Calculated Confessions

One of the more frustrating (or infuriating) aspects of the New Left is its tendency to subordinate all goods to that of the activist cause.

The Cultural Marxist agenda, which had until recently lay beneath the surface of its politics, has been willing to set aside the sanctity of the person, the family, the church, and even the separation of governmental powers, in order to advance its ends.  The result is a growth in sentimentalism about individual choice that would make Ayn Rand blush, and it would be recognized as such were it not for being cloaked in the tribalist idea of identity group politics.

The two things necessary to advance its cause are the appearance of virtue on its side, of fighting for the disadvantaged and marginalized in the name of ‘social justice’, and the strong sense of the hypocrisy of the establishment.

Both were necessary in order to advance the Sexual Revolution.

In the Renaissance, this sort of politics appealing to virtue (without any principled commitment to it) was connected to an Italian political theorist by the name of Macchiavelli.  He was reviled by Shakespeare, among others.

The growing contagion of sexual assaults and allegations of abuse in Hollywood following the Harvey Weinstein revelations, which includes every vulnerable minority that the New Left ‘protects’, reveals a culture of depravity and hypocrisy so rampant and sordid that it is difficult to know which should produce the greater indignation.

Make no mistake however, it is the progressive political forces that have most identified themselves with advancing women’s rights (for political gain) that are most strongly implicated in the abuse.

The recent decision amongst the journals of the progressive establishment, e.g. The Atlantic and The New York Times to throw ex-President William Jefferson Clinton under the bus for his own Weinsteinian history.

It wasn’t because of his long history of propositioning women (Paula Jones, 1991); or affairs (Gennifer Flowers, 1980s); or advances in the Oval Office (Kathleen Willey, 1993). Or sexual exploitation of an underling (Monica Lewinsky, 1995-96).  It was because they finally believed Juanita Broaddrick, who has since 1999 claimed that Clinton violently raped her in 1978, back when he was Arkansas attorney general.

For the flagship publications of the New Left to declare that Broaddrick’s claim should be believed decades after the fact isn’t a demonstration of sincerity.  It is simply another layer of hypocrisy.

It is a sign that the Clintons are no longer useful to the cause.  But it is more than that.  It is a decision that they have one final use: to be jettisoned as an expression of sincere moral conviction, a moral high ground needed to attack Roy Moore and Donald Trump.

I would welcome a return to such convictions, if they were sincere.  So long as they are wedded to identity-group politics, I cannot, and nor should anyone else.

Read the full article in PJ Media