I always identified myself as a progressive, always seeking to improve the human condition and liberalism echoed with me quite well. It started when I read Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man, a great rebellion against autocracy and aristocracy. An egalitarian battle cry on the heels of the French and American revolutions, what a high!

My debating skills improved quite dramatically; liberalism was so easy to use and understand. Is the government imposing something you dislike? Liberalism. Are social constructs getting in the way of your identity? Liberalism. Is religion imposing some archaic moral code on your existence telling you to fear god? Liberalism. Is the government trying to rob you from your religious practices under the guise of secularism? Yups, that’s right, Liberalism. Liberalism was always there.

But that’s when things started getting strange.

I’m with stupid

You see, as the events of the year unfolded, Brexit being voted for, the election of Hilary Clinton during the democratic primaries, and the subsequent victory of Trump, I started feeling that liberalism was lacking. Well at least the way it was interpreted.

I was confused how so many other Liberals like me would be ok with labelling more than 50% of the UK population as stupid and racist. When Hilary Clinton was elected at the primaries, I was confused how people could be satisfied with presenting the biggest advocate of intervention as the star child of liberalism. And when Trump won, I felt like I had to advocate that it may be time for pause and reflection.

I made my issues heard, of course, an open society of liberals would be there for me, to listen to my concerns and my feelings and see how they can help. Boy was I wrong!

My deviation from the norm was dealt with swift vengeance. Criticism was automatically assumed as opposition and personal attacks were rampant, even my gender was brought into it! I was confused. How could they not know I was on their side? I even wrote a piece endorsing Hilary Clinton!

This left me scared and feeling isolated! How could my own team be so mean to me? The people I identified with and felt safe around. The people who valued difference and diversity! I started feeling pressured and pushed away from my true identity. I had nowhere to turn and no one to speak to, left on my own to deal with my own frustrations. This wasn’t the liberalism I read about!

Beyond my personal traumas, I also witnessed many other vicious attacks. I saw liberals laugh at any nationalistic and patriotic notions. Dismiss valid arguments from people based on their gender and race. And engage in deconstructive assessments of society to the extent that it seemed like they almost forgot society is for co-existence!

The most confusing part about my struggle was that I kept hearing criticism about the intellect of the other side. Trump supporters and Brexiteers were stupid, but somehow liberals still lost battle after battle! I tried to point out that if we keep losing to stupid opponents then surely that must say something about us! I was ignored, left on my own.

I was definitely barking up the wrong tree and needed to stop and accept that this just wasn’t for me.

Against capitalism

Another confusing aspect of liberalism in practice was the lack of economic sense. Liberals seemed to hate corporations but didn’t want to do anything about it. Even when the progressive and liberal Democratic Party held the senate, not much was done to push a progressive economic agenda. No tax restructures, no increased regulations, no removal of moneyed interest from politics, no increased investment in social security or infrastructure. All liberal ideals meant to allow for the liberation of the individual, empowering them to attain their natural rights!

And when employees got laid off because companies could get away with it and still pay large bonuses, the government did nothing to re-skill labour, or to intervene to help them find jobs and empower them. And the same can be said in the UK and Europe where austerity had become the norm. Tighten your belt said the queen! Cut your benefits said Germany to Greece. Definitely doesn’t inspire the internationalistic interpretations intended by liberalism, and it was already agreed that’s reverting to nationalism was off the table.

No sound economic policy, coupled with an aggressive stance against the non-conforming personal opinions left me looking for something else to identify with, something bit closer to home.

The creeping left

The truth is, I always knew I had leftism in me. As a kid I was amazed by the revolutionary feats accomplished on the sails of communism. At the time it was the kind of awe you would look at in a rebellious way. The pure grit of authoritarianism needed to drive a nation, an idea, forward. Of course, I look at that now and understand the naivety behind it. but once I started being shunned away by the community I identified with the next best thing I knew.

The gateway though, beyond feeling stripped of my identity, was memes. Harmless memes that I shared jovially. Ones that provided the same rebellious laugh as me wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt in high school. But the memes provided a strong gateway, and before I knew it I was re-reading my copy of the communist manifesto, investigating Marxist conceptions and counter arguments of profit, and even constructing my own extremist arguments against the current state of neoliberal economics. The transformation was complete and it was too late to turn back. I had already lost all my friends and Marx was now all I had, it was the only way.

Sure, we could argue that Marxism, when it comes to international political rhetoric, is still a bit too dogmatic and over reliant on ‘Imperialism’ as the go to. But the movement is based on a more solid and older Ideology (you know like the argument you’d make about religion?), and the supporters are great! They accept me as I am. We also have a lot of fun activities, we go on walks together, sing chants, and boy do we enjoy some drinking!

I think I’m a lot happier now that I’ve accepted who I am. So for the time being, and for the foreseeable future, it’s goodbye liberals, hello comrades.