Thank you so much for this great article. Your journey was very much like mine, except for the timing. I fell away from the "left" (in quotes because the D party can hardly be termed "left") in 2016, when I saw how Sanders was cheated out of what would have been a sure victory. I was not surprised at all when he was cheated again in 2020. The final blow for me was seeing how Sanders himself has fallen into the Standard Covid Narrative.
I never got to the point of registering with the R party (I wrote in Sanders in 2020 mainly as a way of thumbing my nose at the D party), but never fell in TDS, either -- I just saw Trump as a narcissistic BS peddler. When I recently pointed out to a staunch liberal friend that Trump hadn't started any new wars, she said, in effect, that she hated him so much that she couldn't even give him credit for that one thing.
There are plenty of things on which I disagree with the right, but the issue of opposition to the Standard Covid Narrative eclipses all other issues right now. Consequently I find myself alignment with R leaders like DeSantis, something that I would have found inconceivable just a few short years ago.
My ever-growing skepticism about the political world has now crept into my thoughts about the climate change narrative. Like you, I see the monomaniacal focus on carbon dioxide as a huge mistake, a vast oversimplification. It leaves out so much else that desperately needs our attention, and it is now being used as a support for a technocratic power grab. This is not going to end well, I fear.
Oh my goodness, Raelle. What you've written here essentially mirrors my own journey over the last year and a half as I began questioning the 'vid narrative (WTF I'm a Trump fan now? I'm "far right"? But I love our planet! And what's up with all these anti- movements? They're just making things worse! etc.) - but soooo much more knowledgeably and articulately. Major kudos. I'm sharing your article far and wide!!
Your articles are so good! It's such a shame they don't [yet] reach a wider audience. There are millions of us like you. I admire your ability to convey these deranged and distressing issues in such a readable way. Thank you.
Amazing writing. Thank you for such a wise and in depth read. This really mirrors my own journey of political spell breaking in the UK. I love that you voted for yourself too.
Thank you for this deep and engaging article. I voted for Biden, but in retrospect, I wish I did what you did, but instead of writing my name, I wish I wrote "Marianne Williamson".
Thank you for so eloquently resonating my own experience. I had an almost identical journey, sans the TDS- I always thought Trump was more clownish than the Hitler type the left presented, so I didn’t buy into the rhetoric all that much. I also held my nose voting for Biden with the hope that the democrats would, at least, be smarter about covid restrictions. Now, politically marooned, it would be very unlikely for me to vote again. All I see is corruption everywhere. But if I did, I’d be a one issue voter- sovereignty.
Thank you so much for this. It is a perfect framing as a spell, my friends who are under its spell really seem bewitched. And thank you for including climate change. I am also a lifelong leftist . I believe that I am still progressive, and it's the authoritarian left that has abandoned progressivism.
Totally hear you Raelle and always really enjoy your beautiful writing, and at the same time it seems to me like you might have also fallen for the spell of "the network" when you (uncritically, it seems) repeat their deeply manipulative and deceptive charactarization of horrors like CNN, MSNBC, WashPost, and the Democratic party as if it is "The Left". You repeat that spell and lie over and over and over again, just like they do, while in reality there is nothing even remotely leftist about the democratic party (or the rest of the billinaire-owned warmongering propaganda outlets like cnn, washpoat etc), as it is today it is a (culturally liberal) right wing party through and through - pro war, pro capitalist, pro empire, pro the billionaire class, pro weapons manufacturers, pro division and hostility in the name of "national interests", pro-sectarianism, anti-wholistic, anti the poor.. it is a liberal billionaire right wing party (and media) through and through, which not only has nothing to do with the left but is actually doing everything in its power to destroy the left, to destroy and bury anyone and anything that advocates for a wholisitc worldview and the possibility of living not in a constant state of war and nationalist hostility and division, it works to destroy any leftist move towards change in the billionaire's imperialist status-quo. The democratic party is where leftist peace and anti-global-capitalist movements come to die and be neutralized of their potential for change and challenge to its billionaire owners.
As far as I can see there is only one party in usa, the capitalist war party, and this party has two wings, a religious-nationalist-conservative wing and a liberal wing. The two wings are in full agreement and cooperation in 95% of their positions (with regard to the need to maintain the world supremacy of their murderous global empire under all costs) and simply use identity politics to distinguish themselves from each other to create the appearance of a choice between two distinct options. And of course their media revs up the cultural wars to a fever pitch to keep people busy with the issues that the billionaire class couldn't care less about (they couldn't care less if the slave in uniform who drops the bombs for them is gay or straight, men or woman, black or white, cis or trans, as long as he/she does not question their imprialist attacks of plunder and domination it makes zero difference to the billionaire class what's his/her identity politics), keep the people busy with their revved up cultural wars and ignorant of what the american neoliberal capitalist empire actually does all across the globe.
So in my view you are doing a huge disservice to the readers when you adopt (apparently unquestioningly) the manipulative corporate media definitions and call the anti-left monstrosity that is CNN and the democratic party "the left".
As far as I can see, the left is almost completely non-existant today in usa (and in most of the anglo-world as well), has been completely eliminated from view in the past 20-25 years or so through the success of the billionaire class in taking ownership over the entire flow of information on the planet (not just corporate media, but also google and the social networks) and pushing the left completely out of public sight and awareness and replacing it with right wing liberal monstrosities like clinton, obama, biden and the identity politics movement (which in its essence is a right wing movment - who gets most of its funding and "push" from capitalist liberal billionaire "foundations" and of course from the billionaire's media - it is a right wing movement in its essence becasue of its deliberate shifting of the awareness away from the reality of class exploitation and imperialist domination, it is literally a weapon in the hands of the billionaire class who use it frequently to take down anyone who poses a threat tocthe their sectrarian narrow un-wholistoc interests. See for example what they did to Corbyn using identity politics. They managed to turn one of the greatest anti-racist activists of the decade into a racist in the public's view, that's how powerful their media is, all becasue he was a socialist who threatened their selfish interests).
It is just that the entire political spectrum has shifted so far to the right in the last 30 years that even someone as centrist as Sanders is now called "far-left" in conservative america (i read an artice in a danish newspapaer a few years ago where they compared sanders positions to the those of the parties in Denmark, he came out more to the right of the most right wing party in denmark). Amd where right wing horrors like Biden or clinton or obama (who fit in the top right corner of the political typology square) are called "the left".. Honestly it's hard to know if to laugh or cry with such a profound and collosal inversion of reality..
Also, i get to hang out a lot in right wing echo-chambers, especially since the start of this farce plandemic (which i saw right through and objected to from the very beginning) and i absolutely do NOT see any awakening away from the sectarian nationalist division and hostility mentality that you mentioned in the essay (as if many on tne right had an awakening after Bush and no longer support these politics), but quite to the contrary. Literally every conservative i interact with seems to be salivating at the thought of an attack on china (the right wing liberals are taught on cnn/msnbc to hate and blame everything on russia, while the other wing of the empire, the conservative-nationalist-religious wing are taught on fox/hannity to hate and blame everything on china, which seems to have now replaced 'the muslims' as the current hate scapegoat for coservatives upon whom they can blame everything and unleash the brutality of their anger on).
I don't see ANY difference in how gullible both wings are in going along with the nationalist propaganda of the empire (if anything, the conservative-religious wing seems to be a lot more rabid in their hate to "our country's enemies").
I see ZERO reckoning in conservative circles regarding the profoundly destructive horror of the SECTARIAN mentality (nationalist or religious) that lies at the root of their belief system, has brought upon humanity. ZERO reckoning! If anything I see a huge intensifaction of the sectarian nationalist religious narrative (as if that is thw solution to rhe global capitalists who instigated this plandemic. It absolutely idn't the solution, but I might go into that later on).
That is why, even though i stand with some conservatives in my strong opposition to the new biosecurity world being imposed on us by the 'stakeholder capitalists' (as they call themselves) in the world economic forum under the guise of protection from an attack by an external enemy (which is always the trick they play, same as 'the terrorist threat' and 'the commie threat' that preceded the current 'virus threat', which I've seen through and objected to from tne very beginning), even though i stand with some conservatives on that issue, I absolutely do NOT for one second believe their hollow cries about "freedom and liberty". Why not? Becasue i have not seen any one of them give a rat's ass about the "freedom and liberty" of the people that their empire routinely attacks murders and impoverishes (not only do they not raise a cry about this but the majority of right wingers actually cheer for the empire as it does that, invoking their sectarian nationalist "god" and urge him to "bless our troops" as the capitalists send them to murder, attack, invade, traumatise and plunder yet another country whose resources the capitalists covet and whose economy they brutally privatize in order to move everything possible from the public domain into their "private property" to enrich themselves), so I don't buy for one second the right wing's hollow calls for "freedom liberty", in my experience they don't give a shit about anyone else's "freedom and liberty" except their own and their group (and the infidel non-christians non-capitalists can go rot in hell. They don't deserve "freedom and liberty", they deserve the almighty's wrath)..
I have investigated very deeply what is actually at the root of the conservative-nationalist mentality and it is very clear to me that at the root of the lies anti-wholistic SECTARIANISM. Their so-called "freedom and liberty" is sectarian freedom and liberty. They don't like authoritarianism when they are on the receiving end of it, but they sure as hell didn't have any issue with it when it has been used with extreme brutality for decades and decades by their "brave troops" against "the enemies of the nation/religion/capitalism".
I personally find the right wing conservative mentality to be incredibly repulsive, psychologically-immature and trauma-driven. In my experience, at the root of it there is a worship of FORCE, POWER OVER, DOMINATION, AGGRESSIVENSS, AUTHORITY, TRADITION, MILITARY, ROYALTY AND RELIGION.
In my expwrience, it is an extremely un-balanced (in the sense of anti-wholistic, fragmented) worldview that has been lead to worship SECTARIAN self-interest (nationalist, religious, capitalist) and FRAGMENTATION, and that elevates the monstrosity of being a love-less psychologically-stunted greedy ultra-wealthy accumulator into a sacred status.
You were probably not alive then, but a tv series in the late 70s called Soap had a gay character. It was not treated as a big deal. When a friend told me she was gay and felt that way from birth, it made me understand. Trans, I find strange and different, but you do you, as long as you aren't hurting anyone else. Trans who demand to join women's sports are playing at an advantage. Pushing children into Trans lifestyle is damage. Abortion is murder, not bodily autonomy. From a once liberal, who saw how equity didn't mean equal opportunity
Thank you so much for this great article. Your journey was very much like mine, except for the timing. I fell away from the "left" (in quotes because the D party can hardly be termed "left") in 2016, when I saw how Sanders was cheated out of what would have been a sure victory. I was not surprised at all when he was cheated again in 2020. The final blow for me was seeing how Sanders himself has fallen into the Standard Covid Narrative.
I never got to the point of registering with the R party (I wrote in Sanders in 2020 mainly as a way of thumbing my nose at the D party), but never fell in TDS, either -- I just saw Trump as a narcissistic BS peddler. When I recently pointed out to a staunch liberal friend that Trump hadn't started any new wars, she said, in effect, that she hated him so much that she couldn't even give him credit for that one thing.
There are plenty of things on which I disagree with the right, but the issue of opposition to the Standard Covid Narrative eclipses all other issues right now. Consequently I find myself alignment with R leaders like DeSantis, something that I would have found inconceivable just a few short years ago.
My ever-growing skepticism about the political world has now crept into my thoughts about the climate change narrative. Like you, I see the monomaniacal focus on carbon dioxide as a huge mistake, a vast oversimplification. It leaves out so much else that desperately needs our attention, and it is now being used as a support for a technocratic power grab. This is not going to end well, I fear.
absolutely the most lucid explanation of the current situation
Oh my goodness, Raelle. What you've written here essentially mirrors my own journey over the last year and a half as I began questioning the 'vid narrative (WTF I'm a Trump fan now? I'm "far right"? But I love our planet! And what's up with all these anti- movements? They're just making things worse! etc.) - but soooo much more knowledgeably and articulately. Major kudos. I'm sharing your article far and wide!!
Your articles are so good! It's such a shame they don't [yet] reach a wider audience. There are millions of us like you. I admire your ability to convey these deranged and distressing issues in such a readable way. Thank you.
Amazing writing. Thank you for such a wise and in depth read. This really mirrors my own journey of political spell breaking in the UK. I love that you voted for yourself too.
Thank you for this deep and engaging article. I voted for Biden, but in retrospect, I wish I did what you did, but instead of writing my name, I wish I wrote "Marianne Williamson".
Brilliant, as always. Thank you for you wisdom, courage, and love. If I was American I'd write your name in on the ballot too! lol
Thank you for so eloquently resonating my own experience. I had an almost identical journey, sans the TDS- I always thought Trump was more clownish than the Hitler type the left presented, so I didn’t buy into the rhetoric all that much. I also held my nose voting for Biden with the hope that the democrats would, at least, be smarter about covid restrictions. Now, politically marooned, it would be very unlikely for me to vote again. All I see is corruption everywhere. But if I did, I’d be a one issue voter- sovereignty.
Thank you so much for this. It is a perfect framing as a spell, my friends who are under its spell really seem bewitched. And thank you for including climate change. I am also a lifelong leftist . I believe that I am still progressive, and it's the authoritarian left that has abandoned progressivism.
Totally hear you Raelle and always really enjoy your beautiful writing, and at the same time it seems to me like you might have also fallen for the spell of "the network" when you (uncritically, it seems) repeat their deeply manipulative and deceptive charactarization of horrors like CNN, MSNBC, WashPost, and the Democratic party as if it is "The Left". You repeat that spell and lie over and over and over again, just like they do, while in reality there is nothing even remotely leftist about the democratic party (or the rest of the billinaire-owned warmongering propaganda outlets like cnn, washpoat etc), as it is today it is a (culturally liberal) right wing party through and through - pro war, pro capitalist, pro empire, pro the billionaire class, pro weapons manufacturers, pro division and hostility in the name of "national interests", pro-sectarianism, anti-wholistic, anti the poor.. it is a liberal billionaire right wing party (and media) through and through, which not only has nothing to do with the left but is actually doing everything in its power to destroy the left, to destroy and bury anyone and anything that advocates for a wholisitc worldview and the possibility of living not in a constant state of war and nationalist hostility and division, it works to destroy any leftist move towards change in the billionaire's imperialist status-quo. The democratic party is where leftist peace and anti-global-capitalist movements come to die and be neutralized of their potential for change and challenge to its billionaire owners.
As far as I can see there is only one party in usa, the capitalist war party, and this party has two wings, a religious-nationalist-conservative wing and a liberal wing. The two wings are in full agreement and cooperation in 95% of their positions (with regard to the need to maintain the world supremacy of their murderous global empire under all costs) and simply use identity politics to distinguish themselves from each other to create the appearance of a choice between two distinct options. And of course their media revs up the cultural wars to a fever pitch to keep people busy with the issues that the billionaire class couldn't care less about (they couldn't care less if the slave in uniform who drops the bombs for them is gay or straight, men or woman, black or white, cis or trans, as long as he/she does not question their imprialist attacks of plunder and domination it makes zero difference to the billionaire class what's his/her identity politics), keep the people busy with their revved up cultural wars and ignorant of what the american neoliberal capitalist empire actually does all across the globe.
So in my view you are doing a huge disservice to the readers when you adopt (apparently unquestioningly) the manipulative corporate media definitions and call the anti-left monstrosity that is CNN and the democratic party "the left".
As far as I can see, the left is almost completely non-existant today in usa (and in most of the anglo-world as well), has been completely eliminated from view in the past 20-25 years or so through the success of the billionaire class in taking ownership over the entire flow of information on the planet (not just corporate media, but also google and the social networks) and pushing the left completely out of public sight and awareness and replacing it with right wing liberal monstrosities like clinton, obama, biden and the identity politics movement (which in its essence is a right wing movment - who gets most of its funding and "push" from capitalist liberal billionaire "foundations" and of course from the billionaire's media - it is a right wing movement in its essence becasue of its deliberate shifting of the awareness away from the reality of class exploitation and imperialist domination, it is literally a weapon in the hands of the billionaire class who use it frequently to take down anyone who poses a threat tocthe their sectrarian narrow un-wholistoc interests. See for example what they did to Corbyn using identity politics. They managed to turn one of the greatest anti-racist activists of the decade into a racist in the public's view, that's how powerful their media is, all becasue he was a socialist who threatened their selfish interests).
It is just that the entire political spectrum has shifted so far to the right in the last 30 years that even someone as centrist as Sanders is now called "far-left" in conservative america (i read an artice in a danish newspapaer a few years ago where they compared sanders positions to the those of the parties in Denmark, he came out more to the right of the most right wing party in denmark). Amd where right wing horrors like Biden or clinton or obama (who fit in the top right corner of the political typology square) are called "the left".. Honestly it's hard to know if to laugh or cry with such a profound and collosal inversion of reality..
Also, i get to hang out a lot in right wing echo-chambers, especially since the start of this farce plandemic (which i saw right through and objected to from the very beginning) and i absolutely do NOT see any awakening away from the sectarian nationalist division and hostility mentality that you mentioned in the essay (as if many on tne right had an awakening after Bush and no longer support these politics), but quite to the contrary. Literally every conservative i interact with seems to be salivating at the thought of an attack on china (the right wing liberals are taught on cnn/msnbc to hate and blame everything on russia, while the other wing of the empire, the conservative-nationalist-religious wing are taught on fox/hannity to hate and blame everything on china, which seems to have now replaced 'the muslims' as the current hate scapegoat for coservatives upon whom they can blame everything and unleash the brutality of their anger on).
I don't see ANY difference in how gullible both wings are in going along with the nationalist propaganda of the empire (if anything, the conservative-religious wing seems to be a lot more rabid in their hate to "our country's enemies").
I see ZERO reckoning in conservative circles regarding the profoundly destructive horror of the SECTARIAN mentality (nationalist or religious) that lies at the root of their belief system, has brought upon humanity. ZERO reckoning! If anything I see a huge intensifaction of the sectarian nationalist religious narrative (as if that is thw solution to rhe global capitalists who instigated this plandemic. It absolutely idn't the solution, but I might go into that later on).
That is why, even though i stand with some conservatives in my strong opposition to the new biosecurity world being imposed on us by the 'stakeholder capitalists' (as they call themselves) in the world economic forum under the guise of protection from an attack by an external enemy (which is always the trick they play, same as 'the terrorist threat' and 'the commie threat' that preceded the current 'virus threat', which I've seen through and objected to from tne very beginning), even though i stand with some conservatives on that issue, I absolutely do NOT for one second believe their hollow cries about "freedom and liberty". Why not? Becasue i have not seen any one of them give a rat's ass about the "freedom and liberty" of the people that their empire routinely attacks murders and impoverishes (not only do they not raise a cry about this but the majority of right wingers actually cheer for the empire as it does that, invoking their sectarian nationalist "god" and urge him to "bless our troops" as the capitalists send them to murder, attack, invade, traumatise and plunder yet another country whose resources the capitalists covet and whose economy they brutally privatize in order to move everything possible from the public domain into their "private property" to enrich themselves), so I don't buy for one second the right wing's hollow calls for "freedom liberty", in my experience they don't give a shit about anyone else's "freedom and liberty" except their own and their group (and the infidel non-christians non-capitalists can go rot in hell. They don't deserve "freedom and liberty", they deserve the almighty's wrath)..
I have investigated very deeply what is actually at the root of the conservative-nationalist mentality and it is very clear to me that at the root of the lies anti-wholistic SECTARIANISM. Their so-called "freedom and liberty" is sectarian freedom and liberty. They don't like authoritarianism when they are on the receiving end of it, but they sure as hell didn't have any issue with it when it has been used with extreme brutality for decades and decades by their "brave troops" against "the enemies of the nation/religion/capitalism".
I personally find the right wing conservative mentality to be incredibly repulsive, psychologically-immature and trauma-driven. In my experience, at the root of it there is a worship of FORCE, POWER OVER, DOMINATION, AGGRESSIVENSS, AUTHORITY, TRADITION, MILITARY, ROYALTY AND RELIGION.
In my expwrience, it is an extremely un-balanced (in the sense of anti-wholistic, fragmented) worldview that has been lead to worship SECTARIAN self-interest (nationalist, religious, capitalist) and FRAGMENTATION, and that elevates the monstrosity of being a love-less psychologically-stunted greedy ultra-wealthy accumulator into a sacred status.
Woops, space finished. Continued below
You were probably not alive then, but a tv series in the late 70s called Soap had a gay character. It was not treated as a big deal. When a friend told me she was gay and felt that way from birth, it made me understand. Trans, I find strange and different, but you do you, as long as you aren't hurting anyone else. Trans who demand to join women's sports are playing at an advantage. Pushing children into Trans lifestyle is damage. Abortion is murder, not bodily autonomy. From a once liberal, who saw how equity didn't mean equal opportunity