The American Left and the New White Moderate
For the past six months or so it seems as though each week brings with it a new controversy (or two) for someone in the Democratic primary field, and this week was no different. The wildly popular podcaster and Ultimate Fighting Championship color commentator Joe Rogan expressed his likely support for Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders during an episode of his show. This alone was very unlikely to cause any issues, but problems arose when the Sanders campaign created a post on Twitter touting the support of the polarizing Rogan. Many in the Sanders camp view the situation as a positive for the campaign due to Rogan’s massive audience and the large pool of potential Sanders voters within that audience, but others were not as celebratory.
Whether you like him or not, it is impossible to dispute that Rogan has made countless racially insensitive and anti-LGBT comments over the years while also providing bigots like Gavin McInnes, Milo Yiannopoulos, and Ben Shapiro a platform to spew their nonsense to an audience of millions. The Sanders campaign’s uncritical acceptance of this endorsement from a person who has helped to perpetuate frames of thought that have resulted in very real consequences for marginalized people was an unsettling experience for a lot of folks, and those people made their voices heard.
Naturally, this spawned a frustrating dialogue within the online left that was surprisingly (sarcasm alert) unproductive. In response to the criticism, a lot of online leftists who supported the move by the Sanders campaign either dismissed the criticisms by painting the critics as social justice warriors (a derogatory term for people who care about social issues (?)), or they took the more paternalistic route of failing to actually address the critiques being made, instead opting to simply tell folks that their concerns are overblown because the Sanders campaign is inherently good for them.
This response to people within the Sanders Democratic coalition who have been hurt by Rogan and people like him repeats a historical trend that is nearly as old as the Republic itself. Despite the Sanders coalition being as diverse as it currently is (and has the potential to be), there is still a prominent line of thought present with some of the most active members of the coalition that the movement must cater to the prototypical “average white guy” as he exists within American thought. Joe Rogan, and his audience, represent this character of the American imagination, so as Joe’s support goes, so goes the support of the average white guy. This romanticized figure may have some unsavory views on social issues, but he places his material interests over all else, making him a prime candidate to target with leftist economic rhetoric and policy.
Problematic both in theory and practice, this line of thought lends itself to many on the left assuming the role of the “White Moderate” that Dr. King spoke of in his “Letter From Birmingham Jail”. King’s White Moderate believed that justice was inevitable. If given time, the universe would correct our earthly wrongs and simply bring equality and justice into existence, making direct action and political agitation unnecessary (if not harmful). In the same vein, our current white moderate believes that electing a social democrat will right all wrongs, making criticisms of Sanders unnecessary. Likewise, these people view criticisms that hold their central figure of the average white guy accountable for his bigotry harmful, if not ruinous, to the larger movement.
Looking back across the landscape of American history, this dynamic is the retelling of an old story. Starting with the project of the Reconstruction, we ultimately saw the sections reunify as one nation during the compromise of 1877, which entailed the North allowing the old antebellum Southern power structure to fully reconstitute itself in order to move past the difficult and often bloody struggle to affirm the civil rights (and human dignity) of Black Americans. In this case reunion was more important to white mainstream society than integrating Blacks into American mainstream society, and while that reunion was greatly beneficial to white America, it doomed Blacks to nearly 100 years of Jim Crow segregation.
Years later, we would see the same thing occur during the creation of New Deal policies that would have been impossible to pass without the explicit exclusion of large swaths of the Black population. Likewise, the turmoil and tension of the Civil Rights era was overcome by simply refusing to follow through on issues such as ending residential segregation and completely de-radicalizing the legacy and meaning of the Civil Rights movement itself (much like the whitewashing of the meaning of the Civil War).
In our battle to overcome the existential threat of Trumpism, marginalized people are rightfully weary of the prioritization of whiteness and demonization of identity-based issues that have taken root in the Sanders coalition, particularly in online spaces and in leftist media. There is far too much historical evidence at hand for people to simply acquiesce to the idea that they will find liberation through a movement that is willing to prioritize “edgy” straight white guys at their expense. Just as it is for individuals, it is important for movements to practice growth through self-criticism, and it is clear that many on the left are failing to do that. This desire to keep people comfortable is how leftist movements fall apart, and this movement failing would be a disaster that millions of people simply cannot afford.
In an essay on Dr. King and Moral Perfectionism philosopher Paul C. Taylor makes the point that “Democracies need their citizens to remain dissatisfied with things as they stand, and to remain open to the possibility that justice will require reconstructing both society and self”. This comment highlights the dangerous path that our new White Moderate is attempting to lead us down. In catering to this character of the average white guy, we invite stagnation, half-measures and most worryingly, the embrace of reactionary politics. It is one thing to start by meeting people where they are at, but that must be followed up with a continuous transformation through constant criticism. We cannot move forward if we simply meet people where they are and stay there.
I contend that the tension that is borne by criticism of this Sanders-led movement will only make it stronger, not weaken it. To build a different (and better) world we need to kill the old ways, and that starts with being willing to accept criticism from our comrades and using it to transform ourselves into something superior to what we were before. If we cling to the vestiges of the world that we are attempting to uproot, then we risk repeating the same exact mistakes that were made by the generations before us.
As leftists, our defining principles are steeped in our desire to affirm and ensure the dignity of humanity. The person, and the fulfillment of their material, mental, and spiritual needs are at the forefront of our philosophy, and dismissing the concerns of the people in our society who are the most vulnerable is antithetical to leftist politics. The narrow-minded idea that we need to sacrifice the dignity of certain groups of people in order to make people with bigoted leanings vote for progressive economic policy is not just a lazy solution to a complicated problem, but it is a morally bankrupt one as well. No one concerned with justice should accept such a Faustian bargain, and the rejection of such a deal with the devil will only go to make the movement stronger for the struggles that await it in the future.
