Social media places a priority on joining. Not merely a particular platform, such as Twitter or Facebook, but the movements generated on them. Most of them, I prefer not to get behind. I’m really not much of a joiner. But every once in a while, there rises a tide so irresistible that I get swept along.
As I stated earlier on these pages, I have chosen to sit out the #MeToo craze. Though it had some validity, it has quickly become exactly that: crazy. Instead of providing a forum for women to stand up for themselves against lecherous brutes, it’s degenerated into a man-hating witch (or wizard) hunt. When it stopped making sense, I had to disassociate myself from it.
Then I discovered #WalkAway, the brainchild of a gay New York City hairdresser named Brandon Straka. This young man has become the unlikeliest of conservative heroes. Having been a liberal Democrat most of his adult life, he grew disillusioned with being treated like a slave on the “progressive” plantation. And in his exodus to freedom, he’s determined to bring as many other former slaves as possible along with him.
We’re tired of being told what to think and how to feel. Of being pandered to, then taken for granted.
Having listened to his YouTube video and read several of his interviews, I find myself agreeing with nearly everything Straka says. Actually, much of what he says, I have already been saying for a long time. No longer do I feel as if I were shouting into a vacuum. Though I’m a very libertarian conservative — actually more of a classical liberal — I have found a kindred spirit. And in the movement Straka has begun, I’ve joined a growing army of thousands more.
We’re tired of being told what to think and how to feel. Of being pandered to, then taken for granted. Of voting for people who do nothing for us. In fact, of being expected to support a political faction that — far worse than merely doing nothing — works against every cause it claims to support. As many in our ranks have observed, it isn’t so much that we have left the Left as that the Left has left us.
Like most of the others who have walked away from the regressive Left, I have values and core convictions that really haven’t changed. I still believe in equality — though I now realize that only equality of opportunity is achievable, whereas equality of outcome is impossible. As a lesbian, I still hold dear the principle of equal treatment for all under the law — though I reject identity politics and special favoritism. My conception of religious freedom is not narrower than that of social conservatives, but broader still. Both as a gay conservative and as a gay Christian, I refuse to leave unchallenged the lie — perpetuated by many on both Left and Right — that I do not exist, or that my conservatism or Christianity are any less real than anyone else’s.
It isn’t so much that we have left the Left as that the Left has left us.
This is not, it seems to me, a simple matter of “Left bad, Right good.” The seeds of both salvation and destruction can be found on both sides. What makes both sides dangerous — particularly in their big league political party forms — is their insatiable lust for power. Taken to its inevitable conclusion, that drive leads to totalitarian government and to enslavement of the human spirit.
I have changed my party affiliation from Democratic not to Republican, but to Libertarian. The fact that all the GOP has figured out for certain is how to win elections isn’t nearly enough to make me want to join that party. As a matter of fact, it’s one of the reasons why I don’t want to join them. Regardless of party label, however, I believe that when the best and brightest defect from Left to Right, it will only improve both conservatism and libertarianism.
Leaving the statist Left behind means departing from a narrow perspective into a broader universe of ideas. I’ve found, from others’ experience as well as my own, that it seldom means hopping from one tiny rock to another. The Left’s loss is a gain for the rest of the spectrum.
What makes both sides dangerous — particularly in their big league political party forms — is their insatiable lust for power.
If the only way to fight statist leftism is to totally defeat everyone who supports it, the political Right will fall (to an even wore degree than it already has) into corruption and decay. A struggle for power inevitably turns into a race to the bottom. Those who dream of total conquest wish to rule unchecked and unopposed. If, on the other hand, the Right is replenished with defectors from the other side, it will become stronger. It will also be improved in ways that, despite their necessity for its long-term survival, it would otherwise be disinclined to approve.
Any political movement that abandons its own principles deserves to die. Both liberals and conservatives — the genuine sort — are necessary to a healthy society, so we can’t afford to let either die. Those who walk away from modern liberalism are its only hope. And because we will hold the Right to actual standards, we may also be its best hope of survival.
