Van Jones and the progressive echo chamber

[ProdigalHorn]

On full display in GQ:

http://www.gq.com/story/van-jones-knows-the-messy-truth

He tries to couch it in words that taken out of context would seem like he's being reconciliatory, and he actually make some good observations, but the whole article is discussing "the good people and the bad people." And he argues that not all Trump voters are "bad," but as you get into it, you realize that what he's talking about are progressives that voted Trump because they didn't like Hillary.

But the kicker is, he genuinely seems to believe that there are more progressives than there are "moderates" or "conservatives." And he seems to suspect that Hillary lost because she wasn't progressive enough.

Some highlights:

The day after the election, I was in the office and an editor asked a question: "What can I do?" And I'm curious to know what you would say. Tell us what to do! You've got the answers, Van!
[Laughs] Well, first of all, people have to understand the problem. The problem is not primarily that there are millions of people with bad intentions. That may be true, in part, but the bigger problem is that there are millions and millions more people with good intentions who don't know how to act on them. As scary as it is, it's actually much more hopeful than most people are experiencing it as. I see millions more people who want to get involved than who wanted to get involved a month ago, when it most likely would have mattered more. [Laughs] So, first of all, the most important thing we can do is figure out what the good people can do. We are going to lose more than we win for the next two to four years. It is going to get much worse before it gets any better. [Laughs] A lot of people in the United States have been living in Trump's America for a long time. If you're undocumented or poor or black, you've been feeling this way for a while.

Now, what can be done about it? The problem is not the bad people doing all the bad stuff, it's the good people who don't know what to do yet. The good people—there's more of us than there are of them.

To hear you be so optimistic does make me a little more optimistic—but I will say, my optimism levels are at an all-time low right now.
That's fine. That's to be expected. I will say this: A big problem that we had with the younger voters is that they thought they were being asked to choose between the lesser of two evils. And there's no young, idealistic person ever born who wants to support evil of any kind. But nobody explained well enough, including myself, that it was never the choice between the lesser of two evils. It was only a choice between the better of two strategies. One strategy would have put in a sub-optimal, moderate Democratic president. More Republican than Democrat most of her career. The other strategy is to put a lunatic in office who will not listen to you, no matter what you say.

So it's not that we have the greater of two evils. We have the worst of the two strategies. The reason you feel helpless is because a whole generation of millennials chose this strategy. They chose the strategy of, let this guy get in office and then, I don't know, shrug. If Hillary had gotten into office, you would have had a lot of strategies: You could have protested, demonstrated, lobbied. You could have gotten a lot out of her. You'd have to fight her every step of the way, but you could have gotten a lot out of her.

This guy? You may get a nuclear war out of this guy. And it's not that one's more evil. It's that one's a better strategy. So we're now living in this strategy—that a lot of progressives picked—which was not to fight hard to stop him. Not to fight hard to elect Hillary Clinton and hold Hillary Clinton accountable. Don't be mad at Trump! To me, we have two things to be mad at. I'm a very strong progressive. It's very hard for me to get excited about this election, but if you look, please look at what I posted in June. Have you seen that?

At this point, even the GQ writer was starting to think Van was nuts:

(INTERVIEWER)But I don't know any progressives who made this choice, Van. It doesn't feel like progressives made the choice. I know that nobody's good, nobody's bad. It just seems like we don't have the numbers. It doesn't seem like the progressives did it.
Nope. I disagree. So many things to say! So there are two problems that we had. One was younger progressives being asked to vote for Hillary Clinton [felt like they were] being asked to vote for the lesser of two evils. But I don't know any progressives who made this choice, Van. It doesn't feel like progressives made the choice. I know that nobody's good, nobody's bad. It just seems like we don't have the numbers. It doesn't seem like the progressives did it.
Nope. I disagree. So many things to say! So there are two problems that we had. One was younger progressives being asked to vote for Hillary Clinton [felt like they were] being asked to vote for the lesser of two evils. I think that if progressives had fought as hard for Hillary Clinton as they fought for Bernie, as Bernie asked them to do, then we would have been much closer to winning, and probably won, and the same progressives would be feeling empowered right now. But the lack of enthusiasm of young progressives did have an impact.and the same progressives would be feeling empowered right now. But the lack of enthusiasm of young progressives did have an impact.

He at least makes this distinction, which I appreciate - although his assumption is that the "hate wing" is being tolerated or accepted is wrong. As if the GOP should have put guards at the polling places to make sure none of the alt-right were allowed to vote?

You know, it's a very small number of people who are part of the alt-right. People act like 50 million people just signed up to be part of the neo-Nazi movement. That's not true! You have a group willing to tolerate the participation of people like that, and that's scary. But it's wrong to convince yourself that people who are willing to put up with it are themselves bigots. And that's where the left is going wrong. The left is making it a binary choice: You're either with the bigots or you're with the progressives. You're a racist or an anti-racist. You're either a sexist or an anti-sexist. And based on that binary, we now have convinced ourselves that half the country is raving-lunatic white supremacists. That's not true! It's more of a range.

(INTERVIEWER) But, Van, if you would vote for one who is going to put in power white nationalists, how are you not guilty of allowing it? I think you're letting them off the hook a little easy.
Well, here's the deal. This is why people are inordinately depressed. That analysis you just gave—if you voted for a bigot, you are a bigot, or not much better than a bigot—that analysis has done much more harm to progressives than it's done to Republicans.

But is it untrue?
Yeah, it's untrue. Because for most people who are not liberals, it's a range. (INSERT: Note that if you're a liberal, there isn't a range. All good people. No racism there, no bigotry.) It's not a binary choice. You have a minority of people on the right who are excited by racists, and those people I would call bigots. You have a much larger number of Trump supporters who find a lot of that stuff distasteful, but it's not disqualifying to them. They don't like those comments. They think they are inartful and bad. But to them, as hateful as those comments are, they're not disqualifying given their own economic needs and concerns. And liberals refusing to see a difference seem to think half the country is in a position it's not in. We're not in touch with reality. Look, it makes me sad that somebody says, "I don't hate you. I just don't like you enough to vote differently." But that's different than someone saying, "Actually, I do hate you."

 

[Phil Elliott]

As long as the left continues to mis-diagnose why they lost, do not interrupt them.