At the beginning of 2020, I was a liberal who believed that, while the United States had its flaws, it was ultimately the best place in the world to live.
I have a vivid memory of being slumped in my desk during my senior year government class while my teacher explained the difference between capitalism and socialism; “In the United States,” he said, “there are a million different burger places. You can go to McDonald’s, or Five Guys, or Burger King. But if we were a socialist country, the government would control everything, so you wouldn’t get to choose where to eat. There would only be ‘government burger.”’
At the time, we were halfway through the Trump presidency, and I didn’t have a lot of love for my country. But that moment made me feel, for just a moment, that maybe I was lucky to be born in the United States. That maybe I had some kind of freedom that other people didn’t have. That maybe all those people who wore Constitution shirts or had American flags fluttering on the backs of their trucks had something to be proud of, even if the way they expressed their pride seemed a little tacky to me. At least I was born in America, right? And if this was really the best country in the world, like people said it was, then I couldn’t really complain about the country’s flaws, because everyone else in the world had it so much worse. I wasn’t going out to buy myself an American flag drink cozy or anything, but I was content with the systems that shaped the world around me. I lived in the best country in the world. What did I actually have to complain about?
I think everyone remembers the moment when the Coronavirus became real for them. For me it was in mid-March. I was getting ready for work when my mom sent me an article, the words of the headline forever branded into my mind: ‘World Health Organization Declares Coronavirus a Pandemic.’ As I drove to work, my mind was spinning with images of my friends getting sick, my family dying. “Did you hear about the pandemic thing?” I asked my coworker. “Yeah,” she replied, “it’s so scary. I went to the store before I came here and they’re out of hand sanitizer. Everyone’s freaking out, I guess.” I drove home in a haze, a haze that has not lifted since that day.
The same haze that’s engulfed this country, slowly but surely, as the initial panic of March and April has faded, leaving only silence. Silence as workers lose their jobs. Silence as millions lose their healthcare or continue to live without. Silence as essential workers are packed together in restaurants and hospitals and grocery stores working for low wages, the “hero pay” long run out. Silence as 257 thousand Americans die.
Over the summer, I worked two jobs. One was a drive-thru coffee shop, and the other a drive-thru smoothie cafe. I served all kinds of customers during that time: there were the Karens and the boomers who called me names or threw their money at me, cursing me for slow drive-thru times and the rising cost of their watery, artificially sweetened smoothies. There were the overly polite teenagers who apologized for everything and tipped more than their orders were worth. There were the stoic customers who spoke only to order and gave me a slight nod before driving away. But the commonality between them all was this: no one wanted to wear a mask in their own car.
And why should they? It didn’t matter whose hands presented them with a steaming cup of coffee, only that the coffee was presented. The whole store could get covid for all they cared, as long as the replacement workers learned quickly and got them through the drive-thru before their lunch break was over. They didn’t care about us.
And that was how I thought all that summer, as I worked late nights at one job and dragged myself to early mornings at the other. That was how I thought as I lost a week’s worth of income while waiting for my test results, how I thought every time I read the news. I read about U-Haul trucks full of bodies and hospitals crammed with dying patients. I read about people losing their jobs and borders being sealed off. I read about anti-maskers toting guns and Costco employees being assaulted. And all I could think was this: they don’t care about us.
I turned on other people. Their selfishness drove a nail of misanthropy so deep into my heart that I doubt it will ever come out. But as the pandemic progressed, so did my understanding of the world around me.
It started with a post online, something that one of my friends had retweeted. It was a thread discussing how people were blaming the continuing spread of Covid on parties and anti-maskers while a huge number of Americans were being forced to work through a global pandemic. It was so much easier, the post pointed out, for those in power to blame individuals while refusing to send out another stimulus check that allowed people to stay home from work.
That post was the beginning of my journey into leftism.
I’ve considered myself a liberal for most of my life. I believe in free healthcare, in universal basic income, in raising the minimum wage and in taxing the rich. I believe that everyone should have the same opportunities, regardless of race, gender, sexuality, or ability. I believed, for a long time, that a handful of selfish, morally corrupt people were responsible for all the bad in the world, and that the way to achieve equality was to make sure those bad people didn’t get any power. It took a global pandemic for me to realize that maybe exploitation is not something that a few greedy individuals cause, but a fundamental problem with the systems in place around us.
That is why I am embarking on a journey to understand the numerous ideas and concepts within leftism. I already understand the flaws within capitalism; I’ve suffered under them. But what alternatives exist? What exactly is socialism? Can it really be reduced to the idea of “government burger”? What is communism? Are there any other economic systems that could replace capitalism?
Each week I will write an article detailing what concepts I have explored and what information I have learned. Occasionally, I also want to write well-researched articles about contemporary leftist issues that interest me. I may get things wrong or change my mind about some issues, but that is all an important part of the journey.
So, whether you’re a longtime leftist or a newbie like me, I hope you come along on my journey. I hope that you can learn something from my writing, and that I can learn something from you.
