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The Right Attains Class Consciousness

We live in two worlds. One full of atheist lizard people who want to murder white men and watch America burn while dancing to Chappell Roan’s ‘Hot to Go’. The other packed with trad wives and incels (odd combo) who hate immigrants, people of color, gays, and have - at best - a third grade education. That does appear to be the perception. Regardless of reality (‘Hot to Go’ is a banger), the Right and the Left don’t agree on much lately. That is, until Frank Castle Luigi Mangione gunned down UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson last week. Since then we’ve found out the two camps have one vital thing in common; they both hate insurance companies. And I gotta say, we can work with this.

In my recent piece, ‘We Shouldn’t Let a Good Murder Go to Waste’, I point out that Thompson’s murder could be a pivotal moment in our collective spiritual evolution. What we could learn from the anger over our current health care system could propel us toward new legislation or perhaps even a better health care model.

What surprised me is how quickly this anger has coalesced on both sides of proverbial aisle. At least among the 99%. No offense to the Right, but the Left does tend to focus more on economic issues affecting lower income people. You guys are more of the ‘low taxes, where the white women at’ set. But ask anyone I know, I love being wrong.

The Right is finally - sorry guys - ‘waking up’ to idea of class solidarity. Look no further than the YouTube threads of these two CPAC manufactured, billionaire funded, pushers members of the ‘independent’ conservative media; Matt Walsh and Ben Shapiro.

I don’t know Matt Walsh, personally. He seems like a nice enough guy. And if you watch his videos or his recent film ‘Am I Racist?’, he even appears thoughtful. The film makes some good points. His job, however, is about division. Despite what he claims in ‘Am I Racist?’, he doesn’t just highlight issues that divide us. He tells us what to think about each other…by highlighting issues that divide us. His job is to point out the ‘us’ vs ‘them’ in culture, politics, and life. That’s the grift. He’s very good at it. Walsh looks like a guy you turn to for solid advice on whether to choose the Patagonia 650 Down Jacket or the Skogso Padded at REI. If you need a great wine pairing for wild Alaskan Salmon with asparagus, Walsh seems like your man. But if you really think he has your best interest at heart, I have a phone book full of great tips on how to get the government to give you ‘free’ money. Yours for just $24.99. Plus shipping.

Here’s a clip of him doing a spectacular job of not reading the room and blaming the Left for, well…just about everything he can think of:

Now, I wouldn’t wish the watching of this entire video on a Denver Broncos fan, so here’s the gist. Walsh informs us that the ‘Left’ (he means me) is gleeful (I’m not) over the murder of Brian Thompson because we’re all ‘sociopaths’. The killing caused Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield to drop its proposed policy of limiting payment for anesthesia services which will in turn raise insurance rates (that’s also on us). Oh, and Democrats are to blame for passing legislation that forces insurance companies to actually cover health care in the first place so we’re stupid for supporting that debacle as well. Now, I’d rather pay my water bill again than defend today’s Democrats, but this is like a plumber saying:

“Yeah, well I replaced your rusted pipes under the sink, but I gotta charge you a dollar every time you use your faucet ‘cause, you know…it actually works now.”

That sounded like Dan Akroyd in my head. Anybody else hear that?

Walsh, in perfect faux-libertarian form, goes on to defend UnitedHealth for it’s paltry profit margin which, at 4%, was only $22 billion in 2023. I was worried he might not slip that in there but a good grifter knows his spiel. After all, that’s how he got rich.

The most stunning part of the video is not, in fact, Walsh’s amazing beard or the magnificently condescending way he likes to portray himself as the adult in the room. It’s the response to his comments on his YouTube channel. Here are just a few:

It's not left or right to say that America deserves a better health system.

41% of americans have medical debt. Its not a right vs left, its rich vs poor. A human life shouldn't be dependent on how good the stock is doing.

Being rich is blinding you. This is not a “leftist issue”, this is a “WE THE PEOPLE issue”.

You’re entire business model is getting people to hate each other

There were dozens, if not hundreds, more. While Walsh condemned the Left and propounded that poor little insurance companies are just trying make an honest buck in this crazy, mixed up world, his viewers responded with disbelief and disgust. And it was beautiful. A glimpse in time of people actually coming together to confront a universal issue.

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When Ben Shapiro was first constructed in a Heritage Foundation garage, no one could know how essential Red Bull and shock treatments would be for some of the worst takes in podcast history. For example:

“Israelis like to build. Arabs like to bomb crap and live in open sewage. This is not a difficult issue. #settlementsrock“

Also, the same guy who has a sticker on his laptop reading: Facts don’t care about you feelings

…is the same guy that screams “Antisemitism” any time someone politely suggests that murdering tens of thousands of Palestinians might not be in Israel’s long-term interests.

Like Walsh, he too is a grifter who makes his money off of division. He blames the Left for everything that’s wrong in America and, as a result, gets rich. There is no joy, no understanding, no elevation of consciousness in what he does. Again, it's ‘us’ vs ‘them’. He even states that Brian Thompson was ‘just doing his job’ which seems like a really odd flex for him. Consequently, he made the same mistake as Walsh by condemning everyone (read: again, the Left) who found shadenfreude in Thompson’s murder.

Watch the video if you feel you need to. Just don’t let those Stygian eyebrows hypnotize you. So…dark…

Here’s just one telling comment from this video:

For anyone wondering, the video has 7.2K likes, and 56.5K dislikes.

Shapiro and Walsh’s bread and butter are the culture wars. That’s really all that millionaires (and billionaires) have to talk about. They’re rich. What do they have to rail against to get regular people riled up other than same-sex bathrooms, drag queens, and pro-choice lizard people? So when these two exposed their grift, we got to see the rise of class consciousness of many on the Right in real time.

Moments of solidarity like this are both rare and extremely fragile. It requires conditions to be damn near perfect. And who knows how fleeting it will be. It’s like hitting that high note in a song for the first time. You’ve got your posture, compression, and breath all set up perfectly, but it’s anybody’s guess how long that note will hold. Let’s hope some the elites on both sides continue to expose the grift, and that this collective anger will still hold when the next election cycle rolls around. Which, let’s be honest, will probably start sometime in February.

Cover photo: YouTube

Blazing Saddles gif: Tenor.com