But White Women--
I wrote about why middle-aged white women made liberalism uncool. People had COMMENTS.
The other day, I wrote Liberalism was Cool. Then Your Mom Became One, about how being a liberal has gone from rebellious young man coded to middle-aged lady coded, thus making it deeply uncool (for now.) It went a bit viral, which I actually didn’t expect. I almost didn’t write it, not because it felt controversial, but because this isn’t a political Substack and every time I’ve written about politics, I’ve lost more subscribers than I’ve gained (I spent countless hours on my article about RFK Jr. and the right co-opting the idea of “chemicals in food,” only to lose 11 paid subscribers for it.) Maybe this is my sign that I should write about politics more often, as long as I stay in my lane of drawing on social dynamics, nostalgia, and coolness or lack thereof.
Of course, my article about middle-aged white ladies ruining liberalism for the edgelords wasn’t in defense of us. I wasn’t asking anyone to feel bad for us, defend us, or take sides. I wasn’t even asking anyone to reassure me that my demographic is cool—we are not! One thing about my writing is I don’t really moralize or scold (#notlikeotherwhiteliberalmoms) I just notice trends. And the trend I noticed was that the “cool” edgy liberalism of my youth, popularized by Green Day, Michael Moore, and the button I had on my backpack that read “Bush Lied, People Died,” was now the territory of the resist lib MSNBC pussy hat contingent. A young person being a liberal to shock their parents is not a “thing” anymore, the same way it was unheard of in 2004 for a young person to be a dogmatic Catholic Republican in an effort to be cool and edgy.
Of course, like any viral article (especially any article with a paywall) I was bound to get pushback. I expect it, and to some extent I enjoy it, because it keeps the dialogue going. Of course, some of the pushback was very stupid. This article is about that pushback, from both sides of the aisle.
