http://ift.tt/1ZvuafD
"Go back a hundred years and the left had much the same makeup as it does now. But the image of a typical leftist was ragged, angry and unstable. A ranting bombthrower at best. A ridiculous leafletter at worst. One step away from a criminal. Not at all the sort of person you wanted to be."
"The left originally wanted to be seen as associated with the lower class, even though it actually came out of the upper classes. Political activism requires leisure. It's not really for working people. This created the image of a "dirty" leftist dressed in working clothes."
"Liberalism had become a movement of upper class elites violently hostile to the working class and openly contemptuous of it. That contempt was returned leading to the political disasters of the Democratic Party among white voters, particularly in the south. But at the same time it made the liberal into an aspirational figure.
Colleges became finishing schools for teaching youth the manners and attitudes of a new elite. The political emphasis of the curriculum was the point. If you wanted to move up the ladder, you needed to embrace the left's way of thinking and living. If you didn't, you were part of the dirty lower class."
"But the left isn't a brand. It's an ideology. And the ideology looks a lot more like Bernie Sanders or Jeremy Corbyn than the Hollywood stars and starlets who are used as window dressing or even Obama, who did an invaluable service for the left's brand by making it seem cool."
"The moment it becomes obvious that it's actually a movement of old, bitter angry people like Bernie Sanders who want to destroy everything worthwhile in life because it runs afoul of their ideology, the brand is torched and the left goes back to being a pack of surly outsiders handing out leaflets.
And that's where Bernie Sanders and Corbyn threaten the left's aspirational brand.
Nobody outside the left aspires to be Bernie Sanders. Just like they don't aspire to be Ralph Nader or Jeremy Corbyn or Vladimir Lenin. Even Hillary Clinton is a shaky proposition. Nobody really wants to be her or spend time with her. (The same couldn't be said of Bill Clinton or Barack Obama.)"
"But take away the sense of a superior class partying forever with JFK, Bill and Barack, a glittering set of golden boys who enjoy the good life, and the left is reduced to its ridiculous ideas.
And yet the left must be reduced to those ideas.
The left is intolerant of compromise and uses every victory as proof that the time for compromise is past. It is convinced of its absolute rightness and that the people can and must embrace its ideas once the fog has been cleared away. And so the left can't help exposing itself for what it is. No matter how good its disguises are, the moment comes when it announces what it really stands for."
"The left presents itself to Americans as an intangible, an attitude rather than a movement, a value rather than a set of ideas, an aspirational lifestyle of clothes, food and trendy activism, a fun way of life rather than a fanatical ideology that seeks to control and dominate every area of life.
The ruptures on the left threaten that disguise. And without that disguise, the left reverts back to what it was a hundred years ago."
"Go back a hundred years and the left had much the same makeup as it does now. But the image of a typical leftist was ragged, angry and unstable. A ranting bombthrower at best. A ridiculous leafletter at worst. One step away from a criminal. Not at all the sort of person you wanted to be."
"The left originally wanted to be seen as associated with the lower class, even though it actually came out of the upper classes. Political activism requires leisure. It's not really for working people. This created the image of a "dirty" leftist dressed in working clothes."
"Liberalism had become a movement of upper class elites violently hostile to the working class and openly contemptuous of it. That contempt was returned leading to the political disasters of the Democratic Party among white voters, particularly in the south. But at the same time it made the liberal into an aspirational figure.
Colleges became finishing schools for teaching youth the manners and attitudes of a new elite. The political emphasis of the curriculum was the point. If you wanted to move up the ladder, you needed to embrace the left's way of thinking and living. If you didn't, you were part of the dirty lower class."
"But the left isn't a brand. It's an ideology. And the ideology looks a lot more like Bernie Sanders or Jeremy Corbyn than the Hollywood stars and starlets who are used as window dressing or even Obama, who did an invaluable service for the left's brand by making it seem cool."
"The moment it becomes obvious that it's actually a movement of old, bitter angry people like Bernie Sanders who want to destroy everything worthwhile in life because it runs afoul of their ideology, the brand is torched and the left goes back to being a pack of surly outsiders handing out leaflets.
And that's where Bernie Sanders and Corbyn threaten the left's aspirational brand.
Nobody outside the left aspires to be Bernie Sanders. Just like they don't aspire to be Ralph Nader or Jeremy Corbyn or Vladimir Lenin. Even Hillary Clinton is a shaky proposition. Nobody really wants to be her or spend time with her. (The same couldn't be said of Bill Clinton or Barack Obama.)"
"But take away the sense of a superior class partying forever with JFK, Bill and Barack, a glittering set of golden boys who enjoy the good life, and the left is reduced to its ridiculous ideas.
And yet the left must be reduced to those ideas.
The left is intolerant of compromise and uses every victory as proof that the time for compromise is past. It is convinced of its absolute rightness and that the people can and must embrace its ideas once the fog has been cleared away. And so the left can't help exposing itself for what it is. No matter how good its disguises are, the moment comes when it announces what it really stands for."
"The left presents itself to Americans as an intangible, an attitude rather than a movement, a value rather than a set of ideas, an aspirational lifestyle of clothes, food and trendy activism, a fun way of life rather than a fanatical ideology that seeks to control and dominate every area of life.
The ruptures on the left threaten that disguise. And without that disguise, the left reverts back to what it was a hundred years ago."
Bernie Sanders and the Threat to the Left's Aspirational Brand