On debate, threading the needle, and the ABCs of radicalism

(Originally posted on 11/21/2019)

Last night marked the close of the 5th round of Democratic Primary Debates, and with it, yet another display of the remarkably weak state of the current field of candidates. This reality became increasingly obvious as the night unfolded, despite arguments from the pre-debate pundits that late entries into the field (Deval Patrick and Michael Bloomberg, neither of whom were on stage last night) indicated the weakness of Trump as an opponent. I’ll skip the jokes about how patently delusional that perspective is, as there is an important point I’d like to make here in a moment.

In terms of how the needle might have moved on this or that candidate, there are certainly a few nuggets that can be gleaned from the night. Biden’s eye didn’t explode, and he kept the gaffes to a minimum (although the primary misstep was indeed awkward). Warren shot out of the gates playing defense on her absurd wealth tax, a theme that persisted through the night. With all the dishonest things she has said that do not appear to have impacted her support, I would find it a little bit ironic if Chief Planning Bull would ultimately be brought down… by her plans. Mayor Pete indeed caught a decent amount of flak (as was expected due to his current lead in the Iowa polls). He handled it decently enough, though one of the main sources of criticism was Amy Klobuchar, who again accomplished the goal of making the case that Joe Biden isn’t the only centrist in the race. As likable as Klobuchar is, I don’t think it’s going to be enough.

Biden benefits the most from the attacks on Mayor Pete, as a mediocre showing in Iowa wouldn’t end his campaign the way it would many of the other hanger-ons. This creates a complex scenario, forcing those barely scraping by to attack someone who ultimately has relatively no shot at the nomination (Buttigieg). All the while, the one who they really have to beat gets to remain the unscathed default frontrunner, tasked solely (for the time being) with not coming off like either a corpse or a dementia patient, and even this is a tall order at times.

There are certainly other minor takeaways from last night, and I could rail on about how this excruciatingly boring debate basically culminated in telling us what we already know about where things currently stand among the individual candidates. However, I’d rather focus on what I see as the actual takeaway from last night, as it can be easy to miss.

In the video I did for my YouTube channel this past Sunday, as well as yesterday before the debate, I discussed the recent comments Obama made about Twitter mobs, cancel culture, and the dangers of using ideological purity tests as a means of filtering out anyone we might disagree with. I discussed the recent talk he gave to the wealthy Democratic donors of The Democracy Alliance, where he expressed concerns regarding recent shifts in the party’s platform. Obama cautioned against radicalism, and going too far to the left in order to appease a small percentage of wokescolds on Twitter, which would ultimately come at the expense of alienating the true, more muted, base of their party.

What fascinates me about the former president’s recent chastisement of his party isn’t the fact that he is actually speaking up about this recent radicalization. Though, I am curious as to why he waited this long to say anything- and wonder if their confidence in Clinton’s 2016 victory made it seem like it just wasn’t worth the trouble. Undoubtedly, he now understands that the Democratic grip on the American voters is more tenuous than he had originally thought, but still. Why now? After all, his criticism comes despite being off the hook for anything other than collecting book royalties, traveling the world, and getting paid enormous sums of money for speaking engagements. In other words, he could just sit back and weather the storm if he wanted to. But he isn’t. And yet, that isn’t the interesting part.

In reality, if you’re in the Rubin Report community, you likely know exactly why Mr. Obama is speaking up about this madness. Sure, he wants to beat Trump. That much is obvious. Imagine spending 8 years thinking the American people worship you, only to have the response to your presidency be the election of Donald Trump. It’s safe to say Obama wants to see Trump lose “bigly” in 2020. But I think there is another, perhaps more imposing reason, that Obama has reentered the rhetorical fray- he understands that on some level, the party that he represented as president for 8 years, is being taken over by radicals. Obama knows that the logical conclusion to all of this is the fundamental destruction of the Democratic party as he knows it, or the destruction of the country- which would presumably include the Democratic party. Obama knows this, and has finally decided to speak out.

Here we find the truly interesting, and in all honesty, disturbing component of Mr. Obama’s recent remarks- the insane backlash. Here is a guy who, in a sense, is to Progressives as Reagan is to Conservatives. Barack Obama was the first black president of the United States, and built a new coalition of voters for the Democratic Party. Under his presidency, the Left got DACA, the ACA, and the Supreme Court ruling on Marriage Equality. Every Democratic politician and mainstream media pundit loves to talk about the “scandal-free” Obama administration (an utterly absurd claim, but technically correct, as the media simply ignored all scandals that came from his administration). Progressive policies from his own party largely contributed to the financial crisis of 2008, and his massive troop pullout from the Middle East effectively facilitated the ascendency of ISIS. And yet, the dude still got reelected in 2012. Suffice it to say, this is a guy who understands what it means to win as a Democrat, while still pushing a Progressive agenda. Yet despite pockets of support for his advice to help increase the appeal of the Democratic party, the feedback has been overwhelmingly negative.

After Mr. Obama’s remarks to the Democracy Alliance, #TooFarLeft trended on Twitter for about 5 seconds, before being overtaken by #TooFarRight- the Twitter mob’s response being that the country (and Obama himself) had actually drifted “too far right.” The Guardian responded with a piece decrying Obama’s “patronizing lectures,” but it was the New York Times’ OpEd section who drew first blood a few weeks prior, with the egregiously dismissive “Obama’s Very Boomer View of ‘Cancel Culture.’” And while Obama wasn’t specifically called out in The Washington Post’s “Opponents of ‘Cancel Culture’ Really Just Hate Democracy,” the piece was released at the same time as the articles that did name him specifically, communicating loud and clear what they were responding to.

In summation, the former Progressive Savior decided it was finally time to speak out against the toxicity of creating rigid and counterproductive purity tests for everyone to adhere to, and in response, he was promptly exiled from the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party… for failing a rigid and counterproductive purity test. And it’s only just beginning.

A month or so ago, I made a video about the alarming amount of hate Ellen received for living by the incredibly controversial and offensive principle “Be nice to people, even those you disagree with.” The backlash she garnered for espousing such obviously good and true principles led me to the conclusion that public discourse had now entered a new stage of toxicity. No longer would opponents of FLO (Far-Left Orthodoxy) be the target of nonstop ad hominem character attacks, but targets would also now be set on allies to FLO who dare suggest they adhere to the previous good-faith rules of disagreement. Not only must you agree with every one of the new and ever-shifting standards of equity and moral virtue, but you must also agree with the tactics being used against those who disagree- including the demonization and silencing of ideological opponents en mass. Either you’re with us, or against us. Choose wisely.

I work with adolescent middle-schoolers in the most intensive tier of a behavior support program. Many of the students I work with have high levels of antisocial behavior, and require extensive work within a tightly-regimented program to help them develop strategies to overcome years of habits and behaviors that, if allowed to persist, would likely get them expelled, arrested, or worse. One of the many tools used when creating a student’s behavior plan is the ABC method of evaluation. While not the most unique acronym, it is incredibly effective due to the simplicity of what it tracks- Antecedent, Behavior, Consequence.

First, establish the consistent antecedents for behaviors (what came before, and likely triggered the behavior), determine any patterns in the response behavior (typically the antisocial behaviors being treated), and finally, how the student reacts to various consequences for the behavior. Use this method in conjunction with a myriad of controls, and it becomes a fairly reliable process for establishing somewhat predictable patterns in certain aspects of human behavior.

I’ve been thinking about the ABC evaluation method as applied to negative responses in the media to the wisdom of their Progressive forebearers, and it goes something like this:

Antecedent:
A fellow member of the Progressive Left says something even remotely critical of FLO- including cancel culture tactics. The criticism doesn’t even have to be direct, it simply has to run contrary to the new norms of Leftist activism. In Obama’s case, Arwa Mahdawi called his criticism of purity tests and throwing stones on Twitter “disparaging,” despite the fact that he never specified who he felt was engaging in that activity, just that the activity itself wasn’t helpful.

Behavior:
FLO adherent posing as a journalist see this criticism as an attack on FLO’s moral highground. “We’re the good guys, they’re the bad guys! Hate speech isn’t free speech! Why would you have a problem with anti-fascists?? Don’t you want to create an equal society?”
You get the picture. FLOurnalist types angry Op-Ed decrying enemies of the moral mission, hits send, and bam! You have one new notification from Huffington Post.

Consequence:
Any pushback, rebuttals, or criticism within public discourse, or at “rival” media outlets? crickets
What about 2400 “Likes” and 900 Retweets from woke Twitter? Oh yeah.

And the cycle continues. The point is, there are no negative consequences for this garbage, and therefore no disincentives for it to cease. If a student never receives consistent consequences for antisocial behavior, there is no reason to believe that behavior will cease on its own. If no one in the mainstream media (or culture more broadly) receives any negative consequences for advancing the most societally corrosive tactics and policies imaginable, there is no reason to believe they will stop that on their own, either.

At some level, this is what Obama recognizes, and has been speaking up against. Somewhere along the way, the Democratic party entered into a Faustian bargain with the most radical in their midst. They spent what now appears to be decades appeasing those in the most extreme Left corner of the political spectrum, disarmed by the delusion that radical ideology would never really gain ascendency in their base. But a strange thing happens when you spend decades tacitly supporting radicalism in your midst- you legitimize radicalism, and subsequently breed more radicals.

The Democratic establishment seems to have realized their mistake, but not in time to muster the necessary fortitude to quash it directly. Their attempts in 2016 to thread this needle failed miserably. Not wanting to alienate large (and energized) swaths of voters, the establishment Democrats and those in the mainstream media appeared to outwardly be at least “ok” with the radicalism of Bernie Sanders, while secretly working to sabotage his candidacy. When this was exposed, the revelations of elitist corruption inevitably led to further turmoil- and divide- within the party. Bernie’s claims of the need for a revolution had now been validated by his own party’s attempt to thwart his campaign’s march toward Socialism.

As President Trump seems to be the current proxy for the broader culture war in the country, the clash over healthcare policies within the Democratic Primary field is an appropriate proxy for the culture war within the Democratic Party. And yet again, many candidates are attempting the impossible task of threading the needle between appeasing a perceived majority on Twitter, while not actively pursuing a full-scale radical policy agenda that would inevitably alienate other voters.

This conflict, between FLO and the remnants of the Democratic Establishment, is the single most important issue for these candidates to debate. As I mentioned, the outcome of this clash will undoubtedly determine the fate of the Democratic Party in the US, and likely most of Western Civilization. As of right now, Far-Left Orthodoxy seems to be winning.

This primary has included numerous town halls on gender, climate, race, and pretty much anything else you can imagine. Take a moment to consider tremendous amount of time these candidates have spent making the case that girls can be boys, boys can be girls, America is a racist country, there are actual concentration camps on the border, climate change will kill us all in 10 years, there should be little to no restrictions on abortion, taxpayers should fund the abortions of illegal immigrants, the current president is a white supremacist and Russian asset, and that billionaires are the true cause of all of society’s ills. Consider the amount of oxygen every candidate has been forced to spend on these fringe topics, despite the fact that many of them clearly aren’t board with much of the narratives surrounding those issues. Now consider the amount of oxygen given to the clear and obvious rift in the Democratic party, and all the implications of that rift. What is the ratio of the two? Does this make any sense whatsoever?

With the recent comments by President Obama, it is staggering (while not surprising) to see most in the media, as well as most of the primary candidates, display such levels of abject cowardice around the topic of radicalism in the Democratic party. There should a “CNN Town Hall” on this issue during each stage of the primary. #TooFarLeft should have been an entire segment of the debate last night. Instead, a few candidates paid some lip service to Obama’s remarks, and the moderators barely discussed it.

Following the Debate, Senator Amy Klobuchar did a three-minute interview with Chris Matthews, where he asked her about the growing divide in the Democratic party. He talked about the candidates on both sides of the issue, concluding “That’s the fight, isn’t it?” Moments later he asked “Who’s going to win? The Moderates, or The Left?” At the end of the segment, he closed by asking “Is the Left being honest?”

It is as bizarre as it is telling that the most important and substantive questions of the night were asked after the debate, in a three-minute segment, to a centrist candidate polling at 2%.

There is no doubt that many, if not most, of those facilitating and moderating these debates feel the same way as Chris Matthews. So why aren’t they asking these questions? Why isn’t the real debate taking place, the one about the very soul of the Democratic party?

The Democratic Establishment wants it both ways- they want to push whatever they consider to be a reasonable, yet Progressive agenda, while simultaneously trying to appease a zealous and uncompromising wing of their base that is legitimately convinced that the only way to “fix” this oppressive system is to rip up the Constitution and start over. This is a case of irreconcilable differences if ever there was one.

All discussions about political differences, policy, and the like, currently stem from this conflict. As Jordan Peterson has been saying for years, we’ve gotten pretty good at establishing when the Right “goes too far.” There are telltale signs, and we typically do a decent job as a society at isolating and condemning Right-Wing extremism. The same is not true for the Left. For what is likely a cornucopia of reasons, there is no mainstream concept that it is even possible for the Left to go too far. A stunning example of this sentiment is Ilhan Omar’s #TooFarLeft Tweet:

“If being #TooFarLeft means believing:
-Healthcare is a human right
-Future generations should live on a healthy planet
-All student debt should be canceled
-The minimum wage should be $15
-Lives depend on gun reform
-Families don’t belong in cages
Count me in!”

Unless those in the mainstream media and Democratic establishment break ties with the hard Left, this cancerous collective of radicals will continue to metastasize. They simply can’t continue to present the vision of AOC as even remotely compatible with the vision of Nancy Pelosi. This is no longer an abstract difference of political ideology; but a specific, observable distinction between those who want varying degrees of policy change, and those who want to remake the United States, including the founding principle of individual rights and liberty, into something wholly unrecognizable. Until the DNC and mainstream media begins platforming that debate, they might as well not have any at all.

-T