How 'The Left' Got So Lost

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:00]We've but for the first time and for the in the first place all throughout human history if you're in the UK if you're in the USA etc. I don't believe you could you could you I don't believe you could show me a law. I don't think you could show me any law where you could say okay this is genuinely discriminatory against this group of people and I don't think people have sort of looked up and realized that. I think a lot of the problems that we have number one stem from us just being too comfortable but also stem from the fact that perhaps the fights that we should be fighting are not clear and obvious in the way that they they sort of used to be. I mean I don't I don't know what the >> [clears throat] >> Do we need any more civil rights fights?

[00:00:43]Maybe we don't but people want to fight them.

[00:00:46]Yeah I I it's a very important point. I am You know you're very blessed if you live in an era where people care about microaggressions against [laughter] you.

[00:00:58]Most of human history is very very aggressive and it didn't care.

[00:01:01]>> Microaggressions >> [laughter] >> Macroaggressions macroaggressions on a huge scale. Yeah.

[00:01:07]And nobody had time for your microaggressions and it's it's um it's a tendency of the age to um to believe that if you you you fiddle with these remaining things uh that you do so with force you previously applied to macroaggressions you will solve the whole thing.

[00:01:29]>> [snorts] >> Uh I think actually we're being distracted among other things at the moment from uh things that are not solvable but worth very very worth addressing and we're being derailed by people who are dishonest actors and let me give an example. Um I think there are significant swaths of America I might say I'm not a party political person but I might say notably in certain Democratic areas areas run by the Democratic Party where um incarceration rates for black Americans, illiteracy rates for black Americans, educational attainment of black Americans, employment rates for black Americans is dire.

[00:02:12]And in areas, I mean we see this with recent writing, in areas very often where there is a black mayor, a black police chief, a black congressman, and so on.

[00:02:24]And then everyone starts talking about how everyone has got racism embedded in the system and how if we know if we had if we address 1619 and the founding fathers and pull this down and that down, we'll solve it. And you think, of course you you want to think that because the job you should be doing is hard.

[00:02:42]The job you should be doing is hard. And that is for instance to do all of the things that would be needed to make sure that this kind of social breakdown didn't occur. Yes. Couldn't occur.

[00:02:54]That's hard. It's It's the most worthwhile thing to do if you're in charge of that, but it's much easier to just go around talking about how you know, everyone should take the knee at NBA games or something like that. And that's what we're being distracted on.

[00:03:09]You know, we're being distracted.

[00:03:10]>> Honestly, I as I rarely ever use the phrase as a black man, but as a black man, Mhm. this is one thing that jars me so much. It jars me so much because and part of the reason, you know, there's lots of reasons why I I I lean more conservative than than I lean more more to the left, but one of the big ones is this, you know, on the left side of the spectrum and with a lot of these liberals and progressives, just there's so much the levels of virtue signaling Yeah.

[00:03:45]condescension and wanting to talk the talk and say what seems to be popular and what you're supposed to say without actually addressing or even wanting to address or even acknowledge the genuine issue, right? So even if you take something like the the Black Lives Matter movement, right?

[00:04:08]I would love it I would love it if there was a Black Lives Matter movement that really was what it said on the tin.

[00:04:15]Right.

[00:04:16]>> Right. I think I think the USA in particular actually needs a movement called I actually think it needs a Black Lives Matter movement, but I don't think it needs a Black Lives Matter movement that is solely focused on the rare and unfortunate incidents where a black person happens to be killed by a white police officer under dubious circumstances which happens which happens a couple times a year. A couple times a year is too much, right?

[00:04:40]Last year there were over 7,000 over 7,000 black people killed over 7,000 murders, right? Can Can this be spoken about?

[00:04:49]Even here in the UK. What about things things like knife crime? As soon as you want to have the real conversation, you know, if you're white they're going to want to call you racist. If you're if you're black they're going to try to say that you're you're an Uncle Tom or you're a or what and and like I actually genuinely care about these issues. So for people who are just being dishonest and who want to say just scream institutional racism and systemic racism and structural racism and white super I'm like this is not this is not helpful. In fact, to as far as I'm concerned I'm like you're part of the problem because you're preventing the problem from being discussed. This comes back to what we were talking about earlier. That you're preventing this conversation from happening honestly and therefore you're preventing any real solutions. Look, if if we could somehow eliminate all racism from everybody's heart. All racism, right?

[00:05:41]Would these problems still exist? And the answer is overwhelmingly yes. So that suggests very strongly to me that the primary issue we're dealing here is not some sort of spectre of white supremacy or structural racism or institutional racism, etc. It's It's It's absent fathers. It's lack of education attainment. Perhaps it's lack of investments in in certain areas.

[00:06:04]There There are a whole bunch of things that we can talk about, but instead it's like the answer is always racism, and then people want to backtrack and and retrofit the answer racism to and apply it to to everything, even where it totally doesn't make sense, and it's very very frustrating to me.

[00:06:20]>> That That That That That is such a good point. And it The example you give, knife knife crime in the UK US you know, Black Lives Matter protest is exactly the one because we have got in the UK this sort of mini version of this, which which goes around where every time uh there's you know, a spike in knife crime in London for instance, you know, we have this sort of croc discussion.

[00:06:46]Either it gets onto stop and search policies of the police, which is which is like highly specific and not really the point. You know, it's it's a bit of a point, but it's not the point. And you either get onto that or you get these weird generalizations about how we all need to increase hope or something. And um I know I used to notice this with the terrorism discussion over the last couple of decades. You know, you'd have like very you'd have a terrible thing would happen. A a terrorist attack an outrage or something.

[00:07:18]And the the the the the conversation would deliberately go It seemed to me deliberately go both very macro and very micro at the same time. So, you would have people say this is why we've got to ensure that internet search engines don't prioritize this on an algorithm.

[00:07:38]And then they'd say and also we've got to you know, make sure that people feel that they're not hopeless or something like that or we've all got our part to play and and I just always thought, "No, that neither of those is the point."

[00:07:53]They're they're almost perfectly framed to avoid the point.

[00:07:57]>> Yes. One on one on one side too broad for use for utility. Mhm. And on the other hand, too specific to remotely deal with the problem. And the example of the example of this would be a lamb with knife crime is is is a good example of it. You know, if you agreed that the core of a problem, for instance, for black America is educational attainments, fatherless families, and much more, Mhm. then that requires a hell of a lot of work, but it's work that would be the most worth doing work you could do. Mhm.

[00:08:30]And the fact that you get these things instead on either side, things that are too broad to be useful and too specific to do anything is exactly what's replayed exactly what's replayed in the British context here.

[00:08:43]>> Yeah. And I do think I I do think this is something we are being effectively manipulated into doing, that the conversation deliberately goes so wide or so shallow precisely in order that we don't address this. And why don't we, you know, we could we could get like political unanimity Mhm.

[00:08:59]if we actually if enough people said, "No, I call on this. Yeah. This is not the problem." Yeah. Yes.

[00:09:06]As for I don't I don't use the term institutional I don't use the terms institutional and structural racism much these days, but I I I think that that is the that is the real I think that's the real systemic racism, the fact that people do not want to actually Right. People people want to say the term, people want to skirt around and talk about this and talk about that, but no one actually like if people really cared, as you said, if you look at America, lots of these cities have been run by the same people for the past four decades. Right? If you genuinely, right, not just throwing up a hashtag or, you know, holding up a sign, if you genuinely, genuinely believe that black lives matter and you genuinely care about minorities and you genuinely care about poor people and you genuinely care about the downtrodden, etc., why don't you actually do something real, something tangible that will help people, right? A companies, these companies virtue signaling I on on social media, putting up a black putting up a black square, um going around forcing people to raise their fist in the air, forcing people What does this do? Who does this? It does nothing. It's It's It's virtue signaling to the maximum. It makes you It makes you look like you're some sort of uh great person or anti-racist or whatever, but people will go do this and then they then they go back home and they they just get on with their normal business and Yeah. And again, even with the rioting and the looting and all the stuff that was going I'm I'm like, how many people are getting harmed by this, right? And then even these celebrities, you know, why don't why don't why don't they put their money They were putting their money to bail out people who destroyed the buildings.

[00:10:50]>> These go They haven't you know, these [laughter] celebrities have gone quiet of late. Have you noticed >> Of course. I mean, maybe they've run out of cash. [laughter] I sort of think not, but you know, that's a very good example of just the crassness that that that that some people are willing to engage in. I do not front. I do not scam. Put [music] some respect on my name. Sick like Obamacare, clicking a bang, y'all going to remember the name. Y'all going to remember [music] the name. Y'all going to remember the name.