What the Left Doesn’t Get

A few days after the presidential election, I attended a conference where I heard Rev. Lennox Yearwood speak about what he thought lay ahead. He noted that the left still thinks it’s fighting Jim Crow. 

“But we’re actually fighting his grandson, James R. Crow III,” he told the room. 

He went on to make the point that James is tech savvy and shrewd. He understands how to win and is willing to throw around large sums of money, risks be damned, to do it. 

Candidly, this is something that I’ve been chewing on for months. 

And as I’ve been thinking about this caricature of James, I’m struck by how easy it is wrap my head around who this is and how they think. In the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, I remembered this description of James precisely because who he is reminds me so much of who Charlie Kirk was as a tech savvy propagandist. 

But I also think it’s worth thinking even more about James’ father, Jim Jr. 

Junior is a crypto billionaire, white Christian nationalist who publicly states the climate crisis is a hoax but privately he’s paid big money to get reporting from climate scientists, and he knows a few things that he’s fortunate mainstream media is keeping secret from everyone else. For example, he knows we only have about 60 years before a good portion of the global population is dead from climate change. He started building a bunker not long after he found this out. He also knows that the worst effects from climate change will largely hurt vulnerable populations in the Global South first and he’s gleeful about this fact and even sees it as divine intervention. He’s not sure what degree the planet burning points to the return of Jesus but he knows that language will play to a base that can help his political friends remain in charge once things get worse. He looks forward to seeing James take up this mantle once they can no longer deny the climate crisis is real and he’s thinks his son will be doing God’s work spreading the Gospel that these are the end times and the planet must burn in order to usher in the eschaton. 

Suffice to say, I could play with this metaphor for hours but it begs another question: what is the left’s alternative to James or Jim Junior? 

I have absolutely no clue. 

Something about Chuck Schumer Jr. or Hakeem Jeffries III is so ridiculously milquetoast that even trying to write about it starts to put me to sleep. In their efforts to shun progressive movements, and ignore young people and their base, let alone the working class, they have created a dangerous void, and do you know who fills it? James and Jim. 

Worse, James and Jim’s best friends are media moguls and tech tyrants who were once proud card-carrying members of the left but these days they like how the right makes them more money and are starting to walk away and abandon the left entirely. So those on the left are left trying to walk the fine line of chasing the money that’s walking away from the tech world without appearing too much like James or Jim. 

There is an alternative. 

The future could be someone like Zohran Mamdani who’s unafraid of tackling hard issues like climate change truthfully. He thinks there are ways, democratically, for all people to seek the well-being we all strive for. But that also means saying goodbye to the tech bros and their money forever. 

A movement built on people is not necessarily a movement built on profit, and both parties have been chasing money for too long. The right just knows how to manipulate people to turn a profit a lot better. 

In fairness to the left, James and Jim have it easy: their entire strategy rests on saying “no” to the left. That makes building their messaging and deciding who and what they are funding pretty straightforward. The left meanwhile is saying “yes” over here and “no” over there and “maybe” to this group and “let’s talk more” to that group and “we agree with this nuanced aspect of what you’re saying but not the big picture” to someone else. It’s unsustainable. 

And it’s not just that the left doesn’t get what it’s up against with people like Charlie Kirk. The left also doesn’t understand consistency on what or who it is, and until that changes, the right won’t just keep winning, it’ll consolidate its power (as it’s currently doing) until there is no left anymore. 

We may already be there. 

Which, of course, has me wondering whether there’s any reason to remain hopeful? When it comes to the left? I’m not so sure. But I do see a new vision for a future worth fighting for in the climate activists I encounter regularly. Why them? Because every time I meet a successful climate activist, they are consistently someone who has endured yet overcome trauma. They are apocalyptic about what scares them but optimistic about what could be. They’re bold and courageous and loving. They hold in tandem an understanding that climate can serve as a uniting umbrella to so many different issues at the very time the left is so grossly fractured. They know how to diagnose the issue and what the prognosis should be. 

The question is, will the left listen to them? Until they do, we’re stuck with the Crow family that much longer.