What social progressives fail to understand is we’re no longer the counter-culture. Socially progressive ideas are the ‘cultural hegemony’. And Trump represents a counter-cultural challenge to a perceived left dominance. Trump is the new punk.
Over the last 30 years huge social progress has been made. And rightly so. It was needed. We should all applaud that. For example, I hate the term political correctness (at best cliche, at worst it somewhat Soviet) but in regards to expelling casual homophobic, racist, misogynistic, and classist language that was all too common at the back end of the nineties, the push for more considerate language, aka ‘politically correct’ language, was a project that was much needed and has produced a more decent and accepting society today.
To those accepting the premise that we are in fact less -ist across the board than 30 years ago (I know some still think we’re a supremacist, racist, misogynist country), but not convinced it’s the dominant thought, take this quick test – in 2024 who is likely to be the finger-wagger? Who is likely to be more censorious or scolding? And who is usually in an establishment position to do something about it? Someone of a left-wing or right-wing persuasion?
I’ve worked in both public and private sectors, in charities and businesses for over a decade – it isn’t controversial to claim that it is far easier to be espouse wildly extreme left-wing views than it is to express mildly conservative ideas in most professional contexts. In personal circumstances, take a quick look at most social media – people with batty left-wing ideas are more likely to get away with it, they feel they can post with impunity, than batty right-wing ones.
No longer being the counter-culture may be difficult to accept because it simply doesn’t feel that way, it’s counter intuitive to what we’ve learnt to expect. Left-wing ideas were counter-cultural for so long we’ve been conditioned to expect that the left are always the punks sticking it to a conservative establishment. I think of Monty Python being told off by a Bishop for being blasphemous because of a film about a chap called Brian, I think of films like Footloose where conservative towns ban dancing. It supposed to be that we’re Ferris Bueller and the conservatives are our annoying Principal.
But that has changed somewhat quickly over the last 15 years. The left still see ourselves as the cool kids in leather jackets – we want to be the ones sticking it to The Man, blasting ‘Another Brick in the Wall’, glamming it up, getting brash haircuts, playing with social conventions, and putting the pearl clutches on notice. But the left simply aren’t the punks anymore. We’re more often the ones telling off comedians, we’re the small-town minister stopping Kevin from dancing in the city limits.
Firstly, what the left likes isn’t punk or shocking anymore. Bleached mohawks, tattoos, vulgarity, permissive views on drugs, sexual liberally views… all so commonplace they are almost mundane in 2024. In fact, this combo resembles many HR departments I’ve seen. Look at how Pride events have changed – they’ve gone from being a brash and bold statement of protest and identity… to a jolly for all the family, where everyone from your bank branch to the local church has a float and a flag. Middle-aged Mums watch RuPaul’s Drag Race. Sorry, lefties, we’re not cool anymore.
What’s more, we’re not just mundane, the left have become the finger-waggers, the scolders. And the extremists among us on the left rushed into the positions of power with glee, loving to be able to preach to the masses, cancelling with reckless abandon. They raised the temperature and labelled anything outside a narrow left-wing window unacceptable – even mild disagreement is painted as offensive or hateful. And people are sick of it – particularly because things have obviously become significantly more socially liberal and yet the extreme left chastise people increasingly more intensely.
I think the extremists have evidently taken it too far for the moderate, small-c conservative ‘silent majority’. The left-wing pearl clutchers are in charge and they’re annoying everyone, even people on our side. The left are this meme.
Even black voters, the key voting bloc in the Democratic coalition, said they were more likely to find Biden ‘too liberal’ than ‘too conservative’. Black voters said that about the ancient white dude – that should be a wake-up call. In polling after the election, there were more damning findings:
The numbers tell an unforgiving truth: voters didn’t just want Harris to distance herself from Biden’s policies; they wanted Harris to distance herself from what they believe the Democratic Party has become.
Even though I support socially progressive ideas, I’m not blind to the fact that even mildly conservative ideas are now the ones seen as challenging or taboo. If someone expresses conservative views on gender (views that were widely accepted 10 years ago), praises the nuclear family, or, heaven forbid, wants to discuss immigration, they are often seen as reactionary or extreme, and often lumped in with the ‘far-right’. It’s becoming clear that the conservative ideas are the ones ruffling the feathers of those holding institutional power.
The conservatives are the counter-culture right now and Trump their champion. He will say the taboo things. He will bloody the nose of the ‘cutural-elite’. Peter Thiel, Trump’s billionaire backer, expressed as much in a recent interview with Bari Weiss, that Trump’s coalition was rag-tag patchwork of people basically sick with the status quo of finger-wagging.
The majority suffering all this have turned away from the soft-liberal establishment, the people who lectured them while not making their lives substantively better. And they have turned towards someone willing to punch the left in the nose those for giving the HR workshops on hot, faddy woke issues while local libraries close.
They turned to someone who would deliver a big cultural ‘f- you’ in a brash, ugly, norm-smashing, punk way. They turned to Trump. And other countries will follow suit.
The lesson for those on the left is that we need to root out the extremists amongst us, to better challenge the radical views so we’re not tarred by them. We have swallowed and allowed some extreme, intolerant and bizarre views to promulgate on the left in recent years in the name of progressivism and acceptance, and we need to accept a reality check from electorates. (We also need to actually address issues people care about, and not spend so much time obsessing about alienating, niche issues.)
I’m worried about this conservative-punk backlash dynamic because I really, really don’t want Nigel Farage anywhere near power – and if we don’t stop being the side of pearl clutchers… he will.
Gin Lane 