Why the Democrats Are Full of Off-Putting Weirdos

The problem of trying to get ahead of history

There is one single moment in history that looms larger for the left than anything else: the ‘60s civil rights movement.

To them, it was the perfect story. People fought hard against the common beliefs of the time, and now everyone acknowledges those people were right. And no one cares if they were overly harsh in pursuing their goal, because they were so right that all the people involved in that cause — even the a-holes — are now considered heroes.

And now the left is stuck forever chasing that high. They want to be “on the right side of history,” and that’s not about good behavior — that’s about them getting ahead of the cause and fighting for it. What this means in practice is that any time some new cause starts gaining momentum, they immediately jump in and start championing it.

There’s just a big problem with that: Most causes are dumb.

It turns out there aren’t a lot of things the broad public is very wrong on, and if it were really obvious what they were wrong about, then they probably wouldn’t all be wrong about it. But with progressives, you get a lot of not-very-bright people thinking they’re ahead of society, and they enthusiastically push a lot of dumb things.

Progressives tend to forget this, remembering only the successes of the past while ignoring the far more numerous times they took up a stupid cause and eventually had to abandon it because it was dumb and no one liked it. So they remember fighting against racism but forget how they boosted the Soviet Union, pushed prison abolition, and championed eugenics. Because they never say, “Oh, whoops. We were wrong.” They just quietly stop using the term “Latinx.”

But in the age of social media, nobody else forgets. So when Kamala Harris was running as a moderate in the general election, we could easily pull up how she was on record supporting government-funded trans surgeries for illegal immigrants. And now we have James Talarico trying to portray himself as a normal Texan in his Senate run while people pull up video of him calling God “nonbinary.”

So, if you try to be a progressive enthusiastically ahead of the next big rights movement, it’s inevitably going to make you look like a lunatic.

Now, if all this did was make people harmlessly silly, maybe it would be easy to get past. But the problem is that the main people this mentality attracts are huge jerks. I mean, think of how attractive this is to them: They’re told they get to be as terrible as possible to everyone who opposes them and they’ll be cheered on as heroes for it. That’s why you get people like Graham Platner — the guy with the Nazi-linked tattoo and a pile of vile old Reddit posts — who has no desire to help anyone but just likes being an a-hole and getting praised for it. And Maine Democrats just nominated him for Senate over their own sitting governor anyway. It’s such an oasis for terrible people who used to be shunned but now get plaudits as long as they’re being horrible to the “right” people.

And this is why the Democratic Party is now full of off-putting weirdos. Progressive politics has not only gotten all its candidates to say insane things but also encouraged them to be as horrible as possible in this nuttery. And it’s all because they think everything is going to be the ‘60s civil rights movement again and end with them all getting a “get out of being a jerk free” card.

But for the vast majority of things, that never happens. That leaves them just acting like weirdos for no reason and having to hope everyone forgets their lunacy as they try to move on to a more popular cause.

Maybe one of these days, trying to get on the “right side of history” will pay off and they’ll get the universal plaudits they’ve been chasing, but until then, they’re going to keep making it harder for themselves to win elections.