to me. A day has 24 hours. Your life has ~80 years. Your political clout is even more limited. You really need do need to prioritize, and if you look bad in case A people won't take you serious in case B either. During those Netflix protests the attitude was fairly aggressive; signs of counter-protesters were destroyed and were treated in a way that was less-than-peaceful. I found myself wondering: if Gandhi and MLK are praised for their peaceful resistance in situations that were many many times worse by any standard, then how come we've somehow come to accept this as "normal"? If they could protest peacefully then so can you. And yes, every community has its share of cranks and we shouldn't judge an entire community by that, but if you don't all out the cranks and even encourage them then it's a bad look on the entire community. At best I feel these kind of antics are just an ineffective and pointless waste of time. More likely I think they're actively harming the cause in the long run. Anyway, I have always been on the left and always will be, but I have a strong dislike for American Liberals to the point where it's just becoming the left's version of Fox News and all of that. Not quite there yet, but moving in that direction fast.

endisneigh 5y ago

America is just too big. Time to split up or cede power completely to the individual states as originally was intended (but not really since Federalist vs Anti-Federalist was a thing). Ultimately geographic and socioeconomic factors are what fuel the division. No amount of politicking can override reality. Either America strikes down dissidents (whatever that means to you) or we accept the oscillations that is the never-ending American culture war (not to imply other countries don't have similar problems). When one group believes in big government and the other believes in small government in contradictory and circumstantial ways, there's no reconciliation.

RappingBoomer 5y ago
one group believes in small government? What group is that? Not the GOP, certainly. In 2017, trump asked congress for huge cuts in many departments/agencies (e.g,. EPA (-33%), DOL (-21%), and many others)...however, congress offered a budget to trump that had no cuts, essentially, and actually increased the budget....who controlled congress (senate and house) in 2017? The GOP controlled both senate and the house... so which group wants smaller government?
- endisneigh 5y ago
  There are plenty of groups that advocate for smaller government - one being "Citizens Against Government Waste." I intentionally refrained from naming specific groups since that wasn't really the point.
Clubber 5y ago
Like you said, one of the issues is we have a strong federal government that passes one-size-fits all laws for everybody (Hamiltonian model). Traditionally the country was governed by states, so each state had its own set of rules to live by (Jeffersonian model). We've moved from the Jeffersonian model to the Hamiltonian model starting around the 1900s and WWI. Both have their issues. Of course a split up would negate the power of groups, meaning, each individual independent region would be weaker than the whole. This is what Lincoln was talking about during the Civil War about secession. We want to design a system so that we get the benefits of a large, powerful union but also the benefits of independently run states with none of the bad things that both can provide. Ideally each state would run itself in the way the citizens want, that also don't violate minority civil rights, while having a strong defense of a union of states.

hanselot 5y ago

History is cyclical, and the further you pull back the pendulum, the harder it will swing back... Be warned, those perpetrating vile violations of human ethics with their groupthink and historical revisionism. You will suffer the same fate as every attempt before them. Finding balance is the answer, obviously.

AnEro 5y ago

>Martin Luther King Jr. were among the great champions of progressive ideas in the 20th century. But they didn’t exist within an insular, self-validating community whose values and assumptions were often at odds with those of the rest of society. Okay I was going to take this seriously but, saying MLK wasn't 'at odds with society'??? "While many people of all races admired King and Parks in the 1960s, the majority of Americans did not and found the civil rights movement both wrong and unnecessary. Activists like King and Parks were reviled, red-baited and called extremists in their own time. " > https://time.com/5099513/martin-luther-king-day-myths/ https://time.com/5099513/martin-luther-king-day-myths/ I'm sorry people are at odds with tiny changes in their work place and there is schools of thought to implement change in workplaces to deal with that resistance, but an ideology around 'we need to and can do better by changing' is supposed to not generate that resistance? I think he's the one that needs less time on twitter if he's taking terminally online people as if their represtives of their respective movement.

drcongo 5y ago
It's lucky that the author put such a ludicrous claim right up top in the first sentence, because that will save an awful lot of people having to sit through the rest of his twaddle.
throw39444 5y ago
> Okay I was going to take this seriously but, saying MLK wasn't 'at odds with society'??? I don't think you're reading it correctly. MLK's values and assumptions were indeed not at odds with society. He was highly religious (Christian) and his arguments with regard to civil rights were largely based on unity, compatibility, harmony rather than divisiveness, detachment, or malice a la Malcolm X.