Aside from the recent insurrectionists, I don’t think any Pres. Trump-era group has drawn as much justified ire as the anti-anti-Trump crowd. By this I mean the folks who claimed to be dedicated to be “calling balls and strikes” during the last four or so years — a mission which was upheld only in regards to Democrats. Over time, the better members of this group would basically revert to normal partisanship, with their initial opposition of the president used to wave away any criticism of this. The worst just embraced Trumpsim wholeheartedly. The most interesting to me are folks like BaseballCrank, who seemed like they were using Twitter as a sort of therapy — if they criticized Democrats enough, and encouraged interaction with the absolute worst of liberal partisans, they could justify continued fealty to the president. Which like, I get it, even if they suck and are boring — I am sure it is really mentally draining trying to figure out ways to be ok with having a wannabe thug in the White House.
Pres.-Elect Biden has not yet taken office, but we are already seeing his initial policy priorities take shape. Putting aside speculation as to what is intended to be sacrificed in negotiations later, it is a remarkably left-wing platform. I haven’t been overwhelmed by anything suggested, but there are definitely bits that I disagree with. But I’ve been finding it super hard to care.
The fact is that a potentially unwise increase in the minimum wage doesn’t feel like a catastrophe after the sacking of the US Capitol. It’s really hard to be as bad as Pres. Trump has been, even if one is trying — when one is acting in basically good faith, it’s impossible.
Man, am I becoming a baseball? I mean, in a way, it’s worse, right? I’m not even promising to call balls and strikes — I’m just straight up saying I don’t really care.
One might reasonably say that the whole situation caused by the Pres. Trump is dire enough that it is reasonable to lower my standards about what matters right now. But isn’t that uncomfortably similar to the Flight 93 argument? One might reasonably point out that, while Sec. Clinton was not actually bent on destroying the United States, President Trump actually did just incite a mob to sack the Capitol and attempt to prevent Congress from allowing the election of his successor. Which, granted. Shit is actually pretty bad right now.
But I don’t think the only purpose of making sure one doesn’t lower one’s standards is to make sure one picks the right side in a binary competition. Regardless of how much I critique or dislike the policies promoted by Pres.-Elect Biden, I’m going to remain a Democrat so long as the Republican Party continues its descent into authoritarianism. There is no real electoral difference between supporting Pres.-Elect Biden blindly and supporting Pres.-Elect Biden while tweeting mean things at him, but electoral results are not the only effects of politics that matter.
The concern I have is more personal — that regardless of how justified it might be, partisan-brain is just fundamentally unhealthy and compromises oneself. It un-sharpens one’s thinking, and is just sorta cringe. Like actually most of my issue here is probably that I like to maintain a self-image of being a Deep Complex Nuance Haver and Not An NPC
I do think there are serious reasons to try to avoid blind partisanship, even when it is made justified and even more efficacious by certain circumstances. The last four years should be a pretty clear lesson as to why — the party (or subculture, or city, or country, or whatever) can always get worse, both in terms of advocating for worse and in terms of being worse at delivering it. Blind loyalty encourages this. The Republicans got Gorsuch (and Kavanaugh, and Barrett). They also failed to get much done, and elected a fucking Q caucus. Quibble about whether it was worth it, but a party which got the former without the latter is obviously preferable.
Democrats are not going to morph into fascists. But we have more than our share of stupid ideas and thuggish politicians. It’s not sufficient to not be fascist. I’m not saying that one more dude with a twitter account will solve this issue — my voice is pretty definitively irrelevant — just that it’s always better not to be part of the problem.
There’s not really a conclusion to this article. I’m just explaining why I don’t like the way I’m feeling. I’ll try to do better. I just don’t have the energy for this one, I guess.
