In politics right now, almost nobody is actually choosing a side; 90% of us are choosing a delaying tactic, waiting for a sane-seeming viable position to emerge, and in the meantime uncomfortably signaling *against* the most insane seeming position among the one available. You’ll notice that most people are far more comfortable attacking either right or left than defending or justifying either. Ie it’s “attack wokeism and stay studiously noncommittal on fascism” or “attack fascism and stay studiously quiet on wokeism.”

The 9% who defend an explicitly adopted side mostly sound either clueless enough or grifty enough to ignore. The 1% people who need to be taken seriously and also adopt primarily positive and public defenses of right or left, with attacking the opposition being a secondary priority, are serious only to the extent they are powerful. Not because their positive vision of their “side” is coherent.

Dunno if this is a gloomy thought or a positive one though.

Blogger at ribbonfarm.com, running summerofprotocols.com, host of /gloom ☀️

It’s a very gloomy and oppressive atmosphere. Almost no one with nuanced views are saying what they actually think because of varying combinations of precarity and strategic sycophancy.

Healthy tech Pyrrhonist. Maker of arbtr.com. Écoconceptionsplainer.