How I Accidentally Became a Radical Centrist
Cancel culture is not progressive. The fantasy must end now.
I used to think of myself as almost radically liberal; as a powerfully staunch leftist; and maybe even some shade of outright socialist. In another life I could have supported nearly all of Bernie Sanders’ policy objectives — but I’ve become something else now. Something better. I can finally see the truth within us, and that truth will set us free.
Anger doesn’t empower the left, it poisons us
The more time I’ve spent on liberal news sites, blogs, and podcasts, the more I came to realize that choosing to aggressively preach uncompromisingly progressive values was actually entirely meaningless if you also refused to help get things done.
I saw liberals consistently outraged that the Democratic coalition declined to go as far as those liberals wanted them to go on issues like national healthcare and taxation.
But rather than rationally considering the long-term value of incremental progressive change toward their stated policy goal, they simply rejected any pleas for support from their own Democratic coalition — thus sacrificing the possibility of modest success for the certainty of total failure.
Then I saw them — upon that total failure that they themselves directly assured would happen — shamelessly brandishing their reinvigorated fake outrage against the supposedly entrenched Democratic “political class elites” for failing to get anything done in the first place!
What they have been dismissively deriding as “Democratic establishment,” “corporatist sellout,” and “insider elitist” all described to me the same quality — a candidate’s political efficacy. Strengths, not weaknesses. Real change can’t happen without it.
I watched many undeserving left-wing activists swell in prestige and influence by continually raging against every perceived slight against them and every undeniably accurate insinuation — usually made by actual leftist believers like me — that they were in fact directly benefiting from sabotaging our own coalition’s progressive efforts because it then afforded them the opportunity to leverage the power of their own disingenuous outrage against us, our supposed progressive allies.
You can see these kinds of “faux-gressives” absolutely everywhere on social media. They have hundreds of thousands of followers and constantly respond to the most inconsequential occurrences with unparalleled and unrestrained fury — even in supposedly friendly company, the slightest criticism (regardless of how well-intentioned) is met with disproportionate and unwarranted hostility. They are frequently identified easily from a distance by their insufferable smugness.
If you’re on Twitter, at least one of the first five tweets on your home timeline at this very moment is likely from one of these constantly-outraged fauxgressive types.
This seemingly bottomless well of disingenuous outrage is perhaps better known by another name: cancel culture.
It forms a full cycle of moral corruption, where each cynical act of outrage feeds into and reinforces the outrage that follows it and rewards each subsequent bad faith outrage with more power, more fame, and more fortune.
Manufactured outrage isn’t the byproduct of this political environment. It’s the cause, it’s the driving force. A consistent supply of false outrage is itself the end goal of all these prominent, seemingly-progressive social media “activists.”
If outrage is your goal, progress is not.
As a diverse political coalition, we must be aware of this dynamic and fully understand it in order to protect ourselves from the wolves among us who are currently masquerading as kindred allies.
If all you want to do is rage sanctimoniously about how much better you would run things if only “the establishment” didn’t hold you down, you aren’t really progressive — you’re a charlatan, profiting off your own hypocrisy.
Charlatans see offense where none exists, and they are easily found on both sides of the political spectrum.
Cancel culture is self-sustaining, and it will continue to poison our moral character and provide comfort to our enemies for as long as we allow it to.
Ideologically, my political values and beliefs haven’t changed a bit for easily a decade or more. I still have faith in what I believe is right, regardless of how many charlatans try to fool me into doubting the truths that my heart has revealed over the course of my life.
The greatest epiphany I have experienced thus far is likely the realization that both the hard left and the hard right are motivated by essentially the same idea — the need to produce or obtain a sustainable source of false outrage which will allow them to thrive politically. Yes, the right wing engages in the same hypocritical cancel culture tactics that the left does. But there’s a crucial difference — they’re not pretending to be on our side.
Rather than desiring to actually achieve their purported political objectives, they instead merely wish for those outcomes to magically occur at no significant cost to themselves.
This is a clearly economic relationship. There is no additional cost worth more than the renewable source of false outrage they would need to sacrifice in order to achieve it.
That is why they so emphatically reject the self-evident electoral truth that a vote for a third party — as well as the decision to abstain from voting entirely — does not actually express a voter’s civic dissatisfaction with the Democratic nominee as ostensibly reasoned.
No, instead it effectively increases the electoral strength of the Republican nominee, who presumably would be far less palatable to these frustrated voters than the Democratic nominee they were supposedly “making a statement” about in the first place.
What makes a blue coalition voter different than a liberal charlatan
Let’s compare the motivations of the liberal charlatan to those of the typical Democratic coalition voter. I am one such typical voter, and for comparison, I don’t consider myself any more important or unusual than anyone else in our coalition (charlatans excluded).
What I want more than any policy objective — more than any specific utopian dream — is to help build a better world regardless of what it costs me personally. I care about you, I will listen, I welcome opportunities to learn, and I want to help solve our society’s problems. That’s what being a progressive means to me.
If being truly progressive makes me a centrist in today’s world, then I’ll wear that label with pride.
The reason I’m now considered centrist or essentially moderate by my peers is because of the way I am compared to legions of cancel culture charlatans, to faux-gressives. This is notable because there is certainly nothing “soft” nor “compromising” about my beliefs, and there never has been.
I am still firmly Democratic in affiliation. I am still staunchly liberal in ideology. And I am still absolutely unwilling to vote for a Republican in any capacity, for any reason.
I would love nothing more than to win the election in November by 30 points, get 500 electoral votes, win a Senate supermajority, and expand the Supreme Court and other judiciaries at all levels to completely nullify the opinion of every conservative currently on the bench.
An “independent” I am not.
And yet, because of the unbridled power of charlatans in our very coalition, and my genuine lack of any desire to continually seek out new sources of outrage, I am now considered a centrist. I hope you’ll take a moment to ponder the sheer insanity of that fact. But this election isn’t about them, and it certainly isn’t about me.
I am the same person I have always been, but at the same time I know I’m a better person now than I was before. That is what it truly means to be progressive, nothing more.
We evolve. We carefully consider the ethical and moral ramifications of every action, because it is our responsibility to protect our world and our allies in order to be effective proponents of meaningful change. We are advocates of progress, but we are not reckless, and we’re not stupid.
That is who I am, and that is who I know I always will be — regardless of whatever labels the endless cavalcade of moral frauds might try to shame me with.
If that’s what centrism is now, then consider me a radical because I know my beliefs are worth fighting for, and I will never stop fighting for them.
The world we deserve
I believe the reason I’ve found myself drawn to Joe Biden so much more than anyone else in recent memory (Barack Obama excepted, of course) and why I supported his campaign from the very beginning, is because of the hope he brings to a world currently so bereft of it.
It’s because of the very world he represents — a world where our most fundamentally human values of compassion and altruism toward others are no longer mocked and dismissed as foolish, pathetic, and weak. I long for a world in which our empathy is once again considered a moral strength.
Joe Biden represents the unifying, selfless leadership we good people of all political ideologies and affiliations have longed for after being subjected to the inescapable and brutal agonies of the Trump era. Joe Biden is precisely the kind of leader we need in this moment, and he has dutifully answered our call to service.
A centered moral compass doesn’t come from simply standing in the middle of a cluster of various and frequently conflicting beliefs. It comes from a lifetime of believing in and fighting for the right things — and only right things.
Joe Biden is not a return to the past as some may disingenuously argue. He is no relic of a failed era, and he is certainly no more centrist (read as pejorative) than I now know I am. Joe Biden is a true progressive, and has never been anything less than that.
Joe Biden does not seek to bring us comforting memories as we run out the clock on a pointless existence. No, he is quite literally our collective hope for the future of our society. We have called upon him to be our champion to face this perilous moment because we know he is what we all are as Americans — we are survivors.
We will win this forever war
Let us join together to once again wage our eternal struggle for what is right in this world. We will continue to fight the good fight, and we will never relent.
So when you inevitably find yourself in your darkest hour as an American, never lose sight of this most important truth:
Only one outcome awaits us in the end. Victory.
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