re: #137 Belafon

I’m more and more convinced that we on the left are lousy at infiltrating institutions to help implement our policies. We want blacks to be treated better by cops, but very few on the left join the police force. We want to get a better media message out, but very few rich liberals are willing to invest in media. We think we can do it by being in government, but the other two actually make it harder to be in government.

We’re going to have to change that.

Half the problem is that infiltrating things in the same way and same degree as the right has requires a stark lack of standards, morality, and general humanity. If the last decade or so has proven anything to me, it’s that so much of our institutions rely on a thin assumption of good faith on all sides, and the right has masterfully weaponized that to the point that any attempt to act against them, in good faith or bad, will always be tarred as the worst of bad faith while their craven cynicism will always be uplifted and exalted as the best of good faith. It’s all completely self-feeding right now.