Some years ago, we at Perfect Social Movement (PSM) noticed that Problem was ravaging our nation, and decided to band together to promote Solution.

We started by calling our Congressman and Senators — they assured us they were listening, but asked that we write letters instead (so that we didn’t disturb them). After a year of letter writing, they kindly asked us to talk to corporations instead, as they thought Problem should be solved by the private sector instead of through big government.

For the next few years, we called corporations and asked them to fix Problem. Their media teams were concerned that we were being pushy and hurting their brand, so we changed strategies to education. Instead of asking them to do anything, we sent them monthly emails about Problem (so that we wouldn’t seem adversarial). …

Individualism is in the air we breathe.

We watch movies about individual heroes saving the day, read history books in which individual men build empires, and read think pieces about how individuals in poverty make good (or bad) choices. Because this ideology is so universally accepted, it has become “common sense.” Even suggesting that individuals may not be primarily, much less entirely, responsible for their circumstances is mocked and dismissed out of hand. To blame structures, or systems, or society is seen as childish weakness — as an attempt to shield yourself or others from accountability.

The trouble is that individualism is an utterly absurd way of explaining the world. …

Or: How Your Son became a Socialist.

Over the last decade, there has been a massive generational shift in American politics. Where in 2010 it appeared that the future of the Democratic party was a wave of young Obama-loving liberals, today essays and articles are being written to explain how a generation of far-left progressives, socialist, and anarchists sprouted from the harsh soils of American capitalism.

I suspect that once Biden takes office, and once the tide of climate, BLM, and economic protests continues to rise in spite of a Democratic victory, there will be renewed interest in this question — how did a generation of left-leaning kids and liberal millennials become a juggernaut for leftist, not liberal, politics? …

This is the second part of an ongoing series on defeating conservative arguments. Read the introduction and Part 2: Argument ad Hypocrisy.

A key part of modern conservatism’s success is the creation and weaponization of “common sense.”

Used by Antonio Gramsci to describe a set of political and ethical values which have become so widespread that they are accepted as fact, “common sense” allows the most powerful ideology to dismiss facts outright if they oppose a widely accepted belief.

Police and prison abolition, for example, are seen by America’s political mainstream as absurd and dangerous ideas with no basis in reality. It is just “common sense” that police should be called to resolve every issue from domestic violence to an elementary school mental health crisis. Even though the overwhelming majority of studies show there are far better alternatives to policing for solving social ills, adopting those policies instead of building more prisons is seen as radical and absurd. …

A few weeks ago, a landlord in Colorado sent his tenants a letter threatening to raise their rent should Trump lose the election, and promising to freeze it if he wins. As shockingly undemocratic as it may seem, a quick Google search tells us that this is not a rare phenomenon. Whether it’s bosses telling their employees to vote Trump in 2016, or threatening layoff if Obama wins re-election in 2012, using ones’ wealth and capital to coerce how other people vote is as old as American democracy.

Some of these tactics are transparently illegal — a number of states have statutes which forbid a boss to tell their workers how to vote — but others are murkier, or even explicitly protected by the constitution. Take the Colorado landlord’s letter, for example. Though the intentions were clear, the letter explicitly said it was not an instruction on how to vote, and phrased the possible raise in rent as an inevitability if Biden is elected, rather than a choice being made by the property owners. …

This is the second part of an ongoing series on defeating conservative arguments. Read the introduction here.

Common tactics:

Intentionally or otherwise, conservative arguments mostly fall into a handful of categories. As you read through this, think of times you’ve faced these tactics before, how you responded, and whether you achieved your goals.

It is important to note that very few people know what strategies they are using in an argument. This is not a high-school debate tournament where you will get bonus points for pointing out their logical mistakes and argument types. …

In celebration of what an incredible mess the Presidential and Vice-Presidential debates have been, over the course of the next few weeks I will be releasing weekly guides on how to defeat conservative arguments. Though today’s edition will focus on the different goals you can hold while arguing, the following weeks will each cover one conservative tactic and a few strategies to defeat it.

Please note: The goal of this guide is to teach you how to defeat conservative rhetoric by any means necessary. This is not a manual on civil debate, nor is it concerned with making / keeping friends. In my view, conservatism is an existential threat to human well-being. …

I am a 22-year-old leftist. For the last decade of my political life, liberals have called me a naive idealist. From debate tournaments, to Democratic caucuses, to dinner-table-debates, I have endured dozens of lectures from life-long Democrats who see my radicalism as a dangerous folly of youth — something to be lauded at times, scolded at others, and ultimately, outgrown.

Treating leftism like a toddler’s mistake, these Democrats have told me bedtime stories warning of the dangers and failures leftism has wrought in American political life.

Their story goes something like this:

When I was 3-years-old, naive leftists who voted for Nader over Gore handed the country to Bush and thrust the nation into war. …