Can people shift ideologically when a faith of sorts gets jostled by inconvenient reality? In some cases, yes.
The April death of David Horowitz brings to the fore a cogent example of that. As some know, Horowitz grew up in a New York, Communist-oriented family. However, his parents finally had to believe the crimes their hero Stalin had committed against millions and ditch some of that far Left idolatry.
Ditto even moreso for their offspring, David, as described in his memoir “Radical Son.” Radical?
And then some. During the ‘60s the young Horowitz helped launch the “New Left,” edited “Ramparts,” vigorously opposed the Vietnam War, and hung out with Huey Newton, a founder of the Black Panthers; but then he started questioning his own views when Newton blithely got a friend of his murdered.
The questions multiplied, and by the ‘80s Horowitz made a big U-turn toward … Reagan; and later, Trump, whom he considered an American savior of sorts. Collecting enemies in the process? Many!
A second David, Mamet, was another “red diaper baby” (in Chicago), with parents who were also Communists. He stayed on the Left for a long time as a noted playwright, screenwriter, etc. Till he, too, moved toward a more traditional center, and eventually backed Trump.
Both Davids’ problem with the American Left was its willingness to make ends justify questionable, even nefarious means. One of Horowitz’ books first made me understand that the Dems’ open border policy was meant to garner potential votes from illegals (in their eventual millions). Duh…
Yes, for types with their upbringing, these were major U-turns, indeed, but seen as well in earlier generations. One could cite Arthur Koestler’s remarkable testimony on how he lost his own faith in the Soviet dream, seeing the reality by the late ‘30s (of some eight million in Stalin’s gulags, almost all slated to die); yes, of a regime breaking innumerable eggs to make what turned out to be shoddy societal omelets.
Another fine scribe, George Orwell, also started questioning his socialist leanings in the late ‘30s. He, too, began to see the hypocrisy there, plus a weird ingredient that in a way, has led to the current progressive mania for trans, unlimited weed, etc. Any aspiring writer could glean a lot from Orwell’s “Road to Wigan Pier” and “Homage to Catalonia” (and NOT just “Animal Farm” or “1984,” though they also show the same kind of ideological “U-turns” sketched above).
Winston Churchill’s famous take on all this comes to mind, to the effect that those not on the Left in youth lack a heart, and those who don’t move rightward in older age lack a brain. There’s something to that.
Peachy on paper for progressives to think that everything for everyone can actually come about in this flawed world of ours. But it can’t. Trying to spend your way into nirvana leads at the least to a thing called national bankruptcy. Yes, to a monstrous debt load which future generations won’t be able to pay off.
After a while one has to get real, which does mean probing at least some aspects of a political “faith.” But is that occurring enough?
There are indications here and there that such soul-searching may be on the rise. Even in California many Bay Area progressives are tired of policies allowing unhealthy homeless encampments to ruin their neighborhoods. Even in California many tech titans, once firmly on the Left, now subscribe to a more conservative emphasis re lower taxes for all, and fewer regulations, which make doing business overly difficult. Even in California Hollywood types with fire-ruined homes are starting to question the “ecology” of for instance, leaving combustible forest floors intact, or of saving scarce water for smelts.
But faiths do hang on, don’t they? So does related magical thinking, and there’s a good deal of that about these days, especially again, on the current Left. How has that worked out in formerly great cities like New York? Where you can be thrown onto subway tracks or become yet another straphanger stabbing stat. Or see your pharmacy looted, all partially due to progressive leniency on crime.
Of course one hears an inevitable retort: what about American conservatives? Can THEY also move more toward the center, and positions of moderation? To be continued …