L. Goudsmit. Liel Liebovitz just described the painful and destabilizing effects of the realization that what you trusted and believed to be true for a lifetime, is no longer true or trustworthy.
He does a masterful job of exposing the reality of the radical left that is now the voice of the Democrat party. His greatest strength, however, is gently reassuring the disenchanted reader that there is life after political destabilization – there is wholeness, selfness and integrity – after The Turn.
For many years—most of my politically cognizant life, in fact—I felt secure in my politics. Truth and justice, I believed, leaned leftward. If you were some version of a decent human being, you cared about those less fortunate than you, which meant that you supported a whole host of measures designed to even the playing field a little. Sometimes, these measures had unintended consequences (see under: Stalin, Josef), but that wasn’t reason enough to despair of the long march to equality. Besides, there was hardly an alternative: On the other end of the political transom lurked despicable creeps, right-wing orcs who either cared for nothing but their own petty financial interests or, worse, pined for benighted isms that preached prejudice and hate. We were on the right side of history. We were the people. We were the ones giving peace a chance. And, no matter the present, we were always the future.
This belief carried me through high school, and a brief stint in a socialist youth movement. It accelerated me in college, sending me anywhere from joint marches with Palestinians to a two-week hunger strike in Jerusalem trying (and failing) to lower tuition for underprivileged students. It pulled me to New York, to Columbia University, to more left-wing politics and activism and raging against Republicans whose agenda, especially in the 2000s, seemed like nothing more than greed and war.
And it wasn’t just an ideology, some abstract set of convictions that were accessible only through cracking open dusty old books. It was the animating spirit of life itself: The dinner parties I attended on the Upper West Side required dismissive comments on President Bush just as much as they did a bit of wine to make the evening bright, and there was no faster or surer way to signal to a new acquaintance that you were a kindred spirit than praising the latest Times editorial. It wasn’t performative, exactly. At least, it felt real enough, the reverent rites of a good group of people protecting itself against the bad guys.
I embraced my people, and my people embraced me. They gave me everything I had always imagined I wanted: a Ph.D. from an Ivy League university; a professorship at NYU, complete with a roomy office overlooking Washington Square Park; book deals; columns in smart little publications; invitations to the sort of soirees where you could find yourself seated next to Salman Rushdie or Susan Sontag or any number of the men and women you grew up reading and admiring. The list goes on. Life was good. I was grateful.
And then came The Turn. If you’ve lived through it yourself, you know that The Turn doesn’t happen overnight, that it isn’t easily distilled into one dramatic breakdown moment, that it happens hazily and over time—first a twitch, then a few more, stretching into a gnawing discomfort and then, eventually, a sense of panic.
You may be among the increasing numbers of people going through The Turn right now. Having lived through the turmoil of the last half decade—through the years of MAGA and antifa and rampant identity politics and, most dramatically, the global turmoil caused by COVID-19—more and more of us feel absolutely and irreparably politically homeless. Instinctively, we looked to the Democratic Party, the only home we and our parents and their parents before them had ever known or seriously considered. But what we saw there—and in the newspapers we used to read, and in the schools whose admission letters once made us so proud—was terrifying. However we tried to explain what was happening on “the left,” it was hard to convince ourselves that it was right, or that it was something we still truly believed in. That is what The Turn is about.
You might be living through The Turn if you ever found yourself feeling like free speech should stay free even if it offended some group or individual but now can’t admit it at dinner with friends because you are afraid of being thought a bigot. You are living through The Turn if you have questions about public health policies—including the effects of lockdowns and school closures on the poor and most vulnerable in our society—but can’t ask them out loud because you know you’ll be labeled an anti-vaxxer. You are living through The Turn if you think that burning down towns and looting stores isn’t the best way to promote social justice, but feel you can’t say so because you know you’ll be called a white supremacist. You are living through The Turn if you seethed watching a terrorist organization attack the world’s only Jewish state, but seethed silently because your colleagues were all on Twitter and Facebook sharing celebrity memes about ending Israeli apartheid while having little interest in American kids dying on the streets because of failed policies. If you’ve felt yourself unable to speak your mind, if you have a queasy feeling that your friends might disown you if you shared your most intimately held concerns, if you are feeling a bit breathless and a bit hopeless and entirely unsure what on earth is going on, I am sorry to inform you that The Turn is upon you.
The Turn hit me just a beat before it did you, so I know just how awful it feels. It’s been years now, but I still remember the time a dear friend and mentor took me to lunch and warned me, sternly and without any of the warmth you’d extend to someone you truly loved, to watch what I said about Israel. I still remember how confusing and painful it felt to know that my beliefs—beliefs, mind you, that, until very recently, were so obvious and banal and widely held on the left that they were hardly considered beliefs at all—now labeled me an outcast. The Turn brings with it the sort of pain most of us don’t feel as adults; you’d have to go all the way back to junior high, maybe, to recall a stabbing sensation quite as deep and confounding as watching your friends all turn on you and decide that you’re not worthy of their affection any more. It’s the kind of primal rejection that is devastating precisely because it forces you to rethink everything, not only your convictions about the world but also your idea of yourself, your values, and your priorities. We all want to be embraced. We all want the men and women we consider most swell to approve of us and confirm that we, too, are good and great. We all want the love and the laurels; The Turn takes both away.
But, having been there before, I have one important thing to tell you: If the left is going to make it “right wing” to simply be decent, then it’s OK to be right.
Why? Because, after 225 long and fruitful years of this terminology, “right” and “left” are now empty categories, meaning little more than “the blue team” and “the green team” in your summer camp’s color war. You don’t get to be “against the rich” if the richest people in the country fund your party in order to preserve their government-sponsored monopolies. You are not “a supporter of free speech” if you oppose free speech for people who disagree with you. You are not “for the people” if you pit most of them against each other based on the color of their skin, or force them out of their jobs because of personal choices related to their bodies. You are not “serious about economic inequality” when you happily order from Amazon without caring much for the devastating impact your purchases have on the small businesses that increasingly are either subjugated by Jeff Bezos’ behemoth or crushed by it altogether. You are not “for science” if you refuse to consider hypotheses that don’t conform to your political convictions and then try to ban critical thought and inquiry from the internet. You are not an “anti-racist” if you label—and sort!—people by race. You are not “against conformism” when you scare people out of voicing dissenting opinions.
When “the left” becomes the party of wealthy elites and state security agencies who preach racial division, state censorship, contempt for ordinary citizens and for the U.S. Constitution, and telling people what to do and think at every turn, then that’s the side you are on, if you are “on the left”—those are the policies and beliefs you stand for and have to defend. It doesn’t matter what good people “on the left” believed and did 60 or 70 years ago. Those people are dead now, mostly. They don’t define “the left” anymore than Abraham Lincoln defines the modern-day Republican Party or Jimi Hendrix defines Nickelback.
So look at the list of things supported by the left and ask yourself: Is that me? If the answer is yes, great. You’ve found a home. If the answer is no, don’t let yourself be defined by an empty word. Get out. And once you’re out, don’t let anyone else define you, either. Not being a left-wing racist or police state fan doesn’t make you a white supremacist or a Trump worshipper, either. Only small children, machines, and religious fanatics think in binaries.
Which isn’t to diminish the anger, hurt, and confusion you’re feeling just now. But it’s worth understanding that your story has a happy ending. The freedom you feel on the other side is so real it’s physical, like emerging from a long stretch underwater and taking that first deep breath in the cool afternoon air. None of it makes the lost friends or the lost career opportunities any less painful; but there’s no more potent source of renewable energy than liberty, and your capacity to reinvent—yourself, your group, your life—is greater than you realize.
So welcome to the right side, friend, and join us in laughing at all the idiotic name-calling that is applied, with increasing hysteria, to try and stop more and more normal Americans from joining our ranks. Fascists? Conspiracy theorists? Anti-science racist TERFs? Whatever. We have a better word to describe ourselves: free.
@FelixQuigley
@Edgar G.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1996/04/14/was-mccarthy-right-about-the-left/a0dc6726-e2fd-4a31-bcdd-5f352acbf5de/
@Edgar
A lot of the concerns for the US at Yalta was about the million man army in Manchuria. Everything was sacrificed to gain the Russians support within 3months of the end of the war in Europe to attack in Manchuria. Additionally, for this role, the Russians were given control of Manchuria to the 38th parallel. They later turned these territories over to the local communists groups in China and Korea and this resulted in North Korea and the Chinese communists gaining significant holdings as a result. Per the Yalta agreement, if the nationalist Chinese tried to push Russsia out of Manchuria, the US and Britain were required to support Russia. FDR’s closest apologists have criticized this as beyond reason.
Regarding Churchill, by the time of Yalta, the Brits were pretty well spent, financially and militarily and they had little political capital by Feb 1945. The strategic failure at Arnhem, the famous bridge too far, left Monty packing and the US pretty much ran things without his disenting voice in the backgroud, not that they listened to him much in any case. Beyond this, though, the British had an empire of their own to consider. Churchill was fixed on the topic of Greece and gave a lot of ground over this in negotiations earlier in the war. He was quite outspoken on the topic of Poland and Eastern Europe, but asked FDR to handle the topic as he didn’t want to give up anything to save Poland. FDR didn’t give 3 rat tails for Poland, or Eastern Europe.
There was a clause in the Yalta agreement which required democratic elections in occupied territories, but England was concerned of her own holdings, so this clause was removed with the happy support of Uncle Joe.
FDR was in failing health at Yalta but his close confidant, Harry Hopkins, was really not well. Hopkins had been instrumental in pushing FDR to stand up to Stalin throughout the war, so him being too ill to participate at Yalta was a huge setback. Hopkins was also very pro-British. His removal could not have been timed more poorly for the US, Britain and the world. FDR’s daughter, Anna, recorded in her diary that she replaced Hopkins as FDR’s confindential adviser, and she was decidedly less swayed by any love of the British or their interests. She also notes Hopkins admonished her for not standing up to her father and advising him better against the sacrifices he agreed to make.
This was the backdrop in which Hiss, chief aide to the Sec. of State Stettinius, was left to intervene with FDR during Yalta. Stettinius noted that every time FDR called for advise, he sent Hiss. Neat trick…So a Soviet spy was advising an ailing president on how to respond to the Soviets at Yalta, with an inexperienced daughter acting as the confidential advisor, where half the world was given away to Russians, just so they would attack Manchuria and get to keep that as well. Like I said, neat trick.
@ PELONI-
You’ve put it far better than I, but Yes, Hiss was a “not-so-deeply-hidden” major Communist influence on State Department policy. AND the rarely fully conscious Roosevelt, who gave away almost everything at Yalta,
The Verona Papers, and Hurley’s statements on them and other agreed by Roosevelt but (unknown to important US officials), give-aways, are crystal clear. I vaguely remember that some other secret deals were made which deprived Chiang Kai Shek of something or other. Very fuzzy recollection of something on that but what??
(Also, I could never understand Churchill’s rather toothless tiger behaviour there. He seemed rather a nonentity, contrary to his lifelong openly expressed hatred and fear of REDS.)
@Raphael
Very nicely summarized!
@Edgar
Well stated.
Nicely describes the man.
Hiss was an eloquent rogue who was shown over and over to be guilty of the crimes he was never charged, ironically. The passing decades only proved to provide further evidence of his guilty – don’t forget the Venoma papers released in ~1995. It’s laughable to think anyone would suggest otherwise.
@ Felix
I’ve always believed that Rosa and Leibnicht became -or were always- mentally unbalanced . Leibnicht, who revelled in being what he was. The Spartacists, even in the unsettled after Great War conditions, never had a chance, except in the “minds” of their leaders.
Of course, I freely admit, I really know or knew little about politics, but have never believed that they were just “politicians”. They, to me, were more like anarchists, bloodthirsty disrupters of order, with a lust for personal power.
I would never attempt to argue Leftist politics with you Felix as I believe you are totally immersed in immense knowledge on your particular subject.
I just give you my opinion, and the state of my feelings at the time and later. It was all a very long time ago, and being very young, I loved life and stability. Of course, I later realised that I’d been living in a dream world.
@FELIX-
Felix, McCarthy, as I noted was “drunk with his power,” Again this did not make him wrong, nor was he coming from the same “Hitler” cesspit. NO WAY. He had no pretensions of overthrowing the legal government, he had no brownshirts with batons, but was “”guilty only of weeding out the Communists and sympathisers -and ruining their careers. . Of which, it was shown there had been many, some in high places.
You ignore Chambers, although shown to be absolutely open and a true “witness”. Did you read Roy Cohn’s after essay on the then political circumstances. I suppose that you know that Cohn for Trump’s lawyer for about 12-14 years, Trump, who did exponentially more for Israel than any other American President, and even before he became “political”.
America, as a whole, not too long after McCarthy’s downfall, realised that he had not only been right, in his (obnoxiously over-aggressive way) but that America was in serious danger from the highly placed comrades.
The Yalta Conference showed this, and all of Eastern Europe and much of Berlin became RED…
The air lifts to keep Western Berlin supplied were famous , and infamous because of the circumstances-and OVERT threat. Does anyone seriously believe that Roosevelt was not majorly influenced by Hiss at Yalta.. Not now.
I lived through it all and was, at that time deeply interested in these mattes; of course from my limited perspective. .But I would go to bed not knowing if I’d wake up to a nuclear world, or even wake up at all. The most prolonged, traumatic period of my life.
A never to be forgotten period of Western shame.
@Felix. I don’t understand your statement that Rosa was fought against by Trotsky between 1933 and 1940. Rosa Luxumberg was killed in 1919, I think. Trotsky was a flawed leader in many respects but hewas never a fascist. I am not aware that he was ever opposed to Luxumberg. Please explain. Please explain.
Edgar
Rosa was fought against on many levels. On Jews especially by Trotsky in period say 1933 to 1940.
Rosa along with Karl Liebnecht were murdered by exactly the same fascists who went on to create the Nazi Party and as a result the Holocaust.
Sebastien it was an accident. Very sad. The young driver was trying to lift the car off the kids. He was beset. That was antisemitism. Any real socialist had to defend the Jews against Antisemitism. Same in intifadas.
Edgar…McCarthy was coming out of the same place as Hitler…hatred of socialism and communism. Mein Kamph written by Hitler in holiday conditions in prison is filled with hatred of that which he mixed in with his antisemitism.
There will soon come a time when the planet Earth will be united under one government. That will happen, says Nostradamus, by the year 2039.
Idz says
Time for you to check in again with he man groupie Alec Jones
@Idz
In my opinion, and I am NOT alone, anyone who believes in the “prophesies” of Nostradamus (who used the 400 year cycle) will believe anything-no matter how ridiculous. I don’t think you are saying that you believe Nostradamus, but why enter his name into it.
We all know the disillusionment with Communism which arose both before, during, and after the War. , It was also made very clear in Whittaker Chamber’s book WITNESS, and further, in the McCarthy hearings.
No need to more than mention Rosa Luxembourg, regarded as a “mad dog” in many circles. .
McCarthy was undoubtedly drunk with his power but not wrong, as so many since have averred. Soviet Communism was a massive threat to World Peace. Soviet spies where plentiful in high places in Western countries. Alger Hiss is a case in point, yet he was merely slapped on the wrist with his 5 year holiday.
The author is essentially saying “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party, it left me..”
That was an excellent essay, that should be required reading. It reminds me of myself, years ago. Somewhere between my 20’s and my 40’s I made “The Turn” from Left to Right. As Leibowitz says, the change was gradual. I think since those days, however, something else has also changed.
Back in the old days, if you voiced thoughts, in their presence, that were not in keeping with Leftist ideology, you might be ridiculed or shunned, but to my recollection, people were not summarily censored, silenced, assaulted, cancelled, fired from their jobs, dis-barred or de-certified, or slandered, as they are today. Today’s Left, however, cancels people, as easily, and as gleefully, as Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety did during “Le Terreur”. (Sounds like a worthy topic for a history lesson doesn’t it?) In fact, the parallels between today’s Leftists, who have seized the U.S. government, and the Revolutionaries who seized control of the French government at the end of the 18th century, are quite extraordinary. One wonders if the guillotines can be far off.
Of course, the “cancelling” of people violates not only the Constitution, but also the Declaration of Independence, in which document we are told that it is G_d who grants us the inalienable right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. So what gives the Left the right to cancel people, and to deny them their G-d-given rights? That’s simple. They give themselves the right, because they deem themselves superior, because they believe that they are acting in the interest of the greater good, and ultimately, just because they have the power.
Neither does the Left believe in God, so they, (very conveniently), have no one to account to…yet. That the Left is unrestrained by a belief in God has made them bolder and meaner, and more likely to commit great evil. Be sure, they have, and they will. Mark my words.
The Turn for me was during the period he describes as his idyll when Jewish liberals at parties on the Upper West Side were blaming the Oslo War/Al Aqsa Intifada — in which so many Jews were being massacred in response to the fakestinians being offered everything they had said they wanted (in English) — on Sharon visiting the Temple Mount with an armed escort! Less than 10 years after they had sided with antisemites against the Jewish community of Crown Heights, drew a false moral equivalence between a traffic accident and a pogrom culminating in a lynching, and then voted to re-elect the mayor who let it happen! I’m glad he’s changed his mind, but the way he changed his mind disturbs me. It’s all about him. Liberals, Jewish or not, are all about self-sacrificing altruistic solidarity with everybody but their fellow Jews.
There will soon come a time when the planet Earth will be united under one government. That will happen, says Nostradamus, by the year 2039.
The new Reality has to be understood.
Modern Connected Information Technology..
Enables MASSIVE Power..
For BIG organized Governments and Corporations, Media, Education and Capital.
They form an interlocking “Web” of Knowledge and Power..
Data Analytics, and Control.
Almost all (If not All) of your traditional “Allies” have been subverted, controlled or minimized..
The Capital/Corprate State.. has so much power it is almost unimaginable..
Unless we get a real understanding of this.. and develop Strategies and Tactics that help us humans.. to balance this power..
We are done..
Keep in mind.. they want you distracted with Left/Right and other silly meaningless paradigms..
While we fight.. against each other..
They execute buyouts, set up interlocking global corporations..
Join eachothers boards.. Controll media, control universities and all education..
Are you ready to wake up yet?
I was a life long Democrat. In 2008, I left the LEFT (centrist as I was) and realized I inadvertently took the “Red Pill”. Now, a fully committed independent. Aligning with the MAGA movement and knowing that unless we purge the RINO’s, Western Civilization is finished. We are one election away from totalitarianism if the next election is as fraudulent as the last.