Two Conversations: A Weekend Among the Left

I had a couple of illuminating experiences this weekend that I want to relate — both of them a result of spending time in company and conversations where I was the only conservative/conservatarian present.

The first was a gathering of my mother-in-law’s extended family. I took the magnificent plate I’d made (let me tell you, there was an overflowingly generous cornucopia of mouth-watering Italian home cooking there, and I did a masterful job of loading some of everything on my valiant paper plate without compromising its structural integrity if I may brag a bit) … I took said plate, and I ended up finding a seat at what was mostly the kids’ table, my two sons included. And I didn’t do this exactly seeking to avoid any kind of adult conversation, but I certainly didn’t expect a political conversation. Well, my wife’s aunt, her daughter, and another guest were present too, and had already launched into some to-do about Trump while I was still figuring out how to fit the chicken parm on top of my baked ziti. The daughter, a New York City realtor, said she’d asked her clients with apparent astonishment how they could stand to live in a Trump building. The lamentations ensued about what an awful immoral/amoral guy he was, and all the racism he’s enabling, and how awful it is that he’s against immigrants when their own family are immigrants. The aunt, who I know to be a fan of Bill & Hillary, said “at least” Bush 43 and Reagan were moral people, even though she disagreed with them. (It’s remarkable how revisionist Progressives’ consistent distaste for all conservatives gets when they need to rationalize hating the latest really, truly bad guy.) The aunt asked who among the Democrat candidates could stand a chance of beating Trump and should be the nominee. There was agreement that AOC and Bernie were liabilities and getting in the way (not necessarily because their policies were too extreme, I sensed, but because they rubbed prospective voters the wrong way and most Americans wouldn’t vote for them). The aunt thought Biden was the guy, and the way she put it was that they needed someone who could “appear conservative” but would “also be progressive”. i.e. the name of the game for them is to find a Trojan Horse who can fool the rubes into thinking they were getting a conservative, then force progressive policies on them once elected.

Now, as someone who has finally become comfortable and confident enough in his own philosophy and reasoning to engage enthusiastically in such a conversation despite being the obvious outlier, I did exactly that, calmly and politely, as has started to be my usual practice. I commented that I think the issue is not immigration in general, but people’s desire to see the distinction between legal and illegal immigration addressed. I spoke clearly and at a normal volume, my friends. The table conversation rolled right on along just as it was as if no one had heard me or I hadn’t said a thing. When the aunt proposed Biden as a good candidate, I asked a bit incredulously how people could think that notoriously handsy fellow could be considered acceptable in a post-#MeToo world. Blank looks for barely a moment, and the conversation once again rolled along unperturbed. As I suspected, a little sexual harassment here and there is dismissible if one holds the desired political beliefs/intentions. I could probably have offered some other probing comments or questions, but my read on the table was consistent with something I’ve observed lately: The left have a deep belief in their own mythology about us, and either won’t or can’t entertain any idea that might contradict that story or make it require adjustment.

The second occasion of interest was a curator my wife had worked for in San Jose visiting with her husband as they were passing through town. Now I knew full well that this couple and I had very different political views (they were vocal Obama supporters in 2008, and she had curated an exhibition at the San Jose Museum of art that sought to rail against “the Republican war machine”, but they’d had to change the title to avoid offending pesky donors), and as my standard practice in such mixed company but also in seeking not to throw a wrench in one of my wife’s professional relationships I didn’t myself instigate anything remotely approaching a political discussion. Well, needless to say, they had no such hesitation launching in about what are we going to do in the disastrous age of Trump? … so, it was an “interesting” evening on the porch with them and my wife (who, long story for another day, is also considerably to my left). As in the other conversation, there was doubt and worry as to who in the current Democrat field could successfully challenge Trump. (I did have to stifle a smile a bit.) Trump was enabling racism and hate speech they said, of a shocking kind the country hasn’t seen for decades (violating cherished social norms!). Latinos needed to “learn to vote better”. (That’s not remotely condescending, of course.) The husband desperately wondered if the Electoral College could be changed in such a way as to give populous [left-leaning] cities more say … but then he did pause and wonder whether that change could later work against the left somehow. The problem and cause of all of today’s “xenophobic” sentiment, I was told, was Americans in the heartland who hadn’t traveled the world and had an experience of other cultures as they had. The curator gave our Constitution credit for being “pretty good”, but then lamented that it lacked assertions of “positive rights”. She griped, just as I heard her do 15 years ago, about awful museum donors who she found out to her utter shock were “conservative” or “very, very right-wing”. Less happy in her current position in Reno than she was in more “progressive” California, she mocked a guy on their board (a “white male” actually, it was mentioned, to make sure it was understood that his opinion shouldn’t count) who thinks the current “choose your own pronouns” fad is a joke. California is “10 years ahead” of Nevada, she proclaimed. In 10 years, that stuff will just be accepted and he will have to deal with it and that is great, she declared with glee.

Now I couldn’t help but engage some, out of a modicum of self-respect if nothing else, but I also felt bound to exercise some serious restraint so as not to scuttle my wife’s professional relationship with this rather unkind and misguided person. Diplomatically, I offered my honest take on the immigration issue: A good and important part of our foundations is to be a country based on laws, and on the ideal that everyone, no matter how powerful or wealthy or important, should be subject to the exact same laws, uniformly enforced. (No, I didn’t drop Ms. Clinton’s name behind a stifled cough, but I know I should have.) Any time laws are selectively enforced, we’ve created a dangerous situation where their application is subject to the whims of whoever is in power, I continued. Let’s make these things matters of law decided by Congress so that we maintain a consistent, carefully reviewed policy that’s independent of who’s in the White House. I’m happy to welcome those who want to come here, I added, and if it’s too hard to come here through the intended legal avenues then let’s look at what we need to reform in our laws or the agencies that implement them to make it easier. I’d welcome any reasonable proposal from any party to do so, but no one on either side seems to be willing to do the necessary hard work. This bit of logic got a willing nod of acceptance as reasonable (though for all I know they may have gone home quietly thinking what a xenophobic anti-immigrant racist I was), and maybe I succeeded at planting one small seed of an idea. I also made my case for free speech, challenging the idea that people putting their racism or whatever on public display (realizing myself that these terms are now used with such a broad brush as to have garnered my constant skepticism) is a bad thing. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, I asserted. Let people show you who they are; most people will rightly find true racism contemptible. When you drive feelings and ideas underground, that’s what most fuels and enables simmering hate and extremist ideologies. That got a perhaps grudging reception. I think these folks are still worried to death that they’re living in a dangerous powder keg.

I could have gone on — so many ideas and assertions they made invited questions. I’d seriously love to have asked what she thought qualified someone as “very right-wing” and have heard her answer. I’d love to know how compelling pronoun compliance makes the world a better place or actually changes anyone’s mind about anything. I’d love to know why wanting reasonable observance of immigration laws is racist, but the Ford Foundation (who the curator said she learned privately now only gives to institutions headed by “people of color”, even though they can’t say that publicly) is exercising a praiseworthy racial bias. (She cheered at how great that was.) I’d love to know what they think should happen to Americans who don’t want Progressivism, like the flyover state voters they clearly mean to disenfranchise by whatever means necessary to “save” America. But the situation being what it was, I had to deny my curiosity and desire to engage further.

That’s what it is now, really, and I have Bill to thank in large part for that. If there’s one most important thing I’ve finally learned in the past couple of years (Bill has been teaching it for much longer, but what can I say, I’m a slow learner), it’s that the winning move is not for us to withdraw but to engage in discussions of ideas. I finally have a strong enough grasp and understanding of my philosophical principles and their implications, as a result of having thought about them and read and discussed and tested them and sought consistency of principle, that I do not fear engaging in a political discussion. I enter these things willing to consider reasoned arguments and revise my positions if needed in response to facts and evidence, but now that I’m at this place I have yet to find anybody on the left who is willing to listen and who doesn’t shy away from engaging with different ideas. Repeatedly, the conversation ends when they just don’t want to talk about the subject anymore. (This happens with my wife too, unfortunately, but I do think I’m making slow, steady progress toward being understood, at least.) I feel a bit like I’ve been training to be a gladiator, but when I show up to the arena, to my great surprise, there’s no opponent to fight. Not the result I expected!

I suspect these are experiences some of you can relate to, and I hope my telling these stories here is of help to someone who is going through similar challenges. It’s certainly helped me to unload my mind on the matter. I went into both situations willing to have an experience that defied expectations, but the take-home they left me with is unfortunately more along the lines of what you and I might expect. These folks believe their own mythology about us with an unshakeable devotion, perhaps because the conclusions suit them and their purposes. They believe, or choose to believe, that you and I are awful people, and their goal is to unequivocally disenfranchise us. Their plan is for a Progressive takeover of the federal government, and an ensuing culture wherein we are all forced to comply with their enlightened demands. If you are a politically conservative donor to a contemporary art museum, know that you are mocked and derided behind your back, while they pain themselves to stoop to your level and put on a false face in order to continue receiving your filthy money. (If you are wealthy and conservative and do not donate to the arts, by the way, you are also evil. Greedy and evil. So you see, you can’t win this game.) Keep these things in mind in 2020, my friends. Sad to say, though I’ve been open to other info, my observations about our political opponents have only been confirmed. On the bright side, I’ve discovered how liberating and life-changing it is to calmly and patiently argue my values. Thank you, Bill, for helping me find the reason, confidence, and ways of thinking and exploring ideas that have made that possible.