The Limits of Political Thing Noticing
We're already aware; we can't raise awareness any further
The acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse on all charges did not come as a surprise to anyone with legal expertise or a vague awareness of how U.S. institutions tend to work. Both his supporters and opponents had a feeling it would go like this. Hundreds of thousands of words have already been written about why the trial played out as it did, and What It Says About America. In all likelihood, this will not prevent the country’s most authoritative and/or highly paid thinkers from writing many thousands more, until every hand gesture and personal grooming choice has been plumbed for meaning.
But let’s be honest: only one side really has their heart in this fight. Democratic politicians tweet about voting harder, Republican politicians offer Rittenhouse internships. Conservatives crow about self defense and gun rights, liberals (and many leftists) warn about paramilitary white supremacist vigilantes murdering people at will. It’s the same script that followed the Darren Wilson case, the George Zimmerman case, and a depressingly large number of others. This time, though, it feels like everyone to the left of Tucker Carlson is reading their lines with less feeling.
Both the Democratic Party and the broader left movement, whatever that might be, have exhausted the capacity of Thing Noticing to energize their bases. For decades, it’s been the go-to strategy for fundraising and building support. First, point out a Bad Thing that is being enabled by Republicans. Next, promise to stop it if only people chip in enough money/time/etc. Then, repeat the cycle as needed, each time calling for more donations or more votes or more organizing to meet the rising threat (which grows stronger by the year despite all our efforts, but which might finally be crushed this time if we just hit the right KPIs).
However, now there are just too many bad things to notice. All the relevant points have been made time and time again. We’re dealing with an overload of evidence that our politicians are corrupt, our social bonds are breaking, and our ecosystems are on the verge of collapse. People already recognize this. Lack of awareness isn’t the problem—what’s preventing these problems from being fixed is the absence of any coherent big-picture strategy for doing so. And this is a failing of left political leadership.
Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are, realistically, the only two left-leaning U.S. politicians with enough national name recognition to be effective messengers of such strategy. Neither have shown any sign up being up the task. It’s nice that Sanders is opposing arms sales to Saudi Arabia and tax cuts for the rich. And AOC’s interview with the New York Times in which she said the Democrats’ “talking points are not enough” could certainly be viewed as critical of the party establishment, which is currently congratulating themselves for passing this generation’s New Deal.
Still, this muted and piecemeal opposition to a party that is still viewed (despite mountains of evidence to the contrary) as the country’s best vehicle for large scale change is woefully inadequate. It’s a defensive battle at best, an attempt to slow the speed of bad things happening. In a different historical context that might be enough for the moment—but to fight a war of attrition under current circumstances is to fight an unwinnable war, and one that’s too demoralizing to be maintained for much longer. Even the most youthful activists are getting too old for this shit.
How can we pretend that the Rittenhouse case will be some kind of tipping point when its main revelation—that right-wing vigilantes enjoy protection from the state so long as they’re acting in its interests—has already been revealed n times before? At some point the extra evidence is just superfluous. Our eyes have been opened as far as they can be opened; now our hands need something to do, and that something has to be big.
A massive pot of popular energy is bubbling right now. Self-described progressive politicians have been doing their best to keep the lid fastened and the heat turned down, and it’s likely that many of them have genuinely good intentions. When social tensions boil over, the mess isn’t just metaphorical—real people suffer, and the most vulnerable people are, by definition, the ones most likely to be hurt. Intellectualizing or rationalizing this as an unfortunate-but-unavoidable byproduct of societal evolution is both callous and not particularly persuasive if you’re trying to convince someone that your cause is just.
But nobody’s expecting Bernie or AOC to tell people to flee for the hills and take up a guerrilla liberation campaign against the capitalist oppressor. There’s a lot of rhetorical territory between delusional calls for a Mao- or Castro-style revolution and the same stale warnings about Republican perfidy. The Rittenhouse trial, the critical race theory hysteria, the rampant gerrymandering: yes, all of it bodes ill for the future. But what’s new? The same case could’ve been made just as strongly last week, or last year. We have a big enough sample size to state with confidence that shit is fucked up. Now we need a plan to deal with it.