When did I stop being a liberal?
This is a question that’s been on my mind recently. When I was twenty years old, I openly and proudly identified as a liberal. I’m a thirty-eight now, and I no longer do. In fact, the word “liberal” makes me cringe. So, when did my politics change? When did I transform from the mainstream liberal that I was in my youth to the radical socialist that I am today?
I started thinking about this when I heard Thomas Franke’s reflections on how the word “liberal” used to mean something totally different when he was a kid. And that’s when it hit me: my politics didn’t change. I still believe most of the things that I believed when I was twenty.
I was for reparations then, and I’m for reparations now.
I supported trans rights then, and I support trans rights now.
I opposed military spending then, and I oppose military spending now.
The only thing that changed in the last eighteen years is that I went from being someone who tolerates capitalism to someone who openly opposes it. But I never liked capitalism. I never thought that it was moral or fair or efficient. I was simply a young man swimming in a sea of capitalist propaganda. I hadn’t learned enough about the world to know that the narrative I heard from my teachers, my parents and the media was bullshit.
No, my politics didn’t change; the definition of “liberal” changed.
I can remember a time when liberals were derided for being soft on terrorism. Their opposition to the Patriot Act was dismissed as wishy-washy, hippie nonsense. My, how things can change in ten short years. Once the liberals had one of their own in the White House, suddenly they loved government surveillance. And they loved it so much, they extended the Patriot Act even though Trump was in office at the time. And lest you think this is strictly an American problem, here’s the poster boy for Canadian liberalism defending Canada’s Patriot Act.
I suppose I should mention that, while I was writing this, a friend of mine pointed out that liberals have always been pro-state. And that’s true. But I remember being a young man on the Internet, visiting those political IRC channels and discussion boards. My liberal friends from back in the day hate, hate, hated Bush’s warrantless wiretapping. They applauded Chretien’s decision to stay out of Iraq.
Some of that might have been partisan hackery. If Al Gore had been president, maybe they would have loved government overreach. Some of it was probably because my friends and I were never liberal. At least, not in the original John Locke sense of the word. But the fact remains that there was a time when — at least in my little corner of the world — the word “liberal” described someone like me. Someone who wanted a big social safety net and minimal government surveillance. Someone who wanted firm limits on the power of law enforcement. Someone who recognized the systemic inequalities based on race, gender, sexual orientation and disability and who supported active programs to ameliorate those injustices.
Once upon a time, we would have called Bernie Sanders the epitome of liberalism. No longer.
Today’s liberals want to slash the social safety net and expand government surveillance. Twenty years ago, we would have called them neo-cons. And that’s what they are: neo-cons. Throw away the reactionary, white-male supremacy but keep every other aspect of what was once called “conservative philosophy.” Today’s liberals love military spending. Oh boy, do they love military spending. Today’s liberals would rather protect Big Pharma’s profits than control a deadly pandemic. Have you figured it out yet? These are the people we used to fight against twenty years ago. The Right has expanded its ranks to form a more diverse coalition.
There are no Conservatives anymore; those who clung to their white-male supremacy became Nazis, and those who didn’t became liberals. There’s the Social Justice Right and the Reactionary Right, but neither of these groups is “The Left”.
And yes, there is definitely a Reactionary Left. I have talked about them before and I will again.
Once upon a time, liberalism was associated with a large social safety net, dovish foreign policy and support for historically disadvantaged groups. Some liberals only tolerated the first two items on that list because the conservatives of yesteryear targeted their particular group. It was the price of admission into a movement that would advocate for their interests. And once they gained a measure of social acceptance, their conservative colours started to show. Don’t believe me? Here’s Ellen DeGeneres palling around with George W. Bush — you know, the war criminal who tortured people — and then scolding anyone who called her out for it. She even makes a joke about how people failed to notice her conspicuous consumption.
Ellen can get married to anyone she wants now. When she did this little rant, it was still perfectly legal in many states to fire someone for being gay, but she didn’t have to worry about that. Ellen’s life is pretty sweet. She’s rich, famous. She doesn’t have to work a soul-crushing job that leaves her with thoughts of suicide. And that’s why she’s comfortable preaching tolerance for war criminals. “Screw you, I got mine:” that’s the mantra of today’s liberal. “Dead children in Iraq? Not my problem.” Does this sound at all familiar? This is what the neo-cons used to say.
And just so that nobody thinks I’m targeting gay people, let me be clear: Ellen was just a convenient example. This is a phenomenon that extends across every spectrum of identity. If the Tories and the Republicans dropped their opposition to abortion, I guarantee you that white women from the suburbs would flock to them in droves. Not all of them, of course. But a lot. “Gotta get me some of those sweet, sweet, tax cuts.”
It shouldn’t surprise you that there are gay people, disabled people or people of colour who really want to deregulate the economy and climb that capitalist hierarchy. Identity does not determine ideology.
Once again, my friend would insist that this is what liberals always were. She would say that I never truly understood liberalism and that I walked away from it when I saw it in all its ugliness. Maybe she’s right. Maybe I lived in a bubble when I was younger. I’m not interested in reclaiming the term. These liberals can have it.
What I will say, however, is that we need to challenge the idea that liberals are the champions of the disadvantaged and the marginalized because they most definitely are not.
