Why Don’t Leftists Want To Be Right?
Have you ever met a happy committed leftist? I haven’t. The worldview of leftism precludes them from ever enjoying true happiness.It stands to reason that’s partly why they hate the immortal words of our founding fathers, who declared that one of the chief inalienable rights of the human experience was to pursue happiness. Happiness, after all, requires self-control and responsibility. Children and adults suffering from arrested development don’t like limitations.
Leftists have a few things grossly misunderstood. First, they have a warped view of happiness and how to attain it. Marching against contrived injustices is a projection of internal shortcomings projected onto the external. In his 12 Rules for Life, Jordan Peterson points out the obvious that making your bed is a better way to improve the world than chanting hackneyed slogans with a mob. Why is this effective? It gives back control and empowers the individual. Rather than improve themselves, though, leftists ignore their own flaws as people and instead focus on someone else’s. As those personal flaws go uncorrected, then, there can be no personal satisfaction or growth.
Second, and probably more attuned to the issue, they mostly hate the happiness of others. The selfishness wrought by leftist thinking cannot be overstated. Recognizing deep down that their own happiness is fraudulent and faked, the next best thing to do is drag you down with them. Misery loves company, right? Winston Churchill observed that socialism basically reduces the best of society to the ranks of the miserable rather than elevating the miserable to the ranks of the best. Taxing the rich isn’t so much about lifting people up as it is pushing others down. Watering down education isn’t about making learning accessible to the dumbest; it’s about limiting the ideas exposed to the smartest. Every policy is identical, even something like illegal immigration. Seeing as leftist political stewards invite millions of newcomers when they could instead be focused on preserving the quality of life and value system for citizens, it’s just one more way to ruin everything good.
Polling likewise confirms what common sense and anecdotal observations suggest. A quote attributed to talk show host and author Dennis Prager notes that “every poll about the Left, the Right, and happiness reveals that the farther left one goes, the less happy the person is likely to be.” A recent Gallup poll in particular revealed a few fascinating insights into political persuasions and general satisfaction.
One analysis of responses shows that in 2007 whites and non-whites shared an identical highpoint of responding with fairly or very happy. It peaked at 95%. It can hardly be seen as an accident or mere coincidence that around the same time that Barack Obama campaigned for and later served as U.S. President, forming his coalition of the dispossessed, that non-white satisfaction dropped – and fast. Obama ushered in identity politics at warp speed, and as his voters embraced it, they naturally became more unhappy. Again, how could you not? If I believed I was powerless, victimized, oppressed, marginalized, and invisible, I would probably harbor some feelings of unhappiness, too.
A second result from the same poll shows what is obvious: Democrats are unhappier than Republicans. If I had my druthers, I would rather the poll ask about general political ideologies rather than attachment to a political party, but the results wouldn’t change. Democrats, especially modern Democrat voters, are simply miserable people with endless faux axes to grind. We all know who they are and not one disconforms to the rule.
It is simply not hard to figure out why leftists are unhappy and miserable. If you thought that your country was systemically racist, the climate crisis was ending humanity (thus forestalling you from even wanting to raise children, perhaps the single greatest source of happiness), Covid required hospitalization in half of the people it infected, and you were a victim of endless oppression, the correct question to ask is not “why are you miserable?” but would more accurately be phrased as ”how would you not be miserable?”
This brings me back to my headlining question. Even if this was all true, why focus on it without offering tangible solutions? Why don’t they want a better outlook? Why don’t leftists want to be right? Our side isn’t perfect but it isn’t a one-way path to futility and anguish. Look around. No one is better off playing the victim card. Black communities that terrorize themselves and blame slavery and Jim Crow will be stuck in a violent purgatory until they address the present-day solutions and look forward. Not unironically, the most prominent black voices espousing a tragic world view have a massive audience, a huge paycheck, and an outsized influence. If that’s oppression then sign me up. Joy Reid, Al Sharpton, Benjamin Crump, Kamala Harris, and Barack Obama cheerlead the Victim Olympics, yet no one ever asks how they were able to overcome this supposed oppression. Thomas Sowell observed that there is a huge market for selling this garbage, and there unfortunately will be until people stop buying it.
Who wants to be miserable? Who wants to feel bad about themselves? And, supposing they were correct and we are all actually helpless, how does adopting a weakened psychological state improve that situation? Even if they were right, the only way out of this mess is through resilience, perseverance, and a can-do attitude. Lamenting, blaming, whining, and complaining are not behaviors that will end the cycle. In other words, if you’re a victim, and remain committed to believing you’re a victim, then you will always be a victim.
What a miserable existence.
Content syndicated from TheBlueStateConservative.com with permission.