Why I Left the Left AND the Right #2: Biden Gaffes & Dishonest Culture Wars | TaraElla Report S6 E8

Welcome back to TaraElla Report Season 6. A few weeks ago I did an episode titled 'Why I Left the Right AND the Left', in response to Hunter Avallone's video titled 'Why I Left the Right'. In that episode I focused mainly on the issues Avallone raised, and I didn't really talk in-depth about why I became disllusioned with both the Left and the Right. Since then, I thought of doing a whole episode on why I became disillusioned with both sides, but there's just too much material to cover in one video. Besides, this disillusionment is an ongoing process. Which is why I've decided to turn the whole thing into an ongoing series. Given we're in the middle of a US Presidential election year, there's going to be a lot of stupidity from both the Left and the Right, so I expect I'll have a lot to say.

Today, I'll first talk about the latest Joe Biden gaffe and the over-the-top reaction to it. I'll then respond to the Rubin Report interview with Karlyn Borysenko, an ex-Democrat who 'left the left' after attending a Trump rally. Finally, I'll take a look at the controversy over a Bernie campaign post-mortem piece by Angela Nagle and Michael Tracey.

Firstly, let's look at the latest drama surrounding Joe Biden. While I would have prefered either Andrew Yang or Tulsi Gabbard getting the nomination, I've come to realize the unexpected upsides of having Biden as the Democratic candidate this year. You see, Joe Biden is literally the most politically incorrect Democratic nominee in living memory, and he probably can't change himself to suit the culture warriors on the Left either. Whatever else you might say about Uncle Joe, he tells it like it is, which probably explains his folksy appeal that won him landslide after landslide in the midwest and the south. Biden's latest gaffe was that he said something like if you ain't supporting him over Trump, you ain't black. Now, this is, of course, not literally true; it's more like he's bragging about his popularity in the black community, which is, however, very much real. Of course, the politically correct cultural New Left is having none of this, they expect a much more deferential manner of speech, especially towards minorities, and they sort of want Biden to pay for violating their sacred speech rules once again. They don't want Biden to get away with being politically incorrect, but they don't want him to lose to Trump either; it's basically lose-lose for the politically correct crowd under Biden. I have to admit that I love watching the cultural New Left having to play along with Biden as the leader of their party, a man whose speech they simply can't police, no matter what. And to the frustration of the cultural New Left, nothing Biden has ever said has ever impacted on his polls, which is not that surprising since Trump got away with saying all kinds of controversial things and still won in 2016. The fact is, people vote on policies, words don't actually have the power postmodernism says they have, manner of speech don't matter that much for most people at the end of the day. In fact, I suspect Biden's gaffes may be part of his enduring popularity, because, let's face it, most people just aren't into Hillary Clinton levels of political correctness.

On the other hand, it's fun to watch parts of the Right, who have been posturing as the biggest defenders of politically incorrect speech, suddenly turn into SJWs at the sight of Joe Biden. Even Fox News has gotten into line, showing clips of Biden's politically incorrect gaffes, and getting someone on to complain that 'Biden ain't woke'. So Biden ain't woke, we all know that already, and I thought that the Right wasn't into performative wokeness. Well, I guess Biden's existence exposed their hypocrisy, which I guess explains why much of the Right never enjoyed the prospect of Biden being the nominee. Even right now, they fantasize that Hillary would somehow step in and replace Uncle Joe, so that they can play the 2016 game all over again, saying how the Democrats are now over-the-top politically correct and people are walking away because of this. It's what won them the election last time, but unfortunately for them, lightening doesn't strike twice.

One person who is still partying like it's 2016 is Dave Rubin. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of Rubin, I watch his show regularly, but I'm concerned that he's settling into a pattern and getting out of touch with the reality out there. He's still complaining that the Democrats are full on SJWs who all have a problem with free speech, as if they were still playing in Hillary mode. Even though he had very reasonable Democrats like Yang, Tulsi and Marianne Williamson on just in the last year, he doesn't seem to get that Hillary-ism has now been abandoned by most of the party. I guess this might have to do with his now very comfortable relationship with the Right. With the recent launch of this book, almost all the people who came to congratulate him were on the Right, Glenn Beck, Ben Shapiro, Douglas Murray, I don't even think there's anybody there that's not conservative. And Rubin himself even admits to identifying as part of the 'Right' now, whatever it means. Well, it probably means that he is swalloing the conservative kool-aid, willing to believe that the Democrats are still the party of Hillary circa 2016 no matter what. And he's got plenty of guests to reinforce his outdated view. Including, just last week, Dr. Karlyn Borysenko, who presented a view of the so-called left where people are always outraged, can't get along with people who disagree, and have Trump Derangement Syndrome all the time. But then, Borysenko lives in New Hampshire, the only non-caucus state where Biden didn't finish in the top 2. In fact, Biden had his worst result there in this entire primary, coming in fifth behind Elizabeth Warren. Looks like New Hampshire just isn't representative of America as a whole. Perhaps they are still SJW-ing like it's 2016 over there, but in the rest of the world, SJWs just aren't much of a thing anymore. Except for those on twitter and those on Fox News attacking Biden all day long.

When Rubin went on to ask Dr. Borysenko why the Left is 'so unreasonable' nowadays, she basically answered with Ben Shapiro's standard answer: the Left is about feelings and the Right is about facts. Well, I certainly agree that the Left is often clouded by feelings, as I said, look no further than how the culturally woke left is now struggling with having to rally around the politically incorrect Joe Biden. But I don't quite agree that the Right is that factual. For example, in the past two days, I've seen quite a few self-identified libertarians say that libertarians should support Trump this year, because he's even better for libertarianism than the Libertarian Party nominee Jo Jorgensen. I frankly don't know much about Ms Jorgensen at this point, and I'm still surprised she got the nod over Hornberger, but I trust that she wouldn't get us worrying about a potential war with Iran like Trump did earlier this year. Not even Joe Biden would have gotten the world into that situation! And somehow some people are trying to tell us that Trump is best for libertarians. That's really a case of putting feelings over facts, of the highest degree!

Of course, the Left is just as guilty of putting feelings before facts. As I said, the Left and the Right are both very unreasonable camps nowadays, which is exactly why I left both the Right and the Left. Last week, Angela Nagle, one of the few remaining independent minded political commentators, wrote a piece together with Michael Tracey, in which they dissected the Bernie 2020 campaign, and made several conclusions from that, including how pandering to the inner-city cultural radicals has made the campaign less attractive to working-class people. They're not even the first to complain about this: right after Bernie dropped out, there were plenty of articles saying how Bernie rallies had too many angry people who were just too unpleasant to talk with. Compare this image to the kind of people who attend Biden rallies. You wouldn't find anything but normally presenting everyday hard-working people at Biden rallies. No wonder Biden solidly won the middle America vote! Now, Nagle and Tracey were much gentler than myself in making their point, but this still upsetted a lot of inner-city DSA-types, you know, the kind of people who were caught at last year's DSA conference objecting to people saying 'ladies and gentlemen'. I'm sorry to have to hurt your feelings, but the fact is, if you keep on behaving like this, you're going to have to suffer many, many more defeats to come.