The Nihilism of the Democrats

The Democrats are obsessed with - and addicted to - apocalypse porn.

If the Democrats want to be the party of the future, it is probably a bad idea to keep telling our young, the suggestable, and those prone to paranoia (e.g. The Democrat Party) that there isn’t going to be one - which they have been doing for over half a century.

Since the late 1960’s, the progressive left in America has been gripped by a peculiar nihilism, one that cloaks itself in moral urgency but betrays a deep-seated despair about humanity’s future. Up to today, their predictions of apocalyptic doom - overpopulation, global cooling, acid rain, ozone depletion, peak oil, Y2K, and climate tipping points - have consistently failed to materialize as foretold. This pattern reveals not just flawed forecasting but a worldview that thrives on catastrophe, undermining faith in human resilience and progress.

In 1968, Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb warned that billions would starve by the 1980s due to overpopulation. The progressive left embraced this grim vision, advocating drastic population controls. Yet, the Green Revolution and technological advances boosted food production, averting mass famine. In the 1970s, fears of a new ice age, fueled by media like Newsweek’s “The Cooling World,” suggested industrial pollution would freeze the planet. By the 1980s, the narrative flipped to global warming, with Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth (2006) predicting Arctic ice would vanish by 2013. The ice persists, and coastal cities remain above water, despite dire claims of imminent submersion.

The 1980s brought panic over acid rain, with warnings of collapsing ecosystems. Regulatory action mitigated the issue, and forests recovered. Ozone depletion fears, while grounded in real science, spurred apocalyptic visions of UV-ravaged humanity. The Montreal Protocol curbed CFCs, and the ozone layer is healing. Peak oil, heralded by the Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth (1972), predicted economic collapse by the 2000s. Fracking and renewables defied this, keeping resources abundant. Even Y2K, amplified by progressive alarmists, passed with barely a hiccup thanks to proactive fixes.

This litany of unfulfilled prophecies exposes a nihilistic streak in progressive ideology. Each prediction assumes humanity is too frail or wicked to adapt, innovate, or solve problems. The left’s fixation on doomsday scenarios dismisses the ingenuity that has repeatedly defied their grim timelines. This isn’t mere caution - it’s a rejection of hope, a belief that collapse is inevitable unless society submits to radical upheaval. Such nihilism erodes trust in progress, casting every challenge as an existential threat requiring authoritarian solutions.

Climate change, the left’s current apocalyptic banner, follows this pattern. While warming is real (and evidence of anthropological causes scarce), exaggerated claims - like islands vanishing by 2020 or mass crop failures by the 2010s - have not come true. Yet, the rhetoric persists, framing dissent as denial and demanding sweeping societal control. This reflects not just fear but a deeper despair: a conviction that humanity’s flaws doom it to self-destruction. By painting every issue as a prelude to annihilation, the progressive left drains meaning from genuine problem-solving, replacing it with fatalism dressed as activism.

This nihilism has consequences. It alienates people who see through the hyperbole, fostering skepticism toward legitimate concerns. It demoralizes the young, who are told their future is stolen. It diverts resources from practical solutions - like nuclear energy or adaptive infrastructure - to symbolic gestures that prioritize ideology over impact. Worst of all, it undermines the truth that humans have always faced daunting challenges and overcome them through creativity and cooperation.

The progressive left could break this cycle by embracing a vision of possibility. Instead of apocalyptic ultimatums, they could champion innovation - clean energy breakthroughs, resilient agriculture, or global collaboration. They could celebrate humanity’s capacity to adapt rather than condemn its existence. But this requires abandoning the nihilistic thrill of impending doom, a comfort zone where moral superiority trumps practical hope.

In the end, the left’s apocalyptic obsession reveals a paradox: they claim to fight for humanity’s survival while doubting its worth. They claim to be concerned about your future when their hysteria says you don’t have a future.

True progress lies in rejecting this lunacy and despair, recognizing that our flaws are matched by our potential. The world isn’t ending - not by overpopulation, ice ages, or melting glaciers. It’s evolving, as it always has, through human grit and ingenuity. The sooner the progressive left trades nihilism for optimism, the sooner they can inspire real change instead of preaching sermons for a world they’ve already written off.