If I have any long-time readers left, they may recall a few pieces I posted about growing up as a “Liberal,” which was the term we used at the time. And on a few occasions, I have written about the Leftist mindset and the motives that drive them.
I was a good Leftist. I championed abortion rights, even writing a letter to the editor at the age of 12 supporting Planned Parenthood, and marching in a pro-choice demonstration with my mom when I was in high school. I had a variety of left-wing t-shirts designed to elicit looks of horror from the conservatives in my life.
In college, I once lectured a fetching co-ed on the dangers of the Styrofoam container that held her Big Mac. She promptly told me where I could stick my lecture, and it was not in the hole in the ozone layer. I was a Leftist until my 40s. At one point, I had a subscription to The Nation and a Lefty-of-the-Day wall calendar. All this is to prove I know what I speak of. I was a true believer, raised in the faith.
The Left, as deadly and violent as it has become, as illogical as the thinking of its acolytes may be, is, at its heart, powered by the same motivation that fuels the popular kids at any given junior high or high school. Yes, there are the tenets of socialism and Marxism, and there is the desire for world domination. But those are symptoms of a desire to be the coolest, richest, and most elite kids in the room.
I learned from a very young age that we were superior in every way to the Republicans, rural (and urban) hicks, and non-mainline Christians. We were smarter, more literate, and artistically inclined. We were more spiritually enlightened, and by virtue of all of those things, entitled to the higher echelons of civilization. At the same time, there was the unspoken but prevalent mindset that we were superior to black people, Native Americans, and any other minority, because they were so oppressed and uneducated that they could not possibly survive without the benefit of our largesse or tutelage. But we pitied them and would protest and complain on their behalf. So everything was okay.
At the heart of the progressive movement is the desire to be the coolest kids in the room, with all the best clothes, all the best toys, and all the best homes. During the pandemic, Gavin Newsom closed down all the wineries in California except his own. He also partied at The French Laundry in Yountville. Mrs. Brown and I were on vacation in the Napa Valley one year. We stepped inside that restaurant and asked to see the lunch menu. One glance at the wine list told me that I would be paying off that lunch on a credit card for three months.
Roughly around the same time that Newsom was savoring the high life in Yountville, Nancy Pelosi was showing the media how she was bravely weathering the COVID-19 storm with her high-end freezer and ice cream that cost more than the cow that contributed the milk for it. AOC, a champion of socialism, happily pranced around the Met Gala in a gown that cost more than some people’s cars. Elizabeth Warren can become unglued, questioning RFK Jr. while happily accepting Big Pharma cash. Zohran Mamdani, a scion of a wealthy family, does not want to be a social worker. He wants to be the mayor of New York City, which is a fairly lucrative and powerful gig.
So at its heart, the progressive movement is all about being one of the popular people. Being at the top means you can say and do whatever you like, get paid for doing it, and never have to deal with the consequences. It’s the same dynamic as in high school.
And who wouldn’t want to sit with the jocks, cheerleaders, prom queens, and rich kids at the “cool” table? That’s where the con is. People are tacitly promised they can sit at the cool table IF they dress up in black bloc and set a fire; IF they break windows and choke people shouting, “Free, free Palestine!”; IF they list their pronouns. IF they do whatever they’re told, they may have a shot at being popular. I know this because I was an outsider who wanted to be an insider for much of my high school career. As an adult, I harbored the idea that IF I subscribed to all the right ideas and objected to all the right things, I’d eventually end up at a posh resort with a glass of wine in my hand, chatting up the rich, famous, powerful, and beautiful people. I waited for that invitation for a long time, and it never came. I was a teenage Leftist, even as an adult, only to find out that the homecoming queen was never serious about going to the dance with me after all.
Someday, these brick throwers, arsonists, sign-wavers, would-be assassins, and obedient foot soldiers may figure out that the list for the afterparty in Aspen is very short, and none of them are on it.
