Good liberals getting mugged by reality is a phenomenon that Dave Rubin started to notice a few years ago but that has increased recently, where people who might not have had a strong party affiliation (during the lockdowns) realized the left’s liberalism is not working for them.
“When I would go to these rallies to open up the state, I would meet good liberals. These were not Republicans. Maybe they were Democrats, but they were usually apolitical people. ... They were business owners, restaurateurs—things of that nature— who suddenly couldn’t go to work, who suddenly couldn’t put food on the table, etc.,” said Rubin. “And then suddenly, they [liberals] were like, ‘Whoa, now I see it,’ the thing that I’ve been talking about for years that something is wrong with the left, that liberalism is not working in a modern conventional sense. ... I think once you see it, you can’t unsee it.”
Rubin started his career as a journalist and was a progressive who supported Bernie Sanders. He worked for a liberal news outlet, but it was before identity politics became so predominant and people started accusing others of being racists. This way of thinking and calling people out on their so-called racism is also called being “woke.”
“You know, woke at that time wasn’t fully a thing. [It was] identity politics, say five years ago ... now we all sort of understand what it is, and that it’s infecting virtually everything in this obsession with race and all of our immutable characteristics ... it’s just so dangerous and anti-American in so many ways,” said Rubin.
Recounting his own journey of leaving the left, Rubin said he was shunned by liberals for having a difference of opinion about topics like racism, but conservatives welcomed debate and a differing opinion.
“So, I don’t know that I was ever fully woke like that, but I certainly was a lefty. And then when I started saying, ‘Hey, we lefties, let’s stop calling everybody racist. Let’s try not to impugn motives. Let’s try to agree to disagree or put our hands across the table, see what happens,’ all I got was hate from the left. And then the bizarre part, of course, was that all I got was a hand out from the right saying, ‘Hey, we’re over here, you want to talk to us,’” said Rubin.
“And then fairly quickly, I realized that these were not people that were as bad as I had been led to believe,” said Rubin of Republicans and conservatives.
“But the reason for that is the left has come in with a really horrific set of totalitarian ideas that in many ways act as a cult. If you don’t agree with the 10 things that come out of the woke left, right now, the second they decide what they are, you’re out,” said Rubin.
Rubin said he was called a white supremacist for his views and attacked by various news outlets where false accusations were printed about him.
Rubin, the host of the “Rubin Report” and author of “Don’t Burn This Book,” shared his journey of waking up to the left’s narrow-mindedness, how he challenged their ideas, and was attacked as a white supremacist for doing so.
“You’re also, in many religions and cults, you’re born guilty, ... In this case, white Christian men are born guilty of the left, by their (left’s) logic, not by my logic, of course. And what I would like to do is get people out of that cult,” said Rubin.
“Over the course of a couple of years, there were several other moments that I thought something’s not right with the left, and I had sort of been piecing it all together. And then I did this sit-down with Larry,” said Rubin. “Larry just flipped it on its head, and he started rifling off statistics about police brutality and affirmative action, and the black family and a whole series of other things. And what became such a meme-worthy moment was that I really listened to him.”
Rubin emphasized the importance of pushing back against mob rule and thinking for oneself, of not relying on the government but rather on community and taking personal responsibility.
