Down With The Demagogues
Must you all be so damn unpleasant?
There was a time in late 2007/2008 when everyone thought they were a health care policy expert because they’d watched Michael Moore’s ‘Sicko’. No one doubts there are deep problems with the American health care system. Moore, however, presented this information like it was brand new. He then went on to push a single-payer health care system as the only solution to America’s health care woes. It’s not.
There are plenty of other health care systems arguably more suited to the US. And I just remember watching and thinking that Moore was a shameless demagogue. But of course, I did. I am somewhat of a rightwing persuasion. Then again my tolerance for the demagogues of the right is also fairly low. In fact, not only do I think they give the right a bad name, I can’t stand them.
I, a woman who identifies as Classical Liberal, disavows the demagogues of the right. I find rightwing political commentators and provocateurs like Milo Yiannopoulos, Katie Hopkins and Anne Coulter profoundly embarrassing. I’ll admit that there is a huge cultural difference between libertarians and conservatives and my views don’t align with theirs, however, I still consider them to be performers rather than serious political figures.
But why are the media figureheads on the right so unpleasant now?
I’ve thought about this a lot recently. I think the reason is that social media has a vague leftwing bias and therefore only ostentatious figureheads are able to get air time and column inches. Journalists often hold liberal political views even if they work for rightwing publications or broadcasters. Rightwing people also drift into professions other than media. Sensible, moderate rightwingers are bankers, lawyers and entrepreneurs, not media personalities like Milo Yiannopoulos.
The popularity of Jordan Petersen is reassuring in some ways; not many recognisable faces on the right are as calm and measured in their style of argument as he is. Petersen has slowly built up an audience via more quiet YouTube musings, which makes a nice change from Milo Yiannopoulos screaming: “feminism is cancer.” My issue with Yiannopoulos and Hopkins is that they want to say racist things without being called a racist. That’s not how free speech works. If you’re free to say racist things — and I think you should be — then everyone else should be free to call you a racist.
I don’t think Yiannopoulos being married to a black man negates the content of his words. If you’re going to be a provocateur, you should at least have the maturity to recognise this type of nuance. You need to acknowledge this and either robustly show why this isn’t the case or admit that you’re a racist.
People’s feelings do matter, and if you say things that people don’t like you have to accept that people won’t like you. If you say ugly things, you must accept that you will live in an uglier world. Sometimes that’s okay — we should not pretend to live in an ideal world — the truth is so often ugly and painful, but you are not immune from the consequences of your words.
The principle of free-speech is meant to protect people who would not otherwise be able to speak uncomfortable truths without fearing for their physical safety. There are many valid criticisms to be made about Islam, for example, and the people making them should not — ever — be subject to threats or violence or external attempts to silence them as they so often are.
There is, however, a big difference between making a valid, but uncomfortable point — and using words like “filthy rodents” to describe Muslims. But what can we on the right do? It’s tempting to pay heed to rightwing demagogues because they are the most visible in a ‘tall poppy syndrome’ way, but you will never hear me say: “yeah, he’s a bastard, but he’s my bastard.”
If you choose to be a bastard, I won’t ever silence you — but I am going to call you a bastard.
Thank you for reading — I hope you found my thoughts interesting. You can find links to my other work here: https://linktr.ee/sayde.scarlett
