The best predictor of future behavior

Yesterday, 7/15/2019, on Old NFO’s blog, I read something that reminded me, oddly enough, of something I read on Vox back in April, 2016. Old NFO’s piece is entitled “Resetting the ‘agenda.'” The one on Vox was entitled “The smug style in American liberalism.” The rather obvious question is “what on earth do those two things have to do with one another?” Allow me to explain, bearing in mind that any misrepresentation of either article is entirely my fault. (I don’t think I’m going to misrepresent either, but one never can be entirely sure).

The point of Old NFO’s posting, if I may paraphrase, seems to be that what some had predicted has come to pass. To wit, that once the American Left (hereinafter simply “the Left”) decided gays and lesbians had fulfilled their purpose, they would be largely dumped by the Left. Segue to the Vox article…

The author of the article is Emmett Rensin, a modern American liberal (to be differentiated, at least by me, from classical liberals). During the course of the article, during which he warned other liberals of the dangers of being smug (including the election of Donald Trump) he said something profoundly important.

“In 1948, in the immediate wake of Franklin Roosevelt, 66 percent of manual laborers voted for Democrats, along with 60 percent of farmers. In 1964, it was 55 percent of working-class voters. By 1980, it was 35 percent.

The white working class in particular saw even sharper declines. Despite historic advantages with both poor and middle-class white voters, by 2012 Democrats possessed only a 2-point advantage among poor white voters. Among white voters making between $30,000 and $75,000 per year, the GOP has taken a 17-point lead.”

Later, he would go on to note that

“…no party these past decades has effectively represented the interests of these dispossessed. Only one has made a point of openly disdaining them too.”

My point is that once the “dispossessed” had become seemingly firmly and forever part of the Left’s base, they and their very real concerns could be largely ignored. In fact, they could be insulted (with some ensuing bad results, but that’s a different issue).

This, I submit, is what gays and lesbians are beginning to face as the Left has become convinced that gays and lesbians have achieved what the Left thinks they need. Consequently, the Left is now turning its attention to its next group of  the “oppressed,” the transgender folks. When you encounter people who are willing to assert that lesbians who have no interest in dating pre-op MTF folks are “transphobic bigots,” it becomes clear that they have served their purpose to the Left. Just as the Left complains that many of the people who once voted heavily for Democrats* chose to vote for Trump simply can’t see the “truth” of the Left’s position, some are not beginning to complain that gays and lesbians who don’t want to date anyone who was not born a biological male (or female, respectively) simply don’t understand the “truth” of the Left’s current position on sexuality and gender.

I further submit, that this is what the Left, in its devotion to identity politics, does. It is the nature of identity politics. Once you’ve gotten about all the mileage you can out of one group or cause, it’s time to move on. It’s time to find another group you can use to increase your power and prestige and to increase you conviction that you are “on the right side of history” (or some other meaningless but good-sounding nonsense).

What the transgender folks, who are arguably benefiting from the current focus of the Left, have neglected to consider is that what happened to factory workers is what happened to farmers and ranchers, which is what is happening to gays and lesbians, and which is what will happen to them (the transgender folks) once they have fulfilled their usefulness. Then, when sometime down the road, the transgender folks cease to be virtually 100% behind the Left, that same Left will ask “why are you voting against your own self-interest?”

Note that I’m not suggesting the American Right is emerging as the champion of equality for the transgender community. All I’m saying is that community is being used and once the Left gets all the use they can from transgender people as a whole, the Left will move on and leave the trans folk just like they left the blue collar workers. As a RN with significant psychiatric/mental-health experience, I recognize the truth of the maxim that “the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.”

It becomes rather obvious to ask “well, if that’s the case, who will the Left pick up as their next cause?” I have a suspicion which I won’t mention, right now. I will say, though, that you aren’t likely to like it.

What do you think?

*I understand that not all Democrats are properly considered part of the Left, just as not all Leftists are members of the Democratic party. That’s not my point. If you choose to believe it is, I can offer you little in the way of help.