LIBERAL AMNESIA IS A SUPERPOWER:
We are all familiar with the liberal tap dance whenever we point out that some awful thing, such as chopping the genitals off of children, is happening.
It’s commonly described as a four-step process:
Step 1: It is not happening.
Step 2: Yeah, it’s happening, but it’s not a big deal
Step 3: It’s a good thing, actually,
Step 4: People freaking out about it are the real problem.
But actually, it is a five-step process, culminating with the claim that liberals never supported it in the first place. We are approaching that stage among center-left people regarding alphabet ideology, and we are well into step five in the COVID saga. I know many people now arguing that nobody wanted to keep kids out of school, nobody was forced to take the jab, and that nobody was censored for disagreeing with The Science™.
Never happened.
For some reason, I have run across several posts recently arguing that the “fat acceptance” movement was fringe, with nobody in the mainstream fronting for the idea that people could be “healthy at any size,” or that “fatphobia” was the real problem people suffering from obesity faced.
UCLA Medical School literally taught that "obesity is a slur" and that weight loss was "a hopeless endeavor" as of 2024. @DavidStrom wrote about it at the time:https://t.co/uL9LPKdGPT https://t.co/nxX0iSkIsK
— Ed Morrissey (@EdMorrissey) February 10, 2026
I think if ever a proper accounting of the first 25 years of the 21st century is performed, it will indeed look like this. The Lefties will adamantly deny any of it ever happened. Not the suspension of personal liberties during Covid Panic. Not the transing of the kids; the HRT… https://t.co/HZlyfT2CwK
— Brad R. Torgersen (@BradRTorgersen) February 10, 2026
As Daniel Hannan wrote in 2014, “The greatest cultural victory of the Left has been to disregard the Nazi-Soviet Pact:”
To the modern reader, George Orwell’s depiction of how enmity alternates between Eurasia and Eastasia seems far-fetched; but when he published his great novel in 1948, such things were a recent memory. It suited Western Leftists, during and after the War, to argue that Hitler had been uniquely evil, certainly wickeder than Stalin. It was thus necessary to forget the enthusiasm with which the two tyrants had collaborated.
Back in the early 2000s, a similar pivot could be seen on the left’s 180-degree turn on the removal of Saddam Hussain. (George Clooney starred in a 1999 movie excoriating Bush #41 for failing to oust Saddam from power):
After (P)resident Biden set a $25 million bounty on Maduro’s head and after months of “No Kings” protests, the left once again pivoted on a dime over his ouster, including members of the (p)resident’s own administration: Kamala Harris Humiliates Herself Condemning Capture of Maduro.