MEMO TO THE LEFT: What goes around, comes around. 

QUESTION ASKED: What Does Liberalism Even Mean Anymore?

Why are affluent white liberals so eager to believe we’re living in a white supremacy, for example? Here’s my best guess: The narrative of wokeness or “anti-racism” as it is often called is an outgrowth of an academic discipline called “Critical Race Theory.” This view has its origins in philosophers like Hegel, Marx, and Foucault, who share a common belief: Equality is impossible, because at the core of every human interaction is a power struggle that someone is winning and someone is losing. Human history for these guys is just an endless rotation of oppressor and oppressed, a revolving door of masters and slaves in Hegel’s view, proletariat and bourgeoisie for Marx, privileged white people vs. marginalized people of color in Critical Race Theory. For these thinkers, power struggles are inescapable, and the whole idea of equality is just a fiction behind which the oppressor hides.

So why does this view that erases equality and pushes oppression as the root of everything appeal so much to affluent liberals? To me, it seems like the answer is that despite the pieties they espouse, liberal elites don’t really believe in equality, either; no affluent person does. They know their prosperity comes at someone else’s expense, and a worldview that was actually invested in equality would insist they share more of their good fortune.

Still, they want to believe they are good people. They’re liberals! So just imagine the relief when they are told that the inequality that resulted in their having so much while so many Americans have so little is not the result of their failure to pay more taxes or to send their kids to public schools, but that it stems from something as immutable as the color of their skin. It totally relieves them of the responsibility of doing anything about it. All they can do is feel guilty. They get to keep all their money while feeling like heroes! How perfect.

Of course, there are still horrifying pockets of race-based inequality that persist in America, and they deserve our immediate attention. But there’s now bipartisan consensus about this—the need to end mass incarceration, for example, or for police reform. The totalizing view of America as a white supremacy seems to me a displacement exercise that comforts the wealthy, which you know is true because they can’t get enough of it.

Earlier: You Keep Using The Word “Liberal:” it doesn’t mean what you think it means.

If you think “liberal” and all the variations of “left” mean the same thing, let this be your wakeup call.

Many things described as “liberal” today mean the opposite of what was historically true and what many people expect, and this disconnect is likely contributing to some of heightened frustration we’re seeing in political arguments in 2020.

Be careful when using the word “liberal” if you care about clear language. Starting in roughly 2013, “liberal” veered sharply from its roots.

The date when the L-word starting become bastardized by “progressives” is off by about 90 years or so, but other than that, spot-on.

THERE ARE CERTAIN SECTIONS OF THE SUBURBS, MAJOR, THAT I WOULDN’T ADVISE YOU TO TRY TO INVADE: Get a load of this dweeb threatening conservatives.

THE BIDEN ILLEGITIMACY: Trump would have won 311 Electoral Votes if media wasn’t biased: Survey. “The liberal media’s efforts to hide Joe Biden-related scandals from voters and bury good news about the Trump administration cost the president the election, according to two new voting surveys. Had voters known about troubling issues swirling around the Democrat and some of the successes of the Trump White House, including the Middle East peace deals, job growth and energy independence, enough would have turned away from Biden to give Trump 311 Electoral Votes, more than enough to win, said the polls ”

This is science. Don’t be a science-denier, folks.

Flashback: Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley Demand FTC Investigate Big Tech Firms That Can ‘Sway Elections.’

Related: Could Facebook Swing An Election?

Also related: The Social Media Upheaval.

JOE THE PLUMBER NODS: Computer Repairman Who Threatened Biden’s Electoral Prospects Goes Into Hiding. “First they tried to destroy Joe the Plumber. Now they’re trying to destroy John Paul the Computer Repairman. The Democrats care about working people, as long as they know their place. By the way, where is Hunter? He showed up to hug his dad last week, and then he disappeared again. Guess it doesn’t matter. Finding out where he is and what he thinks about all this would be journalism, and for the next four years that’s the last thing journalists want.”

Evergreen:

LEGAL EDUCATION UPDATE, STANDARDS EDITION: ABA Permits Law Schools To Use Pandemic As Excuse For Failing to Meet 75% Within 2 Years Bar Passage Accreditation Standard.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Forcing The Sick And Elderly To Die Alone Is Crueler Than COVID-19.

STRIP CLUB PASTOR’S DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE: ‘This is Insane … Take Off The Masks!” No, this is not about getting nekkid in public. This guy is talking about individual liberty and resistance to unaccountable government decrees. More evidence of a gathering spirit that recalls how the American Revolution was birthed in hundreds of pulpits across the colonies.

FIGHT THE POWER, STICK IT TO THE MAN: Philly Faces New Lawsuit After Shutting Down Gun-Carry Permit Process.

YOUR POLITICIZED CDC AT WORK AND PLAY: CDC celebrates Biden transition, expects ‘rebuilding,’ more press briefings.

THE WRIGHT STUFF: 2017 Video Shows Georgia Democrat Raphael Warnock Believes ‘Racism’ Is ‘America’s Preexisting Condition.’

I’LL BELIEVE IT’S A CRISIS WHEN THE PEOPLE WHO KEEP TELLING ME IT’S A CRISIS START ACTING LIKE IT’S A CRISIS: Cuomo Invited His Mother for Thanksgiving. New Yorkers Noticed.

For days, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has been preaching a message of sacrifice during the holidays, warning New Yorkers that Thanksgiving gatherings could be dangerous as virus cases spike across the nation, and beseeching them to reconsider their plans to help stem the rising tide.

So it was surprising when Mr. Cuomo announced on Monday afternoon that he had invited his 89-year-old mother, Matilda, and two of his daughters to celebrate a very Cuomo Thanksgiving with him this week in Albany. . . .

The criticism hinted at a substantial backlash to Mr. Cuomo’s image as a heroic figure after helping New York emerge from the pandemic; earlier on Monday, the governor was awarded the “International Emmy Founders Award” for his more than 100 televised briefings at the height of the pandemic, an award that also sparked eye rolls among his critics.

Well, the thing you have to understand is that rules are for the little people. And Cuomo deserves much worse after preening despite having killed thousands through his mismanagement.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Colleges Have Shed 10% Of Their Employees Since The Pandemic Began.

Academia, public schools, media, Hollywood — the pandemic has been highly damaging to lefty institutions. People on the right should take advantage of this.

I’M SO OLD I REMEMBER WHEN THEY WERE PUSHING ‘LOVE TRUMPS HATE’: American Colleges Are Throwing Hate At Thanksgiving Day.

JORDAN PETERSON VERSUS THE CRYBULLY STALINISTS:

The company should not indulge this bullsh*t for one second. It should tell these people that either they grow up and do their jobs, or they go find another line of work. Publishers publish books. Period. The end. I guarantee you that there are thousands of young men and women who would love to break into publishing, who don’t have thin skins and an enormous sense of entitlement.

Neither publishing, nor journalism, nor universities can do what they are supposed to do if they cater to these wretched whiners. I am sick to death of the veto power they exercise over freedom of thought and expression. What is it going to take for the adults who run these institutions to assert authority, and protect writers from these piss-ant Robespierres?

If you are crying in a meeting at the office because of how you think Jordan Peterson affected your life, then you are not mature enough to work in publishing, and you ought to be sent away. Honest to God, I would be ashamed of myself if that’s how I behaved. What the hell is wrong with these people?! Who failed them?

Excuse me for getting so emotional about this, but I see my own future as a writer at stake here. If they can do this to Jordan Peterson, and get away with it, who can’t they do it to?

The book in question is the sequel to Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life, which was #1 most read on Amazon for months after its publication in January of 2018. (The last post I found at Instapundit showing it as number one was in August of 2018, and it was at number three in November of that year.) It’s currently at number 12 on Amazon, nearly two years after its publication date. Roger Ebert once called movie sequels “a filmed deal,” in that sequels are greenlit because Hollywood studios know they’re likely to be profitable on some level, given the original’s built-in core audience. Unlike the crybullies who convinced Hachette Book Group to drop Woody Allen’s autobiography in March, Penguin Random House likely know that they have a surefire hit on their hands given Peterson’s controversy and superstardom. As Glenn wrote last night, the wise move is to fire all the crybullies as a lesson to others. Otherwise, if they go the Hachette route, another publisher is going to make a fair amount of change off of Peterson’s latest book.

QANTAS WANTS TO REQUIRE VACCINATIONS TO FLY: ‘A bit premature’: global airline body distances itself from Qantas vaccine stance.

HONESTLY, THAT’S A BEST-CASE SCENARIO: Biden Cabinet picks ‘will be polite & orderly caretakers of America’s decline,’ Rubio says. Rather than caretakers of decline, they’re more likely to be promoters.

IT WAS STOLEN FOR HIM, FAIR AND SQUARE: Over 53 Million Trump Voters Don’t Believe Biden Legitimately Won the Election.

That after four years of the most vicious and untrue attacks, Trump was able to score the second-most votes of any candidate ever, speaks well of this nation.

That even more voters (apparently) could be lulled into voting for Biden by a compliant media and progressive political/education/entertainment establishment, doesn’t.

TRUMP WENT 4 YEARS WITHOUT STARTING A WAR. BIDEN IS UNLIKELY TO MATCH THAT: Joe Biden’s Secretary of State Pick Has Been an Avid Backer of American Military Intervention. Or even to want to match that.

THE BIDEN ILLEGITIMACY: Media Suppression of 8 Key Stories ‘Stole This Election’ for Joe Biden.

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Massachusetts school enrollment plummets by 37,000 students. “A majority of those students, about 13,000, have switched over to private schools, according to preliminary enrollment data from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education presented during a Tuesday meeting. That’s nearly double last year’s figure of 7,299 students that switched to private school. About 7,000 students have chosen to home school, a significant increase from last year’s total of 802 home schooled students.”

EVERY TOPIC LEADS BACK TO RACE:  Terry McAuliffe & Don Scott don’t just think marijuana should be legalized.  They argue that we need “conscious and purposeful investment” in minority-owned marijuana businesses too.

FIRE THEM ALL, AS A LESSON TO OTHERS: Penguin Random House Staff Confront Publisher About New Jordan Peterson Book. Publishing staffers are a dime a dozen, and can easily be replaced by people just as competent, and less self-important.