It’s not every day we write about a thread from a self-proclaimed Progressive Democrat and we’re NOT making fun of them. But this thread from Ben Yelin about the ‘funny pattern’ emerging on the Left when it comes to acceptance of inconvenient facts is pretty damn good.
And honest.
Again, not something we see every day on Twitter SO you know we had to share it with you, dear reader:
A kind of funny pattern has emerged as it relates to liberal acceptance of inconvenient facts.
First, there is widespread denial of the alleged problem. The only ones raising the issue are bad-faith right-wingers!
— Ben Yelin (@byelin) November 10, 2021
Keep going.
Trust us.
Then, one EXTREMELY annoying person who is vaguely associated with the left (Carville, Larry Summers) will say “liberals need to take this problem seriously.”
— Ben Yelin (@byelin) November 10, 2021
Carville is extremely annoying.
See? We agree!
It gets better.
Then the political indicators start to show that this thing is actually a problem. First, it’s polls. Then it is a bad election result or two. Now the frustration is that this right-wing BS talking point has gone mainstream.
— Ben Yelin (@byelin) November 10, 2021
And by going mainstream people realize there is some reality behind it.
Yup.
At this point, the Professional Center-Left Contrarians come in (thinking @mattyglesias and @jonathanchait) to tell us we really do need to start taking this problem seriously. It’s not just right-wing BS.
— Ben Yelin (@byelin) November 10, 2021
Whoda thunk, right?
That convinces maybe half of Twitter (myself included) to grudgingly admit that the problem exists, but also be extremely annoyed at having to give credit to the legitimately awful people who were right in the first place.
— Ben Yelin (@byelin) November 10, 2021
Ok, so we’re not legitimately awful (not anymore legitimately awful than people on the Left) but we’ll give him this one since he’s having sort of a mea culpa moment.
The final stage of acceptance is when a less contrarian influential center-left voice, like @chrislhayes or @ezraklein admits that this thing is a problem.
For examples of this dynamic, see:
-Inflation
-CRT/related issues in public schools.— Ben Yelin (@byelin) November 10, 2021
Huh, there IS a pattern. Who knew?
Ben Yelin, that’s who.
And he’s right (except for that ‘awful people’ crap) – the Left refuses for whatever reason to accept a problem proposed by the Right until it’s too late and they’ve lost an election (see McAuliffe). We’re willing to bet this pattern continues, even though people are starting to figure it out.
2022 is gonna be somethin’ else!
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