Manu Joseph: Why ‘liberals’ are often bad ambassadors of good ideas

Mostly, they never say anything wrong, but the problem is their sophistication and self-righteousness, and the banal smugness of their view that humans should be moral. I do not know Trump’s constituency well, but Western ‘liberals’ form a monoculture across the world. 

They usually speak the same way and of the same things. They probably even got their vanity degrees from the same colleges, and have the same intolerance of any view that deviates from their theology. 

From what I have seen of the type in my country, they are the worst ambassadors of human decency, and of that beautiful idea—the strong must protect the weak.

Now that Trump, a man accused of corruption and sexual assault, has prevailed over the liberal campaign, does it mean more than half the American electorate is sick? This is what liberals would have us think. 

Also read: Trump’s second term: Let’s hope his campaign was mostly rhetoric

Or is it that the evangelists of fine human qualities are making those very qualities look bad? This they do not accept. Maybe they don’t see it, like the many other things they do not.

Some of them are annoying for no fault of theirs. When you state some noble things, you inevitably end up irritating people. For instance, beneficiaries of inequality who write angry essays against inequality. (If not the cultural elite, who else will say the right things?) 

And, the underemployed young who want to escape the unpleasantness of adulthood by joining collegiate movements to save the world. (But then, what is so great about the bogus jobs of capitalism that the young should not escape them?) 

And women from the top 2% of society who say they are discriminated against by the top 1%. (They are.) And anyone who rages against those who do not believe in climate change.

Sermonizing intellectuals can be annoying because what they seem to be saying is that they are better people than the rest. They can be mean, petty and classist in their private dealings, but in public they stand for great causes. They seem to think they have camouflaged their failings. 

But people, in reality, have no masks, and what they truly are comes through when they pontificate about those who are not like them, who don’t agree with them, like when they speak of Trump supporters, describing them as ignorant, petty, racist, foolish and mostly male, as though that is a form of evil in itself.

To fully fathom how badly ambassadors of ‘liberalism’ are doing, we need to measure their efforts against the exquisite job done by the few who are extremely good at it.

Barack Obama, for instance. He speaks in a manner that is not superior or contemptuous. Somehow, even when he is sermonizing, it doesn’t appear to be a sermon. He has a rare talent in a field filled with the ungifted.

Typically, average people don’t have strong opinions. Rather, they develop views that are the opposite of the values espoused by people they despise.

This is a reason why, despite everything we’ve heard lately, the US elections revealed that Trump has improved his popularity among not just African-Americans and Hispanics, but also young women voters. 

Also read: A second Trump term is not good news—either for the US or the world

It simply cannot be just the economy and fear of immigrants, as intellectuals ask us to believe. People are drawn to anything ‘liberals’ condemn.

There is now wide acceptance among ‘liberals’ that the ‘wokes’ among them did some damage.

Wokes are, at first glance, hyper-moral people. But I think they are just people who are so far removed from natural goodness that they have to make exaggerated guesses about what being good is, which may be the reason why they do extreme things, like vandalize art to educate us about capitalism or climate change.

But then, a ‘woke’ is not clearly defined. To many, anyone who imparts moral lessons outside religion or other forms of magic, meaning any ‘liberal,’ might seem woke.

Wokes, like medieval zealots, can create powerful sects fast. Climate change, for instance, could not have become a movement based on scientific reasoning alone. It had to first become a kind of religion. The early Elon Musk persona itself is a creation of wokes, who were the first manic devotees of Tesla because it stood for all the right things.

If suave and sanctimonious ‘liberals’ can be poor ambassadors of their ideals, can it be true that Trump supporters are also poor ambassadors of the ‘right-wing’? They are. I am certain Trump fans pushed many undecided voters towards the Democrats. 

But they are less annoying than the self-righteous. A typical Trump evangelist, such as Elon Musk or Joe Rogan, usually makes fun of wokes, who are a demonized minority in America. Most people do not identify with what they are ridiculing.

In India, something interesting appears to be going on. Many people are thrilled by Donald Trump’s victory. Among those who identify as right-wing, there seems a sense of satisfaction that a leader of the right has ascended to power in the world’s most powerful country.

Also read: Mint Explainer: What Trump’s victory means for US, India and rest of the world

But perhaps they will realize in time that there is no such thing as a global ‘right-wing.’ Only the left can be global. The right is always local.