Rex Kerr
6 min readAug 10, 2022

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Let's read his post.

First paragraph references "frenzied claims". No mention that women specifically are the ones making frenzied claims.

Third paragraph references "angry rhetoric". No mention of women specifically being angry.

Eighth paragraph claims that men and women have similar positions on the issue.

Ninth paragraph references women fighting for their rights against the patriarchy. This might be an example of what you're saying.

Eleventh paragraph charges extremists of exaggerating to the point where it is ridiculous. No statement about women being the ones who are exaggerating.

Twelfth paragraph makes a charge of ridiculous claims. No statement of women being the ones making such claims.

Fourteenth paragraph charges both ridiculous claims and disrespect. No statement women specifically being the ridiculous and disrespectful ones.

Fifteenth paragraph charges demonization. No statement of women specifically being the demonizers.

Sixteenth paragraph rejects a conflation of pro-life and neo-nazi ideology. No statement of women making this conflation.

Nineteenth paragraph says moderates see images of angry white women stalking Justice Kavanaugh and calling Christians Nazis. This is a clear example of what you're saying.

Twentieth paragraph references crazy angry people. No mention of those people being women.

Twenty-first paragraph references both craziness and anger. No mention of the crazy or angry people being women.

Twenty-eighth paragraph charges extremism, a charge leveled at Democrats, not women.

Twenty-ninth paragraph expresses concern about a deeply fractured society with extremes that hate each other and call each other fascist. No mention of women being one of the extremes.

Thirty-first paragraph says its tiring to hear the sides screaming about murdering women and babies. No mention of women.

So, out of fifteen paragraphs that talk about angry rhetoric or extremism, thirteen clearly do not reference women, one does obliquely, and one directly blames them...but does so in the context of actual footage of an actual event that was reported on.

How you get from a 13:2 ratio of attack on anger and extremism vs an attack on angry extremist women who he was tired of listening to, to his main point being the latter not the former, I am not sure.

Regarding when you organize in what way, I agree that the dramatic parts--protests, sit-ins, etc., play a very important role during certain stages for the struggle for justice. But because they're cool and exciting (and we hear about the times when they worked), there's an unhealthy conflation of these with being what is actually necessary to get something done.

The most recent example of an effort being lost to a backlash against extremism is the aftermath of the George Floyd murder. Shortly after the murder, something like 2/3 of people supported Black Lives Matter. But as the extent of destruction spread, the mostly clearly stated demand became "defund the police" (extreme sounding and some people actually meant it), news outlets characterized the protests as mostly peaceful while flames leaped in the background (the right loved sharing that as a meme), and people talked about liberating goods (= looting stores). Most of the people who were in the center and quickly moved to support BLM because of the injustice of the murder just as quickly moved away. It's a little hard to support this now with evidence (I watched it as it happened), but you at least can see in polling the spike in support and the quick drop between June and September.

The most recent example of an effort succeeding because moderate positions were accepted instead of demanding a more extreme (or "principled") position is the passage by the senate of the climate bill. There were specific things that Manchin and Sinema didn't want, and the Democrats talked it through, and provisions were altered until it was acceptable to them. Bill passed. Biggest impact on climate in U.S. history. Big impact on health care. Moderate impact on tax evasion by the rich. It got done. And the only reason it got done now instead of earlier is that people were insisting on a more ambitious bill earlier--and that couldn't get support from the rightmost Democrats (who are moderates by national metrics). Oh, and the bipartisan gun bill? Remember that? Think a strident approach would have worked?

If you want to go farther back, the free speech movement of the 60s very nearly sank itself due to extremism. The movement was stronger nowhere than in California, and within California, nowhere was it stronger than U.C. Berkeley. Public opinion was not particularly solidly in favor of the students, especially when they went beyond sit-ins and such and actually damaged campus infrastructure. But Ed Meese tried to solve things by arresting all the students, which rather than working turned student and popular opinion more against the harsh law-and-order approach and more in favor of the students. A compromise position (NOT precisely what the students were demanding, but after a few years they seemingly forgot that and decided it was a glorious victory) was worked out to allow political activity on campus (but no destructive action). When Ronald Reagan became governor, he wouldn't stand for being soft on this hotbed of communist activity: he vowed to crack down on the "lawlessness" at Berkeley...and among other things ended up sending in the National Guard to beat up (and shoot!) students. Although it won Reagan a good deal of attention among the national law-and-order crowd, it did not play well locally and pretty much sealed the long-term success of the right of students to engage in activism...probably nationwide, not just at Berkeley.

Eco-terrorism wasn't even a thing until the 1960s, and wasn't really on anyone's radar until the 1980s. Spiking trees was not remotely helpful at getting broad support for the protection of old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest.

One of the most powerful events in the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s was the use of dogs and water cannons in Birmingham. The extreme tactics used against protestors were widely viewed as horrible, and were a significant part of what prompted Kennedy to call for civil rights legislation. (I don't know to what extent that played a role in LBJ's masterful orchestration of the actual Civil Rights Act, though.)

In the 2020 elections, moderate Democrats did well in swing seats, while far-left Democrats did poorly: https://www.thirdway.org/one-pager/democrats-moderate-majority

Over and over again, we see that there is an extremism tax. Extremism motivates, but it does not sell widely.

It's critical to understand what part of the lifecycle of the struggle for rights one is operating in. Abortion rights is operating very late in the cycle, where it's all about building coalitions to enact meaningful legislation. Extremism is a huge liability in this situation--everyone knows the issues, most everyone has an opinion, and the louder you get and the less you listen, the more you're going to turn away people who might otherwise help. In contrast, the more you listen, the more sympathy you evoke, the more reasonable you seem, the more support you can get.

If we were very early in the lifecycle--let's say we're interested in a bill of children's rights because we think we make children do way too much that they neither like nor which is particularly good for them--then we'd need the protests and demands and all the rest. Good for raising awareness, bad for building consensus. (Even then, really extreme extremism isn't good, but you can get farther in that direction because what is missing is motivation to even care about the issue--who cares about what kids think, anyway?--and a clear moral case for removing the injustices--like, if you can't sit at a desk all day doing boring stuff you hate instead of running around playing most of the time, of COURSE we can medicate you until you sit still; seriously, what even is your problem, kid?!)

Unfortunately, the history of justice seems to focus on the sexy exciting stuff like marches and walkouts, and not so much on the boring stuff like humanizing your opponents so some of them reconsider and become (perhaps grudging) supporters, or working out a compromise position, even though these things are often equally important.

Now, I don't personally think that WHPA should be considered extreme; I think it's pretty moderate (even if it is more expansive than Roe). But I sure wouldn't try to get it passed by making an enemy of people who think it's a little too liberal, and if I wanted quick legislative action, I wouldn't aim for that or nothing because the reality is that there's too much sentiment in favor of something more restrictive for it to be an easy sell (e.g. 70% of people do not support something which admits as much choice as does WHPA.)

In the battle between the good guys and the bad guys, the advantage goes to the one who realizes that it's not actually just good guys and bad guys.

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Rex Kerr
Rex Kerr

Written by Rex Kerr

One who rejoices when everything is made as simple as possible, but no simpler. Sayer of things that may be wrong, but not so bad that they're not even wrong.

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