Doing sociology and philosophy in real time by looking at developments in contemporary Western politics and culture, from a Moral Libertarian perspective. My mission is to stop the cultural systemist left and the authoritarian right from destroying the West's Enlightenment traditions.
Trump Feud With AOC, Omar Reveals Sad Truth About 2019 Tribal Politics | TaraElla News
Welcome to the new TaraElla News, where we examine the latest political and cultural news from the perspective of upholding classical liberal values like individual freedom, equal opportunity and free speech. We'll be doing this on most days of the week, subscribe if you're interested.
The news headlines in the past few days have been dominated by the feud between President Trump and a 'squad' of four left-wing Democrats, AOC, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley. As a classical liberal and a free speech absolutist, my perspective is simple. Even though I have had plenty of disagreements with what AOC and Ilhan Omar have said in the past, they have every right to say what they believe, and it is clearly wrong to tell an American citizen to pack her bags and leave America just because she said something you didn't like. This would be morally no different to the de-platforming that happens in college campuses. Note that I don't stand with the 'squad' and what they have said at all, but I stand with the principle of free speech at all times, as any liberty loving individual would.
Looking at the controversy from another angle, many people have also asked the question of, why would President Trump give four very junior congresswomen so much attention? And I think here lies the more important lesson. In fact, many right-wing commentators have already given the game away. They are overjoyed that this episode has given the 'squad' so much prominence, imagining that perhaps they are now the public face of the Democratic Party going into the 2020 elections. In other words, they are happy to play up this identity-based culture war thing so that Trump and the Republicans can do better in November 2020. This shows that, as I have always argued, while identity-based culture wars have generally been launched by the Critical Theory wing of left, many actors on the right are also not below pouring gas on the fire if they think it would benefit their team.
In the past few years, with the rise of Critical Theory inspired identity politics in some sections of the left, some people have sought refuge from identitarianism by moving to the right. But ultimately, this is not an entirely satisfying solution either, to put it mildly. I mean, independent freedom fighters like myself are always committed to opposing the identity culture wars, whatever the consequences. To people like us, this chaos distracts from the important policy debates, and more importantly, fractures the social fabric and tears up the social contract with disasterous long-term consequences. Therefore, we believe that whatever your political affiliations are, it's simply never justified to encourage this chaos. On the other hand, commentators on networks like Fox News love to say that they are in the same fight as ourselves, especially when they denounce the latest outrage in college campus politics. But are they really in the same fight as us? I think their rather positive takes on the events of the past few days, and their strong focus on the potential boost for Trump going into 2020, speaks volumes on what their real priorities are.
That's all for today. I'll be back next time to discuss another big idea. 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.
