Why I Don't Criticize Right-Wing Politics

Introduction

I was speaking to my wife the other day about politics. I don’t remember the exact topic, but at one point she asked me why I don’t ever complain about right-wing politics.

Her question was motivated by concern that I might be turning into a capital “C” conservative, which made me realize that from an outside perspective it does kind of look like I’m on track to become one; I mean, I even wrote a post called “the chuddening”.

Although the title was tongue-in-cheek, the content itself was not. I have moderated on different social and economic issues (and technological in the case of AI). This is due to several factors:

1. Getting older
2. Becoming more politically informed
3. A better understanding of money and the economy
4. Being more settled in my transition as a trans man
5. Seeing the rhetoric that circulates online for what it really is¹
6. Spending time in political spaces dedicated solely to centrism (i.e., I escaped leftist echo chambers and avoided their right-wing counterparts²)

None of these things on their own made me moderate, but they all contributed toward the realization that material gains of any sort—political, social, cultural, or economic—are based on what is practical and pragmatic, not praxis.

That’s a whole post in of itself. I won’t go into much depth here, but it is something that I feel strongly about in terms of ideology and how I perceive popular political issues. For example:

At the start of the year I was at least skeptical of AI and inclined toward disapproval; after learning more about it and using LLMs myself, I’m a huge proponent.³ It is amazing what happens when you disengage from popular rhetoric and see something for yourself.

Personal opinions should be just that—derived from personal experience, not popular culture or public sentiment. Furthermore, political opinions mustn’t influence non-political beliefs.

Despite retracting from the left, I am still a vegan, Mahayana Buddhist, environmentalist, minimalist, concerned trans man, and liberal. The only thing that changed is that I learned to judge policies by their demonstrable effects over how they make me feel personally.

The (Trans) Canary in the (Populist) Coal Mine

This process of moderation began many years ago when trans discourse exploded online. As rhetoric grew more extreme, abstract, and intellectualized, it became clear to me that mainstream trans philosophy no longer aligned with my own beliefs or experiences.⁴ The focus shifted from cultural acceptance to counterculture dissent; from legal activism to purity tests; from identity informed by transition to identity politics informed by semantics—all of these being mechanisms of far-left ideology.⁵

The trans community was not the only victim of this “political degradation”, and by recognizing it in my own community I was able to start seeing it elsewhere. Various social, political, and cultural groups historically considered “liberal” were likewise redesigned by leftist intellectuals.

While the most vocal changes occurred within the LGBT community, similar schisms happened in feminism and racial justice. The same can be said of traditional conservatism, which fell victim to MAGA.

Populism had arrived.

What is Populism?

To understand my political grievances you need to understand populism. Populism is a form of politics that has existed forever; historic examples within the US include the policies of presidents Andrew Jackson and FDR.

In the simplest of terms, populism divides society into two groups: the “elite”, a morally-repugnant ruling class from which all societal ills originate, and everyone else. Policymakers, activists, and intellectuals all position themselves as working against the elite in favor of the common man. If we can overcome the elite and dismantle their influence everything will be magically solved.

Populism is devoid of ideology in itself; it just provides a very effective framework for ideology. And that’s what makes it so dangerous: you can retrofit any political position you want.

It is now seeing a major resurgence as algorithmic social media inundates the public consciousness. Conspiratorial thinking, distrust in public institutions, disintegrating social fabric, and economic upsets can all be funneled by into a populist framework.

The moralistic angle is especially damning. Populists consider the in-group morally legitimate by merit of its stance against the out-group. It is very much an “if you aren’t with us you’re against us” outlook. Except in this case it’s more like “if you aren’t with us you’re a terrible human being and directly complicit in [insert sociopolitical greviance here].”

Trump and Sanders: Two Sides of the Same Coin

Donald Trump is a populist figure. So is Bernie Sanders. They both position themselves as righteous ideologues championing the common man.

Trump advocates against multinational globalist institutions like NATO; he riles up his base with attacks against immigrants, LGBT rights, and women’s rights. If we “drain the swamp” and “build the wall”⁶ and send ICE into every city across the country, finally will America be great again.

Sanders campaigns against billionaires⁷ and capitalism; he riles up his base with “anti-oligarchy” rallies and policy daydreams like Medicare-for-All. If we just vote out the establishment Dems and remake the party in his image (despite not being a Democrat himself), finally will we be able to destroy capitalism and achieve parity with democratic socialist ideals.

By no means am I saying that Sanders is just as “bad” as Trump or that Trump is as “good” as Sanders. Trump is obviously existentially dangerous to American politics and global politics. As a trans man in an international, long distance marriage, his administration has directly made my life worse.

But I do believe that Sanders plays by the same rules as Trump in that they are both charismatic populist figures, and Sanders’ policies are just as ill-advised if not outwardly violent or cruel.

I don’t like either of them. But Trump is obviously worse than Sanders—and the problem with this comparison is just that: far-right populism is obviously worse than far-left populism.

Far-Right versus Far-Left Populism

Let me repeat that: far-right populism is obviously worse than far-left populism.

Far-right populism is more of an old-school populism. It is the same playbook that’s been used against minorities and political institutions since forever. It is violent, xenophobic, sexist, homophobic/transphobic, and racially motivated; its bedrock is compromised of white supremacy and Christian-nationalism.

I am not a violent person. I’d like to believe that I am neither racist, sexist, or any other form of prejudiced. I am also not an extremist Christian or a nationalist.⁸

I am firmly center-left. Or, in other terms, I am to the left of everything right, which includes the center-right, true center, center-left, and beyond. But modern politics—or more specifically, modern populism—has done away with any sort of ideological spectrum or gradient.

As the saying goes: “If you aren’t with us, you’re against us.” An inverse polemic can be derived from the same logic: “If you’re against them, that means you’re with us.” It is easy to critique far-right politics because my only real response is “no” to everything; by being critical of the right-wing, I am assumed to be aligned with the left-wing. In fact, the only valid and moral option outside of the right is The Left and all of its maximalist positions.

As time goes on and populism gains more traction, traditional liberals are being squeezed out of political spaces. We are too socially liberal for the right-wing and too fiscally conservative for the left-wing. Ideologically, our positions sit at the margins of most debates, well below the minimum temperature for inflammatory histrionics. Because of this, I believe it is important to differentiate myself from Leftism with a capital “L”.

An Illustration of Leftist Populism and Its Inherent Risks

Leftism has been around as long as any other form of populism, only more surreptitious. This makes it all the more insidious and deserving of being called out.

It cloaks itself in liberal causes and uses liberal sympathies to forward extreme ideas. Far-left ideologues are granted entry to liberal platforms due to shared concerns, whereupon they distort existing liberal ideas to their maximal leftist conclusions (see: the DSA’s recent efforts in Democratic primaries⁹).

Economic downfall becomes an excuse for socialism and communism; social issues devolve into identity-based grievance politics; disagreements with foreign policy mutate into an overall hatred of the Western world, especially America.

All of these frustrations then snowball into what has become known as the “Omnicause”: an ever-increasing set of political causes wherein support of one cause requires carrying the banners for them all. Additionally, the ontology behind one domain of politics hinges on all the rest.

For an illustration of leftist-populist, “Omnicause” reasoning, consider this quote from “Biopower and the medicalization of gender-variance: A foucauldian analysis of trans subjectivity” by Kinnon Ross MacKinnon, a trans social scientist:

Through this discussion of the processes whereby gender variance has become medicalized, it has been suggested that anatomopolitical and biopolitical matrices of hegemonic powers are insistent on disciplining and regulating non-normative bodies for the purpose of maintaining a naturalized sex/gender/sexuality systemic ordering for human population growth. Bodies that transgress this system present a threat to species propagation, and are therefore coaxed into a normative dualistic system of male/female to maintain social order.

If you need help deciphering this, allow me to break it down for you.

MacKinnon is suggesting that the process by which gender dysphoria is diagnosed and treated is a mechanism of hegemonic oppression from prevailing societal elites, e.g. cisgender heterosexuals. Sound familiar yet?

According to this interpretation, gender-affirming medical care is necessarily problematic due to how it “enforces” the male/female sex binary. Said enforcement is considered an extension of population control and reproductive mandates—insofar as wrongly-sexed bodies, through medical intervention, can successfully emulate the normative ideal for either sex.

Such “anatomopolitical” incursions preserve the standing “social order”, which in turn perpetuates multifarious evils such as imperialism, colonialism, racism, sexism, capitalism, etc. Trans people who “buy in” to the medical interpretation of dysphoria are either coerced or complicit in such systems and need to be ideologically liberated from this harmful method of self-classification.

Never mind the fact that cross-sex identification and transition has a social, biological, psychological, and neurological basis. Or that legal protection for medical care requires medical justification.

Throw all of that out the window—transsexual pathology is not a legitimate medical discourse seeking to treat a psycho-sexual misalignment; it is method of subjugation imposed by faceless dominant powers and special interest groups.¹⁰

The point I’m trying to make is that hidden beneath most leftist theory is covert populism. This specific example rests upon Foucault’s titular theory of “biopolitics”, whereby the Victorian aristocracy stipulated normative sexuality as a form of state control. This precedent determined modern sexual norms, which are currently propagated by our contemporary authorities.

Michel Foucault was a member of the post-structuralist movement, which arose in response to the idea that relative culture is determined by conventional “structures” of linguistics and meaning. Post-structuralists argued that convention is merely a hegemonic invention; its sole purpose is to ensure societal control, and its substance is derived from this aim. I would even go as far to say that post-structuralism is an “articulated” form of populism.

For the record, Foucault contributed age of consent laws as examples of such “societal control”, defended adults having sex with minors, and argued against the systemic classification of pedophilia in his analysis of sexual perversions. He likewise attempted to advocate on behalf of homosexuals using the same logic. Thankfully we managed to secure gay rights without decriminalizing underage sex!

This man’s philosophy underpins the bulk of modern queer theory which informs current trans politics.¹¹ By making that connection, I am not arguing that trans leftism somehow normalizes sexual abuse against minors. But the progenitor of its philosophical foundation certainly did. Although some theorists attempt to intellectualize away these troubling conclusions of his reasoning, I cannot afford the same leniency.¹²

It is not just that populism obfuscates; it also encourages a minimum level of permissibility. Bad faith actors, harmful rhetoric, and downright terrible ideas are allowed so long as they prop up the preferred narrative.

If not for their utility in fashioning leftist rhetoric, perhaps Foucault’s theories would’ve been discarded by queer intellectuals long ago.

TLDR;

In short, I don’t comment on far-right politics because I was never aligned with the right to begin with. I am more concerned with the left and how it is being radicalized by its fringe inhabitants, who are interfering in causes and communities that are immediately relevant to me.

It is true that far-left populism is not as obviously bad as far-right populism. But its policies and theories are just as bad pragmatically; in effect, it encourages the same widespread adoption of a one-dimensional ideological outlook. Therefore, it is equally as harmful as the far-right.

We are rapidly approaching a political era defined by extremes. As a staunch liberal I feel like a field medic running around trying to stem the bleed from every direction. It would be impossible to rectify the situation on my own, but salvaging any arm of policy—and, more importantly, inspiring at least one person to reexamine their political instincts as I have mine—is worth the effort alone.

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Postscript

My blog posts (and notebook entries for that matter) now have likes and comments courtesy of Widget Star. Please feel free to leave comments; I’m always willing to discuss this stuff in good faith.

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Footnotes

Footnotes

1. I stopped going to social media for news and started reading longform articles from sources I had never considered before, like The National Review (a non-MAGA conservative editorial), The Atlantic (probably the last-standing center-left publication in America), and The Economist (a neoliberal magazine headquartered in the UK). ↩

2. I also stopped going on Tumblr several years ago, and Reddit more recently. ↩

3. I have another blog post in the works about how, when, and why I personally use AI, and how LLMs differ from popular misconceptions in reality. ↩

4. See my blog post, “In Defense of FTM,” for more on my trans political opinions. ↩

5. I feel qualified to speak on this as a trans man who witnessed the rise and fall of Tumblr’s peak from 2011-2018. ↩

6. It feels almost quaint to recall these slogans from his first term, considering how things have progressed since. ↩

7. Millionaires were previously included, until he became one himself. ↩

8. Which is not to say that I’m not patriotic—quite the contrary! ↩

9. “Many DSA members first arrive angry about a landlord, a hospital bill, student debt, or a war overseas. By connecting all of those problems to one larger one—the rapid concentration of wealth and power—DSA has given those frustrations a home and a vocabulary, and, increasingly, a way to organize around them.” This is literally textbook populism! ↩

10. Now that I mention it, this is eerily reminiscent of the far-right’s definition of gender-affirming care too. ↩

11. Via Foucault → Lacan → Butler. ↩

12. This entire “debate” calls into question post-structuralist queer theory’s principle of “transgressive” sexuality and gender being inherently liberatory, as opposed to the normative which is inherently opressive. But I’ll save that topic for future research. ↩

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#2026 #artificial-intelligence #philosophy #politics #queer-theory #thoughts #trans #transsexuality

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