The Circular Firing Squad

There is certainly reason to fear that Socialism and other far-left ideologies will overtake both the US political system and society in general.  Identity politics is red hot right now, with everyone having their own victim groups, social justice causes and perceived oppressors.  But when you have to blame someone else for everything that happens to you, eventually you run out of people to point the finger at--and that is when the Left turns upon itself.

A couple of high-profile examples of that have happened in just the last couple of weeks.  It started with actress Asia Argento--considered one of the co-founders of the #MeToo movement because she was among the first to go public with accusations against Harvey Weinstein--was found to have paid hush money to a then-17-year old boy with whom she'd had a sexual relationship.  As you might expect, those targeted by #MeToo howled at the hypocrisy--but those who had supported Argento also immediately turned against her demanding that she stop her advocacy for other "victims" and come clean about what happened.

Actress Rose McGowan--who considers herself a co-founder of #MeToo because she had been making veiled references for years to Harvey Weinstein ruining her career and forcing her to take a bunch of roles that required full-frontal nudity--then stepped into the fray by telling those attacking Argento to "wait until the facts come out" and to "be gentle" in their criticism of their now-fallen hero.  McGowan was then ravaged not only by the targets of #MeToo--who pointed to her long list of demands that men accused of harassment or abuse be immediately removed from their jobs, jailed and castrated--but also by those who had obeyed her calls to attack said men with ferocity in all forms of social media, who demanded that she stop "speaking on behalf of the movement".  (Just yesterday McGowan claimed that she had talked with Argento's accuser and that she "supports him fully".)

Then you have the case of comedian Michael Ian Black (best known for Kids in the Hall and being a talking head on all of those "I Love the '70's, 80's, 90's, etc series) who has long encouraged his social media followers to attack any and all conservatives in all platforms--backing the harassment of White House staff as they try to dine out or pass through airports.  This week, Black re-tweeted a story about comedian Louis CK returning to the stage for the first time since accusations of harassment got him blackballed by the #MeToo movement and mentioned that he hoped CK could rebuild his life.  That was immediately met with backlash from Black's own minions--calling him a hypocrite and claiming that even suggesting that an accused harasser be allowed to continue his career showed that "he was part of the problem--and not the solution".

Such in-fighting on the Left is not uncommon--and usually someone steps in and says "We need to stop attacking each other and re-focus on the 'real enemy': straight, white guys!"  And there is peace for a little while.  But as younger generations choose to divide themselves more and more into smaller and smaller sub-populations with their own sets of grievances and social demands--and expecting greater "purity" in thought, word and deed--it's just a matter of time before they run out of straight white guys to blame--and they have no choice but to turn upon themselves--sabotaging their own efforts.