{"id":17032,"date":"2022-04-18T09:31:21","date_gmt":"2022-04-18T16:31:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=17032"},"modified":"2022-04-18T09:31:21","modified_gmt":"2022-04-18T16:31:21","slug":"my-sna-visible-minorities-33-why-progressives-keep-losing-short-answer-because-they-alienate-their-own-allies-april-18-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=17032","title":{"rendered":"My SNA Visible Minorities 33: “Why Progressives keep losing” (short answer: because they alienate their own allies), April 18, 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Hi Blog. \u00a0My most recent SNA column is a think-pied about how the Left keeps losing out to the Right. Because working with the Left is like herding cats. \u00a0Enjoy. \u00a0Debito Arudou, Ph.D.<\/p>\n

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/<\/p>\n

Visible Minorities: Why Progressives Keep Losing<\/strong><\/p>\n

Shingetsu News Agency, April 18, 2022<\/strong><\/p>\n

SNA (Tokyo) — Shingetsu News Agency President Michael Penn wrote about my previous column:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cDebito found a way to provoke them again, and I must say that I don\u2019t understand the way a lot of people think these days. Those who read the article and interacted with what was written tended to say on social media that they largely agreed with it. But there was a more vocal cohort who, not really disagreeing with any specific arguments made, were outraged on the basis that Debito, a white man, had dared to give any advice to Naomi Osaka<\/a>. Apparently, we are now supposed to live self-contained within our own little tribal identities, and universal humanity is no longer recognized as sufficient grounds to express an opinion, even for a news columnist whose job is to comment on public affairs.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There\u2019s a lesson here.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Yale historian Timothy Snyder said recently in a television interview, \u201cThe Left loses for the right reasons; the Right wins for the wrong reasons.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the reasons why the Left, particularly the Progressives who have not enjoyed much power worldwide for more than a century, keeps losing is because of their fractiousness.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Just as soon as they gain an advantage or start making headway in the policy arena, they lose focus and begin turning on themselves. They alienate natural allies because they are not ideologically pure enough, or worse yet, as seen above, the wrong skin color.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Granted, the Left has always had a tougher time mobilizing people than the Right. To paraphrase Bill Clinton, the Left wants leaders they can fall in love with, while the Right wants leaders they can fall in line with.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s unpack that. Voices from the Left are discordant and diverse, and expectations are high and sometimes uncompromising. It\u2019s also a lot tougher for a Leftist leader to gain and sustain the \u201clove\u201d of their supporters since, no matter what else happens, there will always be winners and losers with every decision they make.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But for Rightists, it\u2019s a lot easier to \u201cfall in line\u201d behind an ideological camp whose basic organizing principle is money (and the shameless acquisition of it). And once they gain enough of it, money in itself not only buys power, but also, oddly enough, credibility. […] Sadly, that\u2019s why the Right understands power better…<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But that\u2019s Right vs. Left. Now let\u2019s talk about Left vs. Left, and how they undermine themselves…<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Read whole column at https:\/\/shingetsunewsagency.com\/2022\/04\/18\/visible-minorities-why-progressives-keep-losing\/\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

======================
\nDo you like what you read on Debito.org? \u00a0Want to help keep the archive active and support Debito.org’s activities? \u00a0Please consider donating a little something. \u00a0More details here<\/a>. Or if you prefer something less complicated, just click on an advertisement below.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SNA VM 33: Yale historian Timothy Snyder said recently in a television interview, \u201cThe Left loses for the right reasons; the Right wins for the wrong reasons.\u201d One of the reasons why the Left, particularly the Progressives who have not enjoyed much power worldwide for more than a century, keeps losing is because of their fractiousness.<\/p>\n

Just as soon as they gain an advantage or start making headway in the policy arena, they lose focus and begin turning on themselves. They alienate natural allies because they are not ideologically pure enough, or worse yet, as seen in critics of my columns [who claim that I have no standing to talk about racial discrimination in Japan or anywhere because I’m White], the wrong skin color.<\/p>\n

Granted, the Left has always had a tougher time mobilizing people than the Right. To paraphrase Bill Clinton, the Left wants leaders they can fall in love with, while the Right wants leaders they can fall in line with.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s unpack that. Voices from the Left are discordant and diverse, and expectations are high and sometimes uncompromising. It\u2019s also a lot tougher for a Leftist leader to gain and sustain the \u201clove\u201d of their supporters since, no matter what else happens, there will always be winners and losers with every decision they make. But for Rightists, it\u2019s a lot easier to \u201cfall in line\u201d behind an ideological camp whose basic organizing principle is money (and the shameless acquisition of it). And once they gain enough of it, money in itself not only buys power, but also, oddly enough, credibility. […] Sadly, that\u2019s why the Right understands power better…<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s Right vs. Left. Now let\u2019s talk about Left vs. Left, and how they undermine themselves…
\nRead whole column at https:\/\/shingetsunewsagency.com\/2022\/04\/18\/visible-minorities-why-progressives-keep-losing\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,18,36,22,34,26,13,60,46,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-embedded-racism","category-academia","category-bad-social-science","category-cultural-issue","category-exclusionism","category-ironies-hypocrisies","category-media","category-nj-voices-ignored","category-practical-advice","category-shoe-on-the-other-foot-dept"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17032"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17035,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17032\/revisions\/17035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}