I’m sick of the far left too

[Rev. Rye]

Count me among you guys. Honestly, if social media is any indication, being part of the Left has pretty much devolved into issues of "how dare you worry about your selfish wants and desires when you can worry about my selfish wants and desires?" I really do understand that a lot of the grievances a lot of these minority groups have are utterly valid, but ultimately, that's what a lot of identity politics has come to boil down to for me.

And there's a shitton of groups who've spent so long trying to gain equality that they've pretty much become the same sort of bloodthirsty, potentially oppressive groups they've spent so much time fighting against, except without the institutional power that makes them truly dangerous. Just social media hiveminds to tear apart anyone who's rumoured to have a shady past (or just dares to go against the hive's opinion), whether those rumours have merit or not.

And when they're not bloodthirsty, the sort of crusades that have become popular can often be quixotic. Look at Black Lives Matter. Given that a little less than a thousand people are killed by police per year, and no doubt many more, including a disproportionately high number of black people, are on the wrong end of police violence well outside any proportionate response, and even more just end up getting profiled for no real reason (at least not related to melanin content), it is blindingly, thuddingly, obvious that there's a shitton of serious injustices that need redress. But one has to ask: what has the movement accomplished? Indeed, what can it accomplish? Well, they do publicise this serious issue, and bring it to the forefront. But what else can be done? Pass laws against it? I'm pretty sure there already are laws about police brutality already on the books. The people in power just don't want to enforce those laws, except maybe if public pressure makes them need to. Maybe.

At this point, I seriously wonder if there's even any meaningful form of dissent anymore. Maybe the biggest power structures have always been so thoroughly entrenched that only small things can actually be changed, but the most vocal parts of the left (at least in my generation), have managed to jettisoned practicality, and reached the point where we can actually elect a wrestling heel as President because, if what the left's screaming about is basic human decency, then we can just chuck it out the window. As long as we're fighting the forces of evil, who cares if the measures and goals we want simply cannot apply to life on Earth?

To be fair, given that the Republican Party is split between people who take The Handmaid's Tale as their ideal for what America should be like, people who take Mad Max as their ideal for what America should be like, and people who take "Blood Meridian" as their ideal for what America should be like, I cannot fucking imagine how horrible the Left would really have to become before the Republican Party seems like the lesser evil.