Liberals: Please Chill Out
Is this how we lose the culture war?
It was an unlikely place to be moved to ruminations over today’s political climate. I’d taken my family for brunch in a chain diner, the sort of joint that was popular back in the ’90s, before the foodie revolution diversified British taste buds. The food was greasy, the coffee tasted like battery acid, and when the server came up to our table, she was proffering play packs for the kids: Transformers for the boy, My Little Pony to the girl.
As I sat eating my reheated bacon and overcooked poached eggs, it occurred to me that it was impossible to eat here without feeling faintly scolded by the liberal world’s admonishments. I couldn’t just sit and enjoy my meal without being aware of the pious angel on my shoulder, reminding me that the food would make me fat, that the gender-stereotyped play packs were wicked and wrong. I looked around at the other people here — mostly white, working-class Londoners, many of the tables occupied by three generations of the same family — and wondered how many of them felt the same way.
Sure, this place was a bit of an anachronism, a relic of a time before flat whites and small plates. But there was nothing to lament in its continued existence and no crime in patronizing it. Yet somehow, in this world we’ve made, it felt unwanted. What would it be like if…
