How Pete Buttigieg Can MAKE SOCIAL JUSTICE GREAT AGAIN | TaraElla Report S4 E4

TaraElla: Welcome to a new season of the TaraElla Report. From now on, we have a new format, where I chat with my friends about cultural and political issues. All of us are individuals who are simply looking for more freedom. I believe that it is only through amplifying the conversations of everyday individuals that we can cut through the nonsense and bring back freedom.

Today I continue my conversation with Ashley, an old friend of mine who had been an SJW, and then an anti-SJW, and finally neither, because she now see through the limitations of both sides. In this episode, we talk about how SJW politics got out of hand, how that led to the anti-SJW counter-response, and how social justice could be done in a better way.

Ashley: As I said before, I used to be an SJW. Many of us who supported Obama continued to go left after 2009, and some of us eventually became SJWs. It started out simply as a desire to see less racism and sexism in this world, and to see LGBT people get better treatment in society. What we have to remember is, it really wasn't so bad in the early days. But around 2014, things started getting extreme. SJWs were getting increasingly militant and started to threaten free speech. A big problem was how divisive everything was becoming. This whole notion that minority groups were always being oppressed and that they should get angry was gaining ground. Rational debate became 'exhausting' and compromise became 'selling out'. The militant people wanted to quash the middle ground. That was when a lot of us became anti-SJWs. We lost our faith in social justice, because if social justice meant what the SJWs were doing, we wanted no part of it.

TaraElla: I think I made a similar point in an episode in Season 1, where I said that sections of the New Left are literally making people allergic to social justice. I think this is how the whole 'social justice is cancer' thing got off the ground. Of course, real social justice doesn't have to look like that. I think we need someone that can bring some sense back into social justice. Perhaps like 2020 presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg. I really like the comments he made about Chick-Fil-A recently. While he made it clear that he didn't like the company's long-standing support for anti-gay politics, he also suggested that all the calls to boycott the company was basically sanctimonious virtue signalling. And he's right! It's time somebody pointed out the ridiculous levels of virtue signalling that goes on in some circles, which by the way has nothing to do with actual social justice. I also like how he said that political issues should be resolved in the political arena. In recent years, there has been a blurring of the political arena and the other arenas of life, making everything political. Many people are very upset at the social division this has caused. This really needs to end.

Ashley: I think that the New Left idea that 'the personal is political' has been taken way, way too far. Political issues have come to color every sort of interaction in life, from commercial transactions, to friendships, and even family gatherings. People have even ended friendships over elections, most famously over the election of Donald Trump in 2016, but it also happens in other countries. Meanwhile, radical identity politics means that people are seen as their immutable characteristics, a society is divided into factions based on immutable charactersitics like race, gender and sexual orientation. The whole fabric of society is being torn apart. This is why people are sick of SJWs.

TaraElla: I totally agree. What we need to do is to repair the social fabric. Again, here is something I like about Pete Buttigieg. He wants people to find the common ground in their lived experience, and he is opposed to the way identity politics is being practiced at the moment, which instead emphasizes the differences in our experiences. Again, I don't know how far the Buttigieg 2020 campaign will go, but no matter what becomes of the campaign, I hope that he will continue to be an influence in our culture and politics, to help moderate the social justice movement.

That's all for today. I'll be back next time with another conversation. Subscribe if you want to follow our story. The transcripts are available on my website, and my Medium profile. And remember to resist the hive mind and stay individualistic. The world depends on it.