Why I'm Politically "Non-Binary"

Navigating "left vs. right" hysteria, and why Newton's Third Law applies to politics.

Dear lesbian reader,

Over last year’s Christmas dinner, I found myself caught in a crossfire: two younger family members were arguing over politics.

“You’re such a Communist!” one yelled.

“And you’re a fucking Fascist,” the other barked.

…all the while, I just wanted to savour my god-damn meat roast.

The debate went on all evening, and whenever I tried to add a middle-ground remark, it was met with bafflement.

How dare I suggest there could ever be an alternative viewpoint? Or worse—hint that both sides had, occasionally, valid (or idiotic) arguments?

It’s not unknown to me that there are echo chambers—both online and in university campuses—where extremist political views are not just discussed, they’re encouraged.

Young people are particularly vulnerable to this form of groupthink—I hadn’t yet realized just how much.

But while political extremism is a predominantly youth-led phenomenon, it isn’t exclusively.

Western politics seem stuck in a never-ending pendulum swing—from one side to the other—with only a few minutes in between.

One movement’s excesses cause enormous backlash from its opposition.

In this essay, I ask: why is everybody so god-damn hysterical about politics ALL the time? And is it useful?

Let’s find the answers together.

How The West Became Liberal

For a long time, Western society was rooted in traditional values—some of them were good, others less.

In many cases, irrationality prevailed over logic.

Some examples: the reduction of women to second-class citizens, enslaving and torturing people, and the borderline insane piousness of the middle ages.

That was when we did not have modern governments, judicial systems and institutions capable of basic policing.

Daily life was filled with death, pain, illness—elements which normalized violence and suffering in the public domain.

Resource scarcity created the need to fiercely protect one’s interests—even at others’ great expense.

But as time went on and as we industrialized and developed, we slowly turned away from irrationality and embraced logic—a natural effect of material conditions improving for almost everybody, and a good thing indeed.

It is safe to say, no generation previously alive on Earth has ever experienced such high standards of hygiene, health and wealth as we benefit from today.

Relative stability has meant that previously marginalized groups have been able to gain rights and the opportunity to participate in civil society.

Religious freedom (including the freedom to not be religious) replaced purity and conformity.

As a society that had seen enormous progress, we could afford to become more liberal.

Unfortunately we forgot to draw the line of exactly how liberal we should all agree to be.

How Having Values Became “Fascist”

Balance began vacillating around the mid 2010s, and it achieved its final fall around the COVID-19 pandemic.

In fact, why don’t we all just call it the wokedemic?

Our unforeseen privilege made us lazy. We stopped questioning which progress was good progress.

Instead, we took all new ideas as positively avant-garde.

Social media rendered this possible: as give or take six billion people had sudden access to the web, interconnecting us at all times of the day and almost anywhere, even the most taboo of ideas could be given light and almost certainly find footing with a few thousand people, even on the other side of the world.

Free speech and the liberal value of individual freedom were turned against us—a monster of our involuntary creation.

Pretty quickly, we were asked to accept the unacceptable:

• sex work (pro-female-exploitation) positive feminism

• sexual promiscuity and open-relationships as the new norm

• open borders and the support for third-world ideologies¹

• dispersing all boundaries of sex and sexuality

The list goes on.

All the decent values we held dear in post-WWII world (family, romantic relationships, care for women and children, pride in our nations and cultural identity) were deemed incompatible with the left-wing vision for a utopian future—one free of suffering and inequality. One free of borders, structures and “oppression”.

Funnily enough, the woke movement echoes and mirrors the very past ancestors it denounces.

It is a movement driven by irrationality and fear rather than logic. Excess rather than moderation.

Woke has been the Enlightenment of the 2020s—but a unique one in its nature. It is illiberal authoritarianism disguised as “freedom”.

Woke rejected traditional theology, yet has been the faith to replace all religions—and a very pious one at that.

Social ostricization has been necessary to maintain purity—achieved via cancelations, public shaming, getting people fired from their jobs for a tweet.

“Progressive” was the badge of pride everybody wore on their Instagram, and anybody with an opposing opinion could be nothing but a “fascist Nazi”.

Newton’s Third Law Applies To Politics

Among other things, life has taught me this: when you push too hard, you almost always get the opposite of what you desire.

In the years preceding the Wokedemic, many right-wing people accused anyone with a remotely leftist idea of being a “communist”.

When you use big words, they stick—especially to kids.

And because Communism appeals to the irrational, vulnerable and idealistic side of the brain, it gains the most traction amongst youngsters.

The collective delirium over the Palestine and Trans issues has been most enlightening about just how true that is.

For the past year, our feeds have been swarmed with videos of young “Antifa” marchers screaming idiotic slogans, holding up grim Islamic flags alongside even more hideous hammer-and-sickle flags.

They yell about the “far right”, yet are the ones taking to the streets and vandalizing public property. Assaulting police officers. Over and over again. Did I mention killing political adversaries and celebrating their deaths?

The red-green alliance² is perhaps the most worrisome form of left-wing extremism: degenerate social “progressives” supporting the most regressive and oppressive form of social conservatism.

What do they share in common? Both are trying to obtain their utopia via violence & totalitarianism.³

Western society at large does have its fault in this: we forgot to take a stronger stance against Communism, like we did with Fascism.

But here’s the thing, dear leftists: when you continuously pose as the “martyr” and fight tooth and nail to make sure others acknowledge that, you create fertile conditions to materialize your claim into reality.

When you call people “fascists” for disagreeing with you, you’ll see people slowly stop taking fascism seriously (as it has already happened). You’ll see a minority of (albeit, retarded) people actually becoming enticed by that ideology.

And there it goes: now an increasing number of (particularly) young men gaze at the Hitlero-Mussolinian past with nostalgia.

In these far-right spheres, all sorts of degenerate views are proliferated:

• believing in white racial superiority & hating Jews

• denouncing women’s rights to vote and have abortions

• deeming homosexuality a sin, proposing to overturn same-sex marriage & breaking apart gay/lesbian families

• demanding the subjugation of half of the population

This is, unfortunately, what you get when you repress free speech for a decade.

It’s what you get when you:

• push for racial divisions

• bash the traditional family and children

• claim that all men are violent and women are victims and angels

• insist that all other cultures are superior to western ones

Some ideologies—such as the “Red Pill” and Fascist ones—are objectively wrong. But the way we expunge them from society isn’t by banning them, it’s by proving how and why they are wrong.

The public sphere is where bad ideas go to die.

Much like Vecna from Stranger Things, when you banish them for years, they grow stronger in the darkness and, eventually, morph into monstrous things unable to be contained.

Those who weren’t allowed to speak for a decade took harder & harder lines.

The un-woke became woke.

They became the new victims, the new “oppressed”—everybody else is the oppressor (women, gays, lesbians, jews, blacks).

So big congrats to the lefties, you did it! All the things you fear (or claim to)— racism, homophobia, misogyny, fascism—are now in fashion.

“Gay” is an insult again—big thanks for that.

The pendulum swung too far left—time will tell if it will swing too far right or if we’ll be able to assess & manage the damage on time.

One thing is for sure: Newton was right. For every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction.

Living In The Grey Area Of Politics

With time, I’ve grown more conservative. Moderate center-right discourse resonates the most with me at present, but it is not a definite category I care to box myself in.

To a leftie, my views on immigration, trans & other issues would probably grant me the “far right” label.

Except I am not far right—the world has simply moved too far left.

And since everybody has made politics into identity, allow me to do that myself for a moment: my existence (as a lesbian and female) is consistently weaponized from all angles, which makes every political faction untrustworthy in my eyes.

As a lesbian, I’m fucking tired of:

1. Being treated as the left’s puppet, having the gay movement hijacked and weaponized to promote batshit-crazy ideologies (such as trans, polyamory and other perversions) which cause direct harm to women and children.

2. The right leveraging gay marriage & adoption as sticks to beat us up with, trying to prove this facilitated gender ideology and other depravations—all in order to confirm their bias that gays are “child groomers”.

The left is a bunch of slogan-yelling retards, but so is the religious right.

There is nothing to gain but superficial attention from identifying zealously with one political end.

Most people possess complex, mixed views depending on the subject.

Politics don’t have to be black or white.

Conclusions

A degree of emotion is normal when we care deeply about something, but becoming hysterical about every single topic doesn’t serve anybody—it certainly doesn’t help your broader political movement.

Getting into screaming matches with your relatives and opponents won’t pay forward your cause, and it will, in fact, only make the other side angry and vengeful.

In a political landscape that lacks nuance and promotes polarization between “sides”, I choose my own side.

You won’t catch me dead idolizing a politician, nor identifying with a single political party.

After years spent pondering on it, I’m am happy to come out as politically “non-binary”.

I hope more of you find the strength to do the same: find your own side, even if you’re the only member of your party.

Readers:

• What do you think about the ongoing political discourse and developments across the West?

• Are you worried about the rise of political extremism as a lesbian or as a woman? Why or why not?

• How do you engage in nuanced political discourse when everything seems polarized and everybody is so emotional?

— The Critical Butch

PS: The Critical Butch is now on X! Follow me at @DeCriticalButch

1. Third World Ideologies: Islam. Read more about my opinions on the subject here.

2. Red-green alliance: the alliance between socialists (marked by the color red) and islamists (marked by the color green).

3. Violence & totalitarianism: while I’m sure communists would jump to the defense of their movement claiming that that’s not “real communism”, Marx himself advocated for violent revolution in The Communist Manifesto (just read it, so it’s fresh in my mind, ladies).