All About Nothing
The Democrat Party has evolved into a a collection of boutique movements about nothing.
A few months ago, I posited the first question that should be asked about anything in the news today is this: “Who benefits?”
That is an important question to ask because it reveals the motivating force behind the action and helps explain why it is being done.
Of course, closely following that question, if not its equal, is this question: “What is the benefit?”
I’ve been thinking about that question in the context of all the “spirit of the age” movements from Obama’s deathbed conversion on gay marriage in 2012 (after opposing it his entire political career) to all the other small “boutique” movements specializing in trendy, fashionable beliefs such as BLM, ANTIFA, Women’s March, March for Our Lives, and the current transgender movement.
“Boutique” seems an accurate terminology since it implies an exclusive set of beliefs targeted toward a very exclusive, select group of like-minded consumers of ideas.
We know the “who”, that is obviously the left and their current avatar, the Democrat Party, but the “what” is unclear.
What is it that our society and culture have gained from any of these boutique movements?
Most of the “benefits”, such as they are, seem to accrete only to the members of these small movements themselves without imparting a wider benefit to the entirety of society and culture.
For example, it is difficult to assign any benefit to most Americans that could be gleaned through early childhood sexual indoctrination. I’m not seeing how being inculcated in the transgenderist arts advances the human condition overall, especially since something like 80 percent of those who claim to be transgender before they turn eighteen ultimately revert to their biological sex.
What about ANTIFA? BLM?
Have the efforts of either had a widespread impact on society, changing viewpoints or behaviors, or has their reach been limited to their own relatively small number of members?
I understand this might be difficult to express in any quantifiable way, but I’m not seeing a qualitative cultural shift due to either of these “movements”.
That is why the DIE agenda (Diversity, Inclusion and Equity) and the other boutique movements are less of real “movements” and more of concerted exercises in sloganeering.
The boutique movements I mentioned earlier are all supportive of the Democrats’ leftist agenda, but similar movement can also be used as weapons.
So-called white supremacists and UltraMAGA (at least the way Biden’s focus group defined them - as QAnon shaman followers) are boutique movements by any definition.
As a brief aside, I dig the UltraMAGA tag. I think it is awesome. It is like something out of a Japanese giant robot comic book. Inigo Montoya might as well have been talking to President Biden when he said, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
The fact remains that one would be hard pressed to find enough white supremacists to fill an average SEC football stadium. The same with the QAnon believing UltraMAGA folks – I’m a lifelong conservative with a pretty solid internet presence, and until October of 2020 I had never heard of QAnon. I would guess there are as many Democrats defined UltraMAGAs as there are Mighty Morphing Power Rangers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles combined.
How much impact and influence do white supremacists and the QAnon UltraMAGA variant have on the conservative/Republican agenda and culture?
It might not be all the way to zero, but it approaches it.
In the end, Democrat affinity or reference of these movement are simply performative, perfunctory and plot devices. In Shakespearean terms - sound and fury, signifying nothing.
So, in essence the entire Democrat agenda is little more than episodes of Seinfeld on perpetual repeat. The Democrats, a party that once stood for something, are now political party consisting of a collection of boutique movements about nothing.
Doesn’t it seem America is going through a lot of pain for no real reason or return?
A scenario where no one benefits seems counterproductive and a waste of our valuable time and resources. To paraphrase an expression adopted by the feminist movement (which has become another boutique movement), “Nevertheless, they persisted”.
I’m reminded of something Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote in “Crime and Punishment”:
“Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing.”
I wouldn't say Democrats' energy policy is about nothing. It's about something all right - it's about dragging us back into the Stone Age.
The fact remains that one would be hard pressed to find enough white supremacists to fill an average Ivy League football stadium, and the Seinfeld episode involves the Soup Nazi withholding from anyone insufficiently progressive. Maybe Wilson would not be served.