Reviewing “Liberals of Reddit, what is your most conservative opinion?”
A conservative poster about 100 posts into a thread titled “Liberals of Reddit, what is your most conservative opinion?” wrote, “As a conservative scrolling through here I have to wonder what four things are actually keeping us apart.” Someone responded by saying “the media that benefits from common folk fighting, people in government who benefit from common folk fighting, rich people who benefit from common folk fighting, and stupid people.” I think my favorite comment, which got 11k upvotes one of which was mine, was “I feel the liberal leaving my body every time my paper straw dissolves in my cup.”
Reddit skews slightly male (61%), slightly white (70% of American users vs. 61% Americans), but mostly skews very young (64% < 29 years old) and very educated (82% college educated). For those that don’t know, Reddit’s comment system is still sort of better than other places. Better and more liked comments float to the top. And so this thread is not only what liberals think their most conservative idea is, but what the liberal community is most likely to agree with and like.
This thread isn’t a poll or a scientific study or whatever, but I think it’s actually interesting in a like, low budget politicking kinda way. It also feels weirdly interesting in thinking about where the political issue-coalitions of the future might look like. So, what conservative hot takes lie simmering just below the surface in the young and educated?
This single most upvoted comment was “I can understand not wanting to contribute taxes to a government that uses the funds inefficiently and against the interests of the people” with 32,000 upvotes. This is basically the sentiment of Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience, and I’m sort of into it. Our military budget is about $700 billion, just sayin…
The second most upvoted comment was “CNN sucks” (25,000 upvotes) which is true. The way mainstream media broadly performs authority using ties, suits, makeup, teleprompters, dramatized conflict, etc. is so far behind the times it’s unreal. Only boomers and millennial employees of Goldman-Sachs watch CNN, and everyone else feels bad for them.
The third most upvoted comment was “Latino here. Very left-leaning. Latinx is a stupid fucking term. The vast majority of latinos don’t use it, or may not even know about it. Try that shit in a working class area of New York, or LA and see how far that shit gets you. People of Color (PoC) is a fucked up term. It separates us. We just want to be people, goddamn it.” (19,000 upvotes) Latinx and PoC both seem like examples of the stranglehold critical sociology over mainstream social discourse today. Both make sense within certain academic fields, and neither make any sense in common democratic politics. PoC in particular mainstreams and reinforces the binary Anglo-American racial system and undermines all other more complex tri-racial or multi-racial systems. It also just like, for me, seems to totally marginalizes indigenous people by leveling their genocidal experience with all other non-white people. For better and for worse, PoC universalizes both whiteness and non-whiteness. This is the point in the type of academic analysis PoC comes from, but yeah, in the mainstream it’s sort of whack.
The fourth most upvoted comment was “Joe Biden should not run for office again since he is beginning to look his age.” For me, Joe Biden has been a really good president so far. He’s passed tons of really helpful policies for average Americans and really toned down the bitterness of politics. I’d be fine with him running again. If he ran against Trump I think he’d win. If he ran against DeSantis he’d probably lose. Either way, I think I’ll be fine with whatever he decides. If it’s not him thought, who is it?
There’re a ton of comments about gender generally: “Some things--sports and prisons come to mind--are sex-segregated for very good reasons.” “Raising your kids "genderless" is bullshit.” “The 100+ gender thing is just plain attention seeking. You can't defeat gender norms by creating more genders with very strict definitions.” “As a queer and pretty radical leftist I genuinely cannot wrap my head around people claiming to have non-human genders. How the fuck is anyone gonna treat me like a normal human being when people are claiming to be fairy-gender.” “Calling moms “birth givers” is genuinely rude to the woman who just birthed a human being. It’s extremely impersonal sounding.”
There’s a lot about transgender politics specifically: “Not wanting to have sex with a trans person doesn't mean you don't support them having equal rights.” “I think a lot of the Trans community and gender identity stuff has gone a little wonky...I mean, you do you but I'm not gonna understand it all, and that doesn't make me bigoted.” “Trans women should not play competitive sports against bio women.” “The minimum age for transition should be 18. I'm not sure if that's exactly conservative.”
And also the LGBTQ community: “The LGBTQ community can be toxic.” “The LGBTQ+ community is not as open and welcoming as many want to believe. The gatekeeping is insane.”
There were far fewer comments about race generally, suggesting to me that racial ideas are far more unified on the left. That said, beyond the Latinx/PoC debate, there were still a bunch: “White people who go on and on and on about being an ally of every minority are fucking exhausting. Shut the hell up, if you want to help out, do it without expecting attention for it.” “You can be overly sensitive to racism. I get white guilt is a powerful thing, but it's not up to you if something is offensive to another culture.” “It’s not reverse racism to hate white people. It’s racism.”
Then of course, there were just tons of scattered political takes and takes about the media with many thousands of upvotes each: “I think the government doesn’t want its people to be united at all.” “The media has caused a lot of damage. A LOT of damage.” “Canceling” people for things they tweeted years ago is dumb as fuck.” “Illegal immigration needs to have better solutions.” “Defund the police! was a terrible slogan.” “Trigger warnings have gone too far.” “I don't mind guns. I just think if you fuck up you should pay a price.” “Liberals don't allow paths to redemption ever. I'm very liberal, but that bothers me.” “Identity politics is 95% utter horseshit. Many will look back at this period with embarrassment and wonder what possessed them.” “Some religions/cultures are worse than others.” “Banning plastic straws is bullshit. If we want to make a real impact to the waste stream, ban clamshell packaging and all the styrofoam that is used to ship flat pack Wish furniture from Asia.”
There were few related to class…with the exception of a handful of comments about poor people and homelessness: “Sometimes it IS your fault that you’re poor. I agree that in the US we need stronger social safety nets, universal healthcare, etc. but some people are just unbelievably fucking stupid with their money.” “If you're poor, stop having so many kids.” “Some people absolutely should not be having kids.” “A lot of homeless people don’t want help regardless of the resources provided.”
There was one random, but highly upvoted comment about health: “Too many people use the body positivity movement to maintain their unhealthy habits.” It was an outlier in many ways, but I bet this conversation polarizes the Left more than people probably think. Whether it’s how people look or what people consume, healthiness is one of those things that really fucks up our basic political spectrum.
Anyway, I think what surprised me about the thousands of comments I read through was that there was a general disillusionment with the identity politics of the left, and that when that disillusionment appeared it was more often than not related to gender issues. It also just seemed like a lot of discontent was around like…let’s see if I can say this right…around academia and activism playing an outsized role in our mainstream political processes these days. I guess that’s what I see linking banning plastic straws, the obvious issues with defunding the police, the use of Latinx, and the relatively rapid shift from racism-as-act to racism-as-structure. Maybe that’s what being educated gets you: a skepticism toward academia and activism, and a total ambivalence toward class consciousness.