As an Anti-Woke Liberal, This Worries Me A Lot
Plus, The Problem With Political Media Personalities
…If what happened was only a backlash against the excesses of 'woke' activism, and aimed to bring everything back to the sensible middle, then it would have been of great benefit. I believe we really need to get back on the path of the sustainable liberal reformism that gave us everything from civil rights and universal suffrage to marriage equality. This, I maintain, was the original intention of the 'anti-woke' movement, and I still aim to represent this view in my writings arguing against postmodern criticalism. But far-right actors with an agenda had other ideas. They wanted to use the backlash to damage liberalism itself, take away existing rights and freedoms in the process, and perhaps institute a 'regime change' right here in the West, by replacing classical liberal norms with something more like Hungarian-style 'illiberal democracy'. This is where the 'wrong people are in control' part comes in. The illiberal right keeps trying to convince those frustrated with 'wokeness' that the wrong people are in control of the culture, the universities, Hollywood, and even the corporate world. They make up conspiracy theories to discredit the people they don't want to be in charge. Now, about four years into their attacks on our social fabric, their goal of total regime change is becoming clearer and clearer to more and more people.
The Problem With Political Media Personalities
The problem with political media, both the old media and social media, and most of the personalities who work within political media, is that they ultimately end up reinforcing and worsening the political polarization. Due to audience capture, the need to generate clickbait headlines and titles, and the incentives to side with one political party over the other, it becomes very hard for them to remain truly objective and balanced in their outlook. Over time, they become like propaganda machines who deliver biased representations of the reality designed to rile up the emotions of their audiences.
Why We Need to Have Respectful Conversations with Trump Supporters
Divisive statements like 'all Trump supporters are racist' are not only objectively untrue, they serve to heighten the polarization, with all the associated harmful effects down the line. In fact, I would argue that such statements have contributed to the toxicity of American politics since 2016, more so than the existence of Trump himself. While I agree that it would be better had Trump not been elected president at all, I still think that the reaction of some who identified as 'the resistance' had a more harmful effect than Trump being president itself.
TaraElla is a singer-songwriter and author, who is the author of the Moral Libertarian Manifesto and the Moral Libertarian book series, which argue that liberalism is still the most moral and effective value system for the West.
She is also the author of The Trans Case Against Queer Theory and The TaraElla Story (her autobiography).