Hi everyone, I hope you’re all well.
Today’s political landscape is, for lack of a better term, a bit of a mess.
It is characterised by two warring camps, one on the left, one on the
right, plus a large group of exasperated, disaffected centrists and
moderates in the middle, whose necks are getting increasingly sore
watching the back and forth, back and forth of the bitter ideological
tennis match that is the culture war in 2019.
It started off as a few hypersensitive university students lamenting
being “triggered” over certain words and demanding safe spaces
being gently poked fun at by snarky, witty, highly amusing, very
attractive right wingers who were sick of being told what to think
and say.
However, it has turned into a vicious war of not just words, but
actions.
From online dogpiling, to professional sabotage, doxing,
street brawling, and even mass loss of life; the culture war has
escalated to a place it never, ever needed to go.
So, how did we get to this point?
Well, before I tell you how, pretty please make sure you like this video, subscribe
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Here we go.
The left will have you believe the political tension, or “division” as
they call, it is caused by racist, sexist, bigoted conservatives spewing
so called hate speech led by a man named Donald Trump who is
apparently the second coming of Mussolini.
To be clear, when I say the left, I mean the “regressive” left; the
faction teetering on the extreme, who, while making up small
minority of the population, occupy a disproportionate number of
influential positions in the media, academia, Hollywood, and big
tech.
This allows them to dictate the cultural narrative, and
determine what is and isn’t publicly acceptable to talk about.
The right, however, will tell you this cultural friction is caused by the
blunt refusal of the regressive left to consider opposing opinions, as
well as their vicious smearing of any opposition.
After all, if you tell a group of people, that is conservatives, often
enough that their entire moral core is questionable because they support
a certain political candidate, you’ve got to expect that maybe
those people will get a little bit angry, eventually.
And considering the left’s hostility i has amped up bigly since the
election of Donald Trump, for no other reason than they are such
appallingly sore losers, it’s no wonder we have a reached a point
where certain members of the two ideological camps are role playing
at civil war.
From what I have observed and experienced over the past few years,
the regressive left, with their neo-Marxist mentality of pitting people
against each other as either the oppressed or the oppressors, seems
to have made it their sole mission to inflame these tensions.
So much that conservatives, after years of ignoring
or downplaying the provocations, are starting to react.
This is quite a big deal, because conservatives are not naturally
reactionary.
Conservatism is not about reacting to things so much as
conserving what is good and true and functional.
Conservatives want to create and maintain, rather than react
and destroy.
Leftism, on the other hand, is by definition a reactionary ideology.
They are not about building things up; they prefer to tear things
down, with no discernible plan of what to construct in their wake.
It is in their nature to poke and prod and harangue conservatives, to
proverbially stick it to the man.
Funny thing is, what the regressive left doesn’t realise is that they already
won that culture war back in the 90s, and now they are the proverbial “man”
to which people are sticking it.
Considering the tendency of the right to placate rather than react,
the regressive left has been dealt a surprising hand in recent years,
with right wingers finally making it known they are fed up with the
left’s rudeness.
One thing I noticed after the 2016 election is that it
always seemed to the regressive left who were suddenly talking
about this “division” in society, and how everyone was “divided”.
And I remember thinking, uh, this isn’t a new thing; everyone has
always hated you, it’s only now that people feel empowered to say
so.
You could say that the regressive left is the ideological equivalent
of Mean Girls Regina George
So, why am I relaying my concerns and mournful musings about the
state of the culture war?
Well, because, no joke, the West is on the brink of devouring itself.
We’ve seen this multiple times with the violence perpetrated by Antifa, and also more
recently the mass loss of life caused by right wing extremists.
There are a number of people out there who are very keen to
escalate, and I think we can all agree this needs to not happen any
more than it already has.
Now, I’ve seen commentary from people who tend to be somewhere
in the so-called sensible centre lamenting the fact there is not
enough listening going on; that the two sides are failing to hear and
understand each other, and that’s why there’s so much resentment
and vitriol.
Well, that, I think, is a load of rubbish.
Conservatives do listen to leftists, because we have no choice.
All they do is talk, we couldn’t not listen
if we tried.
They are so noisy, and as I mentioned before, occupy such a large
chunk of institutions like the media there’s literally no escaping
them.
And the thing is, conservatives are happy to listen!
We don’t find hearing opposing views offensive simply because they’re opposing
views.
The reverse, however, is just not true.
The extreme left is more than happy to admit they will not absorb
any opposing viewpoint.
That’s why they demonize outlets like Fox
News and Breitbart as fascist and company.
It’s so they can excuse themselves from tuning in on moral grounds;
and thus avoid the sheer trauma of listening to people they don’t
agree with.
They are also much more likely than conservatives to
break off friendships over politics.
A survey taken after the 2016 US election by the non-partisan Public
Religion Research Institute found Democrats were almost
three times more likely than Republicans to have unfriended
someone on social media after the election.
There was a similar disparity for self-identified leftists versus
conservatives.
Democrat women were by far the most likely to unfriend someone
because of politics, with 30% of them saying they had done so.
This was followed by Democrat men, at 14%, then
Republican women at 10%, then Republican men at 8%.
Funny how those who so rigidly preach tolerance show the most extraordinary
intolerance while doing so, amirite?
This unashamed habit of packing themselves into echo chambers,
demonizing any opposing voices as morally repugnant, and slicing
people into tribes based on arbitrary characteristics like race and
gender, is why the regressive left, not conservatives, are responsible
for the division in society.
I’m calling it, there it is.
And they will never, ever, ever see it.
They will never admit fault, or consider that somehow their
behaviour is less than appropriate, because they are so sure that
they are the true, pure, moral, enlightened class.
Therefore, they feel they are justified in being as vicious and
as cruel as they want to
anyone who disagrees with them, because they believe those people
are not only wrong, but evil reprehensible scum.
That’s the key difference between the left and the right.
The right think the left are naïve, but the left think
the right are evil.
Big and very significant distinction.
Once you understand that, you understand the mindset that we are dealing
with.
There is no measure these people will not go to in order
to protect their narrative.
So, if not enough listening, at least from the right, isn’t the problem,
then what is?
Well, I would say it’s not enough talking, specifically,
talking from conservatives.
As I mentioned earlier, conservatives are not naturally reactionary.
We’re also, funnily enough, not interested in engaging in
conversation with people who are going to screech RACIST at us
whenever we suggest something so horribly radical as perhaps open
borders aren’t such a good idea.
That is what has landed us in this mess.
Because of conservatives’ totally understandable unwillingness to let
their opposition screech at them publicly about what bad people they
are, the regressive left has been led to believe that their way is
objectively the correct way of thinking and speaking.
And because there is no ideological balance in popular culture,
people in the middle who are desperate to hear a different
perspective are not given a reasonable alternative.
All of this has
allowed the regressive left to get away with their thuggery and
intolerance, under the guise of working for the common good.
This hall pass for bad behaviour they’ve been handed is also what
causes social justice warriors to act with such hysteria whenever they
suffer a loss.
They are like spoilt children; their ongoing global
tantrum over the 2016 election proves that they’d had it their own
way for so long that they’ve forgotten how to share.
They are so emotionally attached to their political beliefs that even a
hint that maybe they are wrong on one or two things goes to the
very core of their being.
To admit they are wrong would be to upend the very fibre of their identity.
Because of this, and also because of the left-wing obsession with big
government, it makes perfect sense they would stress about who is
going to lead them, and which politician does what.
Again, they’re like children; they need to be reassured that
the adult authority figure is in the room, or they’ll become
anxious and act out by crying or throwing things.
Literally.
Conservatives, on the other hand, do not get emotionally attached to
our political beliefs, or at least not as attached.
This is, again, the nature of conservativism.
We don’t like big government.
We would prefer politicians to have as little to do
with our lives as possible.
Unlike the extreme left, we don’t look to politicians for moral
guidance; that’s what religious and community leaders or family
members are for.
As such, whenever our political parties lose, we shrug it off with an
oh well, let’s work harder and win next time.
We do not need therapy dogs and play dough and colouring
books to get over the appalling traumatic experience of losing an
election.
So, what’s the solution to all of this craziness?
How do we generate not necessarily a more conservative society,
but a more balanced one?
A cultural zeitgeist where everyone feels they can express their
views without fear of losing relationships, or having their reputation
destroyed?
Well, conservatives need to start finally speaking up.
It is very important we challenge the noisy regressive leftists in our
lives, but not for the reasons you think.
It’s not to change their minds; that’s not going to happen.
The only way a social justice warrior will seriously consider other viewpoints
is if they go on their own personal journey of soul searching.
You won’t convince them of anything.
But, you can convince those who may witness the
discussion.
To borrow from the Gospel according to Ben Shapiro, never argue
privately with a leftist.
Always do it with an audience.
They are the ones you are going to persuade.
Some of the best advice I ever got when I was starting out on this journey of
culture warrior-dom in 2017 was from my editor.
Before I did my first TV panel gig, he said to me, don’t go in there
trying to win an argument.
That’s not your job.
Your job is to present a particular perspective in an entertaining
and interesting way, not for the other panellists or the studio audience,
but for the people at home.
Those are the people you are going to influence.
The same is true in your own lives, without cameras and studio
audience.
While you probably won’t influence your opposition,
they’ll be too busy hand-flapping and calling you a bigot or
something, you will influence your audience.
Donald Trump embodies this.
Yes, while he may be brash, and seemingly spontaneous, and rude, and crude,
he is what you would call the first wartime president during the
Culture War.
That brashness, while not typically conservative,
is what is needed.
Until Trump, the left has been the only side actually fighting for what
they value, and what a dirty, dirty fight they have put up.
And while conservatives pride themselves on being dignified,
and polite, and not at all reactionary, that strategy hasn’t
worked.
Trump, for all his wonderful flaws, is actually fighting that Culture
War, using the left’s own tactics against them.
He is calling them out at their own game, using words, not violence,
and while he won’t change their minds, he is proving to the silent
masses just how unscrupulous, disingenuous, and power-crazed
the regressive left actually is.
His strategy, while unorthodox and uncomfortable, is
working.
And yes, I know regressive leftists are aggressive, I know they will
denigrate and mock you, I know it is intimidating.
But it is so important we do engage with them to somehow
swing the pendulum of acceptable public dialogue to
a happier medium, even
if they cast you as the villain.
Sometimes, you have to be ready to play that villain to get the message across.