Everyone reading this has heard someone say, “Fake it until you make it.”
That concept stems from the work of brilliant psychologists such as William James and Alfred Adler. The idea is that if you act AS IF you have traits like confidence or bravery long enough, you will start actually to embody them. This can be true.
In fact, I’ve told people struggling to handle a situation to try to envision themselves acting like someone they admire in that situation. For example, if you’re a young conservative woman who admires Sydney Sweeney or Sophie Cunningham and you’re struggling to talk to people at a conference, try to behave like you imagine they would in the same situation. Suddenly you may find yourself chatting easily with anyone you’re interested in. Next thing you know, you don’t have to imagine that you’re outgoing anymore. You now possess the ability to be outgoing any time you want because you’ve done it, you’ve felt it, and you’ve experienced it.
On the other hand, this advice can be a double-edged sword, leading you to behave in unhealthy ways.
The world is full of people who appear prosperous but are actually buried in debt because they’re buying all sorts of things they can’t afford to appear as if they’re rolling in money. There are people struggling with “imposter syndrome.” They faked it, they know they faked it, and they don’t know if they’ll ever really make it. There are also people playing a character, not their authentic self, and they wonder if they’ll ever be appreciated or loved for who they really are.
But when this concept is applied to politics, two other big problems become apparent, and this tweet touches on them:
Back when my once “top 10,000 in the world” website was just a blog with 15,000 readers per day, one of the things I used to do was post the crazier ideas from liberal forums. It made for great content, but some people called it “nut picking.”
By that, they meant I was choosing nutty comments and portraying them as mainstream on the Left. Except, guess what I saw over and over and over? The craziest ideas you’d run across on these forums would creep into the mainstream on the Left within a few years of appearing there.
Why is that?
Because liberals incessantly compete with each other to see who’s most liberal, “caring,” “sensitive,” dedicated to the cause, and anti-conservative. Unlike in the real world, where competition usually has real costs, online competition just revolves around saying things. In other words, it’s performative; it’s “fake it until you make it,” and if there’s no pushback, people are inevitably going to get progressively more insane over time because there is no cost to going further and further.
For example, imagine if our military highly rewarded aggressiveness above all else, the most aggressive people got promoted and celebrated, and it was considered impermissible to ever push back against an aggressive idea. In ten years, we’d have soldiers putting babies on spears, and the generals would be advocating nuking all of Canada’s cities and enslaving Canadians.
Well, the equivalent of that is what has happened on the Left over the last couple of decades as anyone who goes even a few steps out of line on key issues gets pushed out of the party (See Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, J.K. Rowling, Tulsi Gabbard, RFK Jr., Bari Weiss, Matt Taibi, Dave Rubin, etc.) and every idea, no matter how batsh*t crazy, gets treated as worth defending as long as conservatives don’t like it.
Drag queens doing sexy dances for kids? Sure! Openly calling for genocide against Israel? Why not? Publicly celebrating Charlie Kirk’s murder? Why shouldn’t a teacher be able to do that?
All the people who knew better in the Democratic Party essentially went right along with all of this lunacy. But now there are more openly socialist candidates who are even more toxically radical, running for office and calling for crazy things.
Democrats like Rahm Emmanuel claim they don’t like that:
First of all, as a starting point, if you don’t believe in deporting people who are here illegally, then you believe in open borders. You can’t say that you’re against open borders, but if people cross illegally, they can stay as long as they want. That is open borders by default.
It’s also true that Jeffries didn’t support defunding the police, but among other prominent Democrats who did openly call for defunding the police or, the nicer way of saying it, “reimagining” the police — their numbers included Kamala Harris, AOC, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Nancy Pelosi, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar.
Also, although Jeffries doesn’t believe in abolishing the Senate, he does believe in getting rid of the Senate filibuster for legislation, which is such a radical idea that it would almost certainly lead to the end of America as a Republic and an attempt to make America into a one-party state.
This is the other problem with so many old Democratic hands giving silent nods to radicals. Yes, they’re supposedly worried about the radicalism of these candidates, but in the process of enabling the loons in their base, their own views have had to become extraordinarily radical as well. Why? Well, it’s like the quote says.
Furthermore, the fact of the matter is that these Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) candidates are receiving funding and support from the Democratic Party, while their voters make up the backbone of that support. In other words, what’s the difference between Hakeem Jeffries, Zohran Mamdani, Elizabeth Warren, AOC, Hasan Piker, Nanci Pelosi, Bernie Sanders, and Kamala Harris?
As a practical matter, NOTHING.
They’re on the same team, and if there’s a chance of passing it, they’ll support the same policies. So, socialism? Performative socialism? Maybe once, there really was a difference. Today? Not so much. They’re all now leaves on the same rotting tree.
It's true, especially if gaining power is your true principle. Because like in Animal Farm, or Atlas Shrugged, even though the outcome will ultimately destroy the farm or the country, you hope to win simply by getting the most power for yourself. Or in the case of today's Democrats, by stopping Trump and MAGA. So even though Socialism never works, is deranged and debased, it has become their path to power. When you see the nasty Chuck U Schumer looking like he sucked on a lemon, you still know that he will not revolt because it would cost him personally, and to hell with America anyways. Like my parents always say; "What was so great about America anyways?" Thanks for posting this essay, John