Tag: Illiberal Left

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I totally validate the anger on the part of the transgender community when it comes to Dave Chappelle’s recent Netflix special. It get it. I understand the anger. At the same time, I’m not very much of a Leftist and it seems to me that the rise of the illiberal Left is not doing the cause of American democracy any favors.

I’m, by nature, a moderate, and there must be some way we can get angry over Chappelle comments without getting so angry that we attempt to end his right to say what he said. There is thing called the marketplace of ideas and, as such, Chappelle was simply exercising his freedom of speech and it’s up to the marketplace to determine how popular that speech will be.

The United States is careening towards a very, very dark future. And, the case could be made that what’s really going on with the debate over “cancel culture” is we’re seeing, in real time, the two sides are hardening their views to the point that if we don’t end up murdering each other for political reasons, we’re going to be lucky.

What’s more important, it’s very easy for the MAGA New Right to use the rise of illiberal Left as a bludgeon against the minds of the average person who is more interested in the latest winner of The Masked Singer than the endless political debate we otherwise live in.

We see this all the time now. This very thing. The Right latches on the most extreme examples of the illiberal Left and tries to paint the entire anti-MAGA movement as being that thing and that thing only.

But, I think in the end, there’s nothing that can be done. Ultimately, either we slip into a MAGA New Right autocracy and all the “woke” concerns of the illiberal Left will be moot. Or, we have a Second Civil War and suddenly some — but not all — of the concerns of the illiberal Left will “burn off” because things will grow so existential for everyone involved that we’ll have more, pressing issues, to address.