The Left's All-or-Nothing Mentality

Pretty Much My Attitude About Leftist Protest These Days

PJM - These days we've almost become immune to the stunts that members of the left in this country pull to get attention. Nothing liberals do seems far-fetched anymore. That's what made the suicide by immolation of attorney David Buckel so shocking. Buckel set himself on fire and ended his life not over the issue of gay rights, but as an environmental protest. His suicide note stated that he had burned himself with fossil fuel to serve as a metaphor for the destruction of the planet.  

Buckel is one more example of the all-or-nothing mentality of the left in America. To borrow the old phrase from the '60s, the personal is political for American leftists, and the political is personal for them too. Witness the tribalism in this country. Yes, we see it on the right too, but the smugness of liberals and their seeming willingness to shut down all debate raises the stakes of tribalism. Taking a look at the aftermath of the 2016 election as the best recent example, Pew Research revealed that almost half of liberals surveyed said that a friend's support for Donald Trump would "put a strain on friendship," compared to only 13 percent of Republicans who said the same about friends who voted for Hillary Clinton. 

This mentality is the same one that led New Yorker writer Dan Piepenbring to label Chick-fil-A as "creepy" in a recent piece. It's not possible to enjoy some of the best fast food around if you're a liberal. No, Chick-fil-A must be rejected because its founders are Christians who take conservative positions on social issues. All or nothing! The desire of so many on the left to achieve totality is so great that it turns many leftists against each other.

Take the gay rights movement that is often called upon to speak for the wider LGBTQA community. These figureheads are overwhelmingly white, cis-gendered, able-bodied men and women — and that can be a problem, given that they are representative of only one aspect of the LGBT community. After all, one can't speak for everyone if one holds one form of "privilege" over others. It's all or nothing to the left even when it comes to dealing with each other!

I believe that this all-or-nothing attitude on the left stems from the fact that the so many on their side are activists, while the majority of conservatives are out living their lives and only touching on politics from time to time. The idea that liberals tend to associate with only others like themselves feeds this taking of politics personally. David Buckel's case does represent the all-or-nothing mentality of the left to its extreme, but given how the personal and the political collide for so many on the left, it makes you wonder how many more cases like his will we see? - More at the Link