As I mentioned in my last blog post, I recently watched the Real Housewives of Orange County for the first time. And in addition to reinforcing a biblical lesson that’s hard to believe but devastating to ignore, it also affirmed something that I wish wasn’t true.
Vicki Gunvalson earned a reputation early in the show for being kind of unhinged. She was controlling, she was erratic, and she had a temper. And it made her daughter’s disposition all the more shocking, as she seemed to be the opposite. Grounded, level-headed, and often the lone voice of reason among women at least a decade her senior.
She worked hard. She got good grades. She became a nurse – and if I’m remembering correctly, she finished her schooling ahead of schedule.
She was one of the most beloved people on the show despite not being an official Housewife, and fans marveled at how someone like Vicki managed to raise someone like her.
But when she went public with her pursuit of holistic health, everything changed.
When she began challenging the medical establishment, questioning vaccines, looking for natural remedies, intentionally eliminating the toxins in her household, embracing clean eating and the types of diets promoted by Joe Rogan, the show’s overwhelmingly liberal fan base turned on her without so much as a second thought.
When I’m watching an older show, Reddit is usually the easiest place to find out how audiences reacted in real time. That said, Reddit tends to skew further left than the average liberal, so I wouldn’t necessarily treat it as a perfect barometer — but it is a reliable snapshot of progressive sentiment online.
And unfortunately, it’s indicative of a much broader pattern among America’s political left.
When liberals find out that someone they once respected diverges from their set parameters of “acceptable opinions,” they don’t ask themselves why someone they held in high regard might feel this way. They don’t try to understand where they’re coming from, let alone try to reconcile everything they thought about this person with their “problematic” perspectives, or question any of their assumptions about the kind of people that have them.
In Briana’s case, she actually had an extensive background in the medical field. In addition to being a nurse, she’d struggled with serious, life-threatening health problems for a huge portion of her adult life.
Her life experience actually lent credibility to her worldview.
If someone like Briana—a decorated nurse, a devoted mom, and someone who’s always been known as rational—starts questioning the medical establishment, isn’t it at least worth asking why?
Instead of asking why a seasoned nurse with severe health issues and a reputation for being reasonable would come to these conclusions, they reverted to the caricature they’d already drawn of people with her values.
I know this doesn’t apply to every leftist. There are exceptions to every rule. But speaking in general terms, that’s what I can’t stand about them.
When you disagree with them on something significant, they have no intellectual curiosity, and they have no grace. They don’t confront their prejudices with who you’ve proven yourself to be; they convince themselves that your ideological differences define you. It doesn’t matter how kind, how generous, or how compassionate you’ve been in the past. The moment you contradict their dogma, you’re dead to them, and your good deeds are null and void.
They immediately disregard the mounting evidence that they’d been building – sometimes for years on end – that this person was sane, discerning, or good natured, simply because they no longer want to believe it.
Some people might point to conservatives boycotting Bud Light, Disney and Target, and insist it’s the other side of the same coin. But companies embraced “Pride” for years with no meaningful pushback from the right. As “Pride” and all that it encompassed grew in scope and absurdity, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that eventually, there’d be some backlash.
In my opinion, there’s a big difference between using your resources to support or reject a multi-billion dollar company that publicly takes a side in the culture war—and abandoning everything you know about someone the moment they go off script. I’m not saying the right is perfect. But in my experience, except maybe for a random boomer or a Christian fundamentalist who wasn’t allowed to watch Spongebob and still wears jean skirts to her ankles, the right of center doesn’t behave this way.
I’d guess that a significant portion – especially around my age – never had the option to. From celebrities to our personal social circles, we’ve seen so many people that we adore publicly champion causes we thought were anything from silly to insidious, that “tolerance” became our default. But the same people that espouse tolerance and inclusion in theory seem incapable of applying these concepts in real life.
I used to be liberal, so I’m not guessing or projecting – I’m speaking from experience. My freshman year of college, I got the one conservative professor on campus – and I loved him and his class. I remember talking to my mom in the car about him and raving about his course, and saying something like “he’s so smart. Well, can Republicans be smart?” Modern leftism is so arrogant and so reflexively dismissive that it had me second guessing the best teacher I’d had since graduating high school. He was engaging, fascinating, hilarious and cerebral – but because he’d voted for someone else, it was difficult for me to entertain the possibility of recognizing his obvious intelligence.
I’d be lying if I said I never struggled to bridge the gap between who I know and what they think. There are so many people I admire that voted for Kamala Harris, and I struggle to make sense of it. I don’t understand how anyone could have looked at the choices we had in November, and thought she was the better option. But people that are brilliant and capable made choices I don’t understand, and probably never will. For me, and many people like me, while these choices are confusing, they don’t negate the character that’s been consistently demonstrated preceding them. And that’s the difference.
Liberalism convinces its adherents of their own open mindedness, enlightenment, and moral superiority while stripping them of everything they claim to stand for. It tells them that the only way someone could oppose them politically is because they’re evil or ignorant – rarely bothering to ask in earnest. And the longer they keep this up, they’ll keep losing hearts, minds, and ballots—and be shocked every time.
what do you think?