Where the Democratic Party goes to die.
Why wokeness will eat itself through misery, illogic, and fear.
Last night, a fireside discussion with friends turned into a pretty strange argument.
We were talking about the renaming of a local school, and the confusion began when people claimed not to know or understand who Abraham Lincoln was—like, “Abraham Lincoln?” so I said: “yeah...you know. The President who ended slavery?”
At that point they got it, but then agreed he should be canceled and we should rename schools after someone else.
But wait! There’s more!
My friends then proceeded to tell me that transwomen should compete in athletics with biological women and that biological sex wasn’t real and that having white skin necessarily makes one a racist and that racism is nearly bad now as it was during Jim Crow and worst of all: we can never get past race.
NEVER!
Which begs a few questions—actually, more than a few, which I wasn’t able to ask since I was told to shut up. But I’ll ask them now:
Did the slaves Lincoln freed by proclamation think he was a racist?
Did the South—contrary to what our history teachers told us—secede, not because Lincoln wasn’t racist, but because he wasn’t racist enough?
If you are a cisgender male who’s attracted to women, would you have sex with a trans-woman? Same question for cisgender females: would you have sex with a trans-man? If not and you say they’re the same, why is that?
Are there no structural or skeletal advantages or differences in terms of strength and size between men and women, even starting from a young age? Are there no significant physiological differences between men and women, and if so, how is it that archaeologists can ascribe sex to human remains?
Should we trust children, who go through obvious phases of character and haven’t yet gone through puberty, to determine their gender if it’s not aligned with their biological sex—at what age is that OK? And why is it that so many teenage girls at a very particular age are suddenly deciding (or discovering) they’re boys? What are the consequences if we and/or they get this wrong?
Is my son, who’s five, racist because he’s white?
Can we safely make assumptions and stereotypes about the experiences of all white people? If so, is it safe to do so regarding other races?
If it’s OK to be proud to be black, is it OK to be proud to be white? If not, why?
Are white people living now responsible for racist policies they had nothing to do with implementing because they share the skin color of those who did?
Should we throw people in jail for being racist, or not sufficiently “anti-racist?”
Should we arrest people for unintentionally misgendering a person by using the wrong pronouns?
Should we segregate people based on the color of their skin?
Should we treat people differently based on the color of their skin?
Should we judge someone’s merit and character and arguments on the basis of skin color?
Who decides the answers to the above?
And finally: how long before they come for you?
This is where the Democratic Party goes to die.
The last question is hyperbole, thank goodness, because we’re never going to get there. Because the answer to many of the questions above for most people is a “no”, “hell no”, “I don’t know”, or “that seems really bad” (granted, some of the questions won’t fit this format, but you get the idea).
Because at its root, the current movement of “wokeness” is rooted in grievance, guilt, shame, and victimhood—not truth. And the mental and moral transgressions it demands of its followers are patently absurd.
To be one of the Elect, as John McWhorter calls them, you have to prostrate yourself constantly upon an altar of racial/gender standards that are forever changing, subject to the whims of whoever happens to be the most offended person in the room—which is often social media, so the room is pretty big—and the more marginalized you are, the more your standing grows (black, female, trans, non-binary, etc).
This is where the Democratic Party goes to die, because after enough time passes, people are going to get tired of this nonsense.
And then they’re going to get mad.
Why?
Because no one wants to feel shitty and guilty and miserable all the time—especially not in an era where human wealth and well being are as good as they’ve ever been. There is just no doubt that most of the people living on this planet are living far better lives—at least materially, and probably socially and emotionally—than at any other time in history...and yet wokeness tells us the sky is falling and everything’s terrible and we’re all experiencing some form or oppression or terrible trauma all the time as a product of our mere existence.
Before we get too far along, I should explain: I’ve voted for Democrats my entire life. I wrote a liberal blog for nearly 10 years. I’m an advocate of single payer healthcare, UBI, free or very low cost college, and any other number of liberal policies.
I believe people should be free to express who they are, to pursue happiness—to love who they want to love, to live how they want to live, to work jobs they choose. What I wrote above may lead some people to believe (because we live in such confusing times) that I am anti-trans or a closeted racist.
No.
I recognize that our society has a horrifically ugly past on the issues of race and bigotry and discrimination, and I believe we should ensure every American is treated equally under the law, as well as at their place of work, and to the extent we can in their private lives. We should teach people to treat others with dignity and respect, and work against stereotypes and discrimination wherever they exist. We should work to ameliorate and eventually eliminate inequality of opportunity, eradicate poverty, and be especially aware of how racism and discrimination might play into these inequalities.
But I don’t believe we need to obsess about race until the end of time.
Like Martin Luther King Jr, I believe we should judge people primarily on their character, not the color of their skin. And it seems to me that the current extent to which we’re being told to care about race instead of character—or work ethic or decency or friendliness or compassion—is bound to increase real racism and resentment where it didn’t before exist.
I also don’t believe we need to pretend biological sex is a myth, when any honest assessment of our everyday lived experiences clearly indicates otherwise. Like...why? Because less than 1% of people are are trans and even fewer are non-binary? That’s absurd. Moreover, like obsessing endlessly about race, it’s bound to inflict real harm on people who buy into the narrative that sex is a spectrum or that gender is a social construction—indeed, to everyone who’s asked to pretend these lies or even live adjacent to them.
And whatever the truth of these matters are—because surely many people out there disagree with what I’m saying, and no one can claim to be right about everything all the time, including me—we CANNOT afford to continue down this road where the slightest disagreement or offense or misstatement or past sin is cause to label someone a moral untouchable who should lose their job, get kicked out of school, or be exiled from society indefinitely.
We can’t afford to cancel every person who doesn’t 100% align with whatever the woke mob tells us we should believe about race and gender and sexuality and what it means to be human. Again, NO ONE is right all of the time or has a perfect record as a human being. We’ve all lied, done bad things, been mean to people, cheated, and/or stolen. We’ve all been envious, jealous, lustful, greedy, and/or deceptive...and if you claim otherwise, you’re lying now!
Moreover, we do not now live at the end of history: to the extent we judge those in the past who came before us, understand that we too will be judged one day, and we should hope those who judge us will take into account the cultural norms of our time and place...right?
We have to get back to a place where forgiveness and grace are possible, where we’re not constantly assuming the worst in everyone and looking at and assuming every word someone writes or speaks is an open or veiled insult based on our identity.
We have to stop being offended over the smallest matters.
We can’t keep doing this to each other: living as if every waking word or decision or action is of such tragic importance and gravity that we’re either frozen into doing nothing or can do no more than follow the masses like lemmings. We can’t keep making people feel horrible and miserable and guilty all the time for their mere existence.
Unfortunately, that’s where we’re headed, thanks to the feckless leadership of the Democratic Party and the moral cowardice of its constituents--especially its middle to upper class white constituents.
As a former Democrat and liberal, it has been absolutely galling to see the degree to which my colleagues and friends (perhaps former now) have swallowed this bullshit orthodoxy--and I mean that: this is a religious movement. If you don’t follow the scripture you’re a heathen, anti-trans racist.
I used to think we were superior to the Republicans who blindly tow the party line and follow goons like Trump—that we were independent, logical thinkers—but in the past year I’ve been swiftly disavowed of this misunderstanding; indeed, most Democrats are no better. They just come to the call of a different piper.
As such, I currently find myself firmly in the middle, unmoored from any political orthodoxy.
On the one hand, I simply cannot fathom why anyone would vote for Trump, though I’ll stop short of saying it’s a moral failing. But on the other hand, I can’t condone what I see my former party doing for the reasons I’ve listed above.
Consider: on the far right we have the GOP, who doesn’t seem to really believe in anything except stopping people from voting, worshipping Trump, indulging in wild conspiracy theories, and being generally paranoid and miserable.
And on the left we have the Democratic Party, responsible for bringing us the following nonsense:
Abolish the police: the most insane and unpopular idea ever (especially with black people)--and also maybe the worst.
The abolishing of gendered pronouns in both legal terms and everyday language. For example, now, if you say boyfriend or girlfriend or wife or husband instead of “partner,” you might offend someone and be seen as a philistine.
Believe the science and experts...but not on sex/gender when it comes to athletics and sexuality; or immunology when people want to protest; or statistics that show racism mostly doesn’t exist, especially with regard to policing; or that white/male privilege earns you a greater chance than any other demographic of committing suicide.
Latinx: a term invented by white people and which no Latino calls themselves.
The cancelation of Dr. Seuss, Abraham Lincoln, Ellen DeGeneres, JK Rowling, etc, and nearly every white male politician or leader since the beginning of human history.
Silence is violence (note: it’s not--no one has ever died as a result of someone shutting the fuck up).
Segregation: now the official policy of wokeness, everywhere from corporate trainings, to schools, to university dorms, to busses! I’m sure Rosa Parks would be proud. The current Democratic Party believes more in the decision made in Plessy v. Ferguson than it does in Brown v. Board.
Whiteness as a pejorative, in a country where 60% of people identify as non-Hispanic whites and if you add the Hispanics you get to 76%.
But like the Republicans, who can’t seem to divorce themselves from Trump and get themselves out of the ditch of scorched earth politics, Democrats don’t seem willing or able to crawl back from the abyss of wokeness I’ve described above.
And at some point, either the Republicans are going to get their shit together (less likely), OR we’re going to see Independents or a new party rise up (more likely) to fill the massive gaping maw that currently exists between Democrats and Republicans, especially on social issues.
Like, you can’t go around telling white kids in elementary school that they’re racist, or stop teaching physics in fancy private high schools in order to dismantle racism. You can’t allow students to shut down classes at universities in order to blackmail the administration into making some pathetic concessions on policy.
You can’t go around telling people that not using pronouns is offensive when 99% of all human beings identify as either male or female, or that sex isn’t real and heterosexuality isn’t the norm, when for roughly 97% of people it is. And you know why? Because if people were routinely confused about sex or didn’t want to fuck the opposite sex, evolution would have kicked our ass our of existence.
You can’t constantly tell white people they’re all horrible racists and they should feel miserable and guilty all the time when the vast majority don’t feel that way and have done nothing wrong; and you certainly can’t claim any moral authority on racism when you’re normalizing the stereotyping and judgment of white people based on their race!
And you can’t tell people Cancel Culture is bullshit when huge percentages of Americans now feel afraid to express their views publicly. Like, why the fuck do you think I’m writing this using a pseudonym?
None of this is going to fly for long, and the substantial percentage of Latinos and Black People who voted for Clinton in 2016 and then switched to vote for Trump in 2020 should tell us everything we need to know about the enduring quality of these ideas—like, a lot of black and brown people chose to vote for a guy who’s pretty nakedly racist toward black and brown people RATHER than a guy who chose a black woman to be his Vice President, because they agree with much of the above.
So I’ll say it once more…
This is where the Democratic Party goes to die.
Consider yourselves warned.