What a Progressive Has to Worry About!

The problem with being a progressive is that progressives eat their own. You cannot be a dedicated progressive without knowing that by the very nature of “progress,” you yourself will soon be obsolete, at which point being a prominent member of last year’s progressive vanguard ceases to be an asset and becomes a sack of cement tied to your ankles.

So it is that Beto O’Rourke, whose name is not Beto, is now being asked hard questions, and having to squirm his way through an answer, about whether being a white male will put him at a disadvantage in the 2020 Democratic primaries. Being a socialist, a foul-mouthed punk, and the guy who (with massive amounts of cash from all over the country) almost beat Ted Cruz last year, isn’t enough to be a leading Democrat anymore. These days, you need to be (aka identify as) female and preferably (identify as) black to be considered a viable presidential contender. (A transgender Hispanic Muslim professor of Late-term Abortion Studies who was raped by Brett Kavanaugh at age eighteen and has 17% native American blood would be better, of course, but so far, at least to my knowledge, the Dems haven’t found that ideal candidate yet.)

Gosh, I thank my lucky stars every day that I wasn’t born a progressive, let alone a Democrat. Just keeping track of what you’re supposed to believe this year would be bad enough; but having to prove yourself against that new standard every year, and defer submissively to anyone who belongs to one of this year’s favored identity groups, would just set my head spinning. “Am I in?” “Am I out?” “Am I an avenger for the oppressed underclasses this year, or must I hang my head in collectivist guilt and shame at having myself been an oppressor-by-identity-group-association?”


Oh, and by the way, “Top o’ the morning to you!” (No offense to afternoon or evening, which are perfectly good times of day as well, and I swear my little pleasantry wasn’t meant as time-ism. Nor was the expression’s Irish origin meant as Eurocentrism, Anglo-centrism, or anything. And I won’t include a picture of a shamrock or such things, so as not to seem insensitive to people who were once hurt by something green, or who might think I am discriminating against hay fever sufferers.)

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