Liberal Cringe will kill us all

When I was about 18 or 19, so in about 2009 maybe, I owned a T-shirt that had a cartoon Obama on it. He was dressed like Superman only the ‘S’ on his chest was an ‘O’. I thought it was the greatest piece of clothing that had ever been made.

In my defence, I received a lot of positive reinforcement. Wearing that thing around Newtown or Camperdown was a guaranteed way to get a thumbs-up or an “I love your shirt!” from somebody. I would ride that high for days.

One time I was wearing it outside Glebe markets (I know) and a guy selling Green Left Weekly or Solidarity or one of those papers no one reads saw it and asked me if I wanted to know why Obama wasn't actually as great as he seemed. I brushed him off and told people about it later as a joke. He gave off a really annoying vibe as a lot of those guys often do and it really burns me 15 years later to know that he was right the whole time.

Every time I encounter a display of smarmy, overly earnest liberal political rhetoric coupled with the most heinous violence you can imagine I’m reminded powerfully of that shirt. This has become a problem I’m facing more and more for obvious reasons but it really seems to have cranked up in the last few months. I don’t know what the connection is between unctuous do-nothing liberal politics and cringe but it’s there and it’s bone-deep.

It’s like why all young conservative guys look like this:

The Democratic National Convention in August was a real good example of what I’m trying to describe. Inside the convention it was endless florid speeches about how the Democrats are going to save freedom and democracy from Donald Trump with the power of kindness and taking the high road. Outside, it was protesters reading out the names of dead Palestinian kids while attendees covered their ears and went “la la la la la”. (That’s not an analogy by the way.)

I’m more and more convinced that the most dangerous people are the ones who do politics for fun. That’s the opposite of what we’re told — that the danger comes from the ideologues, the zealots, the people who don’t constrain their arguments or causes within the boundaries of ‘acceptable’ discourse or action.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of danger to be found there as well. But people who watch Question Time or Insiders as sport instead of following rugby league like normal people can turn on you in a second. Anyone who screams blue murder when a conservative government brutalises people but somehow flicks a switch and defends the same behaviour from a Labor or ‘liberal’ government is the human equivalent of a handbag dog that takes your finger off when you try to pet it. At least the meth-house pitbull warns you to stay away.

There’s a kind of self-imposed infantilisation in this worldview that I’m struggling to articulate, partly because I don’t understand it. Rather than dealing with the reality of the world and their place within it, it’s as though people who think this way need to be the hero of a story they’re telling themselves inside their heads.

This kind of explains the deeply embarrassing displays at the DNC and closer to home — Mindy Kaling calling Nancy Pelosi ‘the Mother of Dragons’, the celebrity cameos, the horrible little song-and-dance numbers for TikTok.

It also partly explains why cosplay liberals are so much more vicious towards people on their left than towards reactionaries. Clapping back at a fascist weirdo on Twitter keeps them inside the personalised version of Harry Potter they’re acting out every day. It’s easy and it’s fun and it doesn’t challenge their conception of themselves.

Anything that breaks the fourth wall, though — like criticism of the politician they have a parasocial relationship with, or footage of a drone strike the government they support has paid for, or testimony from a real-life person living below the poverty line about how life hasn’t magically gotten better since the Good Guys were elected — is unwelcome stimuli, and they lash out. They don’t even necessarily disagree with you on the substance of it. The problem, for them, is that you’ve spoiled their fun.

That’s how you get spectacles like Victorian premier Jacinta Allan giving a tear-jerking speech in defence of arms expos and the cops who whaled on people protesting it. It’s how you get reporters talking about a mass terror event that killed innocent people like they’re recapping an episode of Succession. It’s all a retreat into fantasy. Greenlighting genocide but make it twee.

What I’m looking at

• The New Arab — By avoiding Gaza, Democrats pick public relations over Palestine

• Mondoweiss — In disturbing escalation against the Palestine movement, UK police arrest journalists and activists under Terrorism Act

• Al Jazeera — Debate in nuclear-armed former colony fails to reassure global community