Are Progressives Less Tolerant These Days?

Some recent events have convinced me that some liberals are becoming too fanatical

The main reason I’ve identified as a liberal or progressive throughout my life is because of the level of broad open-mindedness we tend to have toward our fellow man, particularly the ones people think of as being different. Whether it’s someone’s skin color, religion, language, sex or sexual preference, we tend to judge them all as people.

We also have a tendency to be more tolerant of people’s actions, provide they aren’t violent. We are, for the most part, more accepting of different lifestyles, different music and different cultures. We’ve also been known to be more tolerant of people’s ideas and views so long as there is some sense or logic to them.

Perhaps it’s simply my imagination, but I’ve run into a few disturbing examples of how intolerant some progressives have become and I’m beginning to wonder if the trend is here to stay.

It is important to note that when I critique people for being narrow-minded, I don’t mean we should all have a tolerance for intolerance. We should all judge bigots, racists, homophobes and violence rather harshly when properly warranted.

A few weeks ago on a Real Time with Bill Maher New Rules segment, Bill talked about the left’s increasing inability to tolerate liberals. In other words, tolerating people like ourselves. Since that episode aired, I’ve been noticing it myself more and more.

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Last week it was announced that Trevor Noah would be taking over hosting duties of the Daily Show from Jon Stewart. Even though he’s an experienced comedian and talk show host, so called liberals went on to denounce not his color or religion, but his comedy.

Trevor Noah took some heat over some failed jokes he had tweeted. Websites took all the racy, edgy jokes he had made over the years and bunched them all together to make him sound like a sexist, anti-Semitic comedian, unsuitable of following in Stewart’s footsteps.

Some of the tweets were in bad taste perhaps, but they were still jokes. If all gags were in good taste, comedy would be awfully boring.

Another recent example of liberal intolerance I found concerns an article we published here on Quiet Mike. Last week we published an article titled “Five Reasons to Reinstate the Military Draft.” A piece that offers legitimate progressive reasons to support a draft, assuming the draft was done equally for everybody regardless of wealth, class, or demographic like in Switzerland.

Perhaps because Americans have been shafted by the draft numerous times, many people reacted to the title without thinking about the content. It didn’t take much time for the spiteful comments on Facebook to surface, the likes of our page to disappear or QM readers to cancel their subscriptions.

Now, I don’t mind people who have their own opinions, of course. I encourage it. People with different life experiences are bound to have a different point of view. It’s what being a progressive is all about. So why, after 900 progressive articles in two years, are people so quick to unsubscribe or un-follow a website which is on their side 95% of the time? As they say where I’m from; ça fait pas de sens…

A few days ago, the hashtag #RespectForZayn trended for hours over a joke made by Bill Maher (a week earlier). He jokingly compared an image of Zayn Malik of One Direction fame to an image of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon Bomber. Next thing you know, Mr. Maher is being accused of calling Malik a terrorist. Every One Direction fan was up in arms.

I know what you’re thinking, that these people aren’t really progressives, they’re just a bunch of snot-nosed kids. Fair enough, but whether they grow up to be liberal or conservative, these kids will be taking over the earth one day and they can’t even tolerate a simple joke about their idol. Good thing he didn’t joke about Big Bird.

Instead of starting a petition at change.org to get Bill to apologize, perhaps these kids should start watching his show. It’s not always perfect, but it’s always good for some laughs and you just might learn something.

Perhaps that’s the whole point. Social media has turned many of us into highly critical, intolerant pricks. It isn’t the article about the Ukraine Crisis that sells on Social Media, it’s the article about the nuttiness of Phil Robertson that does. Nothing shares more on Facebook than a condescending article on so and so, whether it’s deserved or not. We have statistical proof to back up that claim, not that anyone is about to dispute it.

Whether it’s social media or a host of other factors, progressives need to get back to priorities. Judging people, places, or things prematurely or unfairly are not what we are supposed to be about. There are far more important things to be done than criticizing bad jokes.

Political correctness is not something I’d ever like to be associated with. It is after all, what the man wants.