Why I Left the Right AND the Left | TaraElla Report S6 E2

Today, I'm going respond to the recent Hunter Avallone video, titled 'Why I Left The Right', in which Hunter explained his recent political evolution. As he explains, he no longer considers himself a right-winger, although he still holds some beliefs in common with conservatives, like over guns and abortion. As I understand it, one of the reasons why he is leaving the Right is that he cares about the truth, the scientific truth of things, and the Right simply isn't as committed to the truth as he is. Another reason is that the Right is not as committed to individual freedom and free debate as he used to think they were. For example, the 'dogmatic screeching' that he used to associate with the Left appears to also be common on the Right.

I think what he said was one of the most important narratives about politics out there to listen to right now. I highly recommend watching that video. In fact, his disillusionment with the Right is simply true, and it also mirrors other people's disillusionment with the Left. In truth, neither the Left nor the Right as they exist today are committed to the truth, and I don't think that will change anytime soon. The only way to be committed to the truth is to think beyond Left or Right binaries, even though that can be lonely, and in terms of platforms like YouTube, you can lose fans and subscribers for that. But as Hunter says, for many of us, being committed to the truth is more important, and if we can't say what we truly believe, what we do would be meaningless and useless anyway.

I think the reason why neither the Left nor the Right are committed to the truth is because they are more committed to keeping people in their coalition happy. For many power hungry people, politics is about coalition building, and they will feed certain elements of their coalition even if they uphold scientifically invalid beliefs, or if they are against the basic freedoms of certain people. This is why politics is so dirty.

For example, one example Hunter came back to again and again was LGBT issues. Hunter points out that parts of the Right continues to uphold scientifically invalid views about gay and trans people, and they are resistant to people who want to voice their disagreement to the party line. In fact, this is nothing new. The Right has already died on the LGBT hill once. Hunter is only 23, so he may be too young to remember it, but back when I was in college, one of the biggest planks of the Right was vehement opposition to gay marriage. In fact, many Republicans argued for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage back then. They argued that gay marriage would ruin families and society. Opposing gay marriage was a central commitment of many so-called 'values voters' during the 2004 US election, and some people believe their turnout helped re-elect President Bush. Back then, many of us who were just getting politicized saw right through this rubbish, and also considered it to be highly offensive. It is one of the reasons why most people in their 30s today continue to be very skeptical towards conservative politics, contributing to their big deficit among young people. In other words, conservatives have already paid a hefty price for their Bush-era gay marriage nonsense.

Given the experience with gay marriage, you would think the conservatives wouldn't go anti-LGBT again. In fact, it was almost going to be that way. Former British conservative Prime Minister David Cameron led the charge to legalize gay marriage in the UK, arguing that gay marriage would strengthen marriage and family values. Back then, there was definitely a move by some American conservatives to embrace the Cameron approach, as part of the Republican soul searching after their second defeat to Obama in 2012. I mean, the Republicans were much more open-minded during that period of political wilderness; they were even wanting to embrace more ethnic and cultural diversity. I guess that open-mindedness was what led to things like Trump holding up a rainbow flag and all that. However, once the Republicans were in power again, the fundamentalist Christian bloc, for lack of a better word, demanded to be fed again. I believe this is what led to the Trump administration's trans military ban, a policy that almost nobody believes to be rationally valid. But even after that, many evangelicals continued to make noises that Trump should cater more to their wishes. Given that there will be a US Presidential election at the end of this year, I suspect they will also try to remind him of how important so-called 'values voters' were for Bush in 2004. In fact, the atmosphere of the Right is becoming increasingly like it was back in 2004, and that's not a good thing.

Which, I think, is why large parts of the Right simply cannot just accept the science over LGBT issues, or even the honest libertarian view on that matter. I suspect that many Republicans continue to feel the need to keep the evangelical bloc on board, even if that means feigning homophobia and transphobia that cannot be justified with facts and logic. Their calculation is that evangelical voters are more important than the 'gays for Trump' bloc at the end of the day. Of course, just as in 2004, many people will see through them, and I'm almost certain that what they're saying in support of the trans military ban will not age well, just like their comments on gay marriage or the Iraq War back then. The truth is, conservatives are willing to die on the LGBT hill a second time, simply because they think it's more important that they turn out older evangelical voters this year. I think it's a dangerously wrong calculation, but I guess time will tell.

Anyway, I think all this teaches us a larger lesson: that as long as the power hungry may drop their morals and their commitment to the truth in an attempt to maintain political coalitions, those of us who are committed to the truth should remain skeptical of their intentions. It is therefore that we should remain at an arm's length distance to any political movement or faction. Which is why I'm happy to borrow this motto from Andrew Yang: 'not Left, not Right, but forward'. Let's move forward together, committed to no political coalition, but only the truth, and what's good for humanity.