Dave Rubin and the Regressive Left: two sides of the same coin

Initially when Dave Rubin started his YouTube show The Rubin Report he gained a reasonable amount of goodwill from many “new atheists” for his support of Sam Harris, and other early guests on the show such as Harris' liberal Muslim co-author Maajid Nawaz, or ex-Muslims like Sarah Haider.

Rubin focused his show on attacking the Left, often using the term “Regressive Left”, which was initially popularised by Nawaz to describe some, who whilst still thinking of themselves as opposing bigotry and the staunchest supporters of things like women’s or gay rights, lose their way to such an extent they end up either siding with or acting apologists for people (notably conservatively religious Muslims or Islamists) who hold all manner of truly bigoted, racist, sexist and homophobic views. Good examples of this would include people such as Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Corbyn, Sally Kohn or Linda Sarsour.

Unfortunately however, not only did this quickly become dull, the above is also now an accurate characterisation of what Rubin himself has become too. He and his “classical liberal” pals like Gad Saad have far more similarities in the way they think with the “Regressive Left” they rail against than they would ever like to admit.

Both Rubin and the “Regressive Left” fixate upon their one particular pet issue, whether it is Western foreign policy and perceived bigotry against minorities, or the Left, political correctness and perceived to be unfair accusations of bigotry.

They then centre their entire world view on this, and construct methods to divert discussions of other troublesome issues such as Islam (for the “Regressive Left”) or Trump and his followers (for Rubin types) back towards more favoured terrain of bashing the West or the Left. These methods tend to be either by simple “whataboutism”, or alternatively by creating a “root cause” narrative where everyone basically becomes a puppet to the actions of the West or the Left.

Whilst there may be a certain degree of truth in some cases, these people become so monomaniacal that once their “whataboutism” and “root cause” narrative takes hold their capability of holding anyone accountable for their views or actions evaporates.

With these methods they can not only blame the Left for stupid things people on the Left do, but he can bash them for all the bad in the world everybody else does too. Rubin has for instance said alt-righters sending memes (such as Nazi imagery to journalists of Jewish descent who oppose Trump, or gorilla pictures to Leslie Jones) are a “natural reaction” to the Left and political correctness. His friend “Sargon of Akkad” can even blame Elliot Rodger’s murders on the “FUCKING FEMINIST SYSTEM”. Same goes for certain people on the far Left blaming their ideological foes and bad actions of the West for indefensible things of others too. Even if you were to say this to be true by the way, it infantilises people and reflects far worse on them than anyone else.

They also soon find highly dubious people attracted to their one dimensional narratives, and their shared hatred for either the Left or the West sees them create some curious alliances that on paper seem at odds with their initial stated aims.

On the one hand you have Linda Sarsour and friends claiming to be progressives fighting bigotry, yet she praises people from the virulently bigoted hardline Islamist Al Maghrib Institute, such as Yasir Qadhi who she calls “an inspiration”. Greenwald speaks at CAIR events and offers gushing praise, or admiration for ultra-conservative Muslims or Islamists such as Tariq Ramadan.

Rubin finds himself embraced by ultra-conservatives like Dennis Prager, or conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones, invited to do AMA’s on r/The_Donald, whilst as someone claiming to be standing up for “logic and reason” visits Stefan Molyneux’s (another conspiracy theorist, alleged cult leader and promulgator of legitimate sexism and racism) show and refers to him as an “ally” who’s part of the “new center”.

They also both react similarly to criticism. They may say “we don’t agree on everything” when some of the views from some of those they embrace as allies are pointed out, but then also spend remarkably little time at all actually challenging those views and disagreeing about them. Instead they usually just continue to praise and buddy with them regardless, and attempt to dismiss all those who actually do call out their views by portraying them as “Islamophobes” motivated by bigotry, or hysterical “snowflakes” SJWs who call everyone “white supremacists”, even in cases where that clearly isn’t true they will still pretend it is.

With bigoted conservative Islamic views causing problems globally and nationalist populist far-right movements also rising, there are segments of the Left (or at least people who claim to be on the Left anyway) who seem unable to simply oppose both these far-right ultra-traditionalist authoritarian movements simultaneously and hold both their views accountable without dishing out apologia and fellow travelling with people like CAIR and Yasir Qadhi or InfoWars and Mike Cernovich.

The “Regressive Left” and people such as Rubin are two sides of the same coin. Useful idiots who are helping promote and mainstream apologism for figures either from conservative Islam/Islamist and nationalist/populist movements. Both should be called out and opposed.

Also to pre-emptively respond to the main strawman counter argument of Rubin and his defenders, which is that the idea that the only reason people criticise him is merely because he talks to the far-right and people they don’t like, and he also likes to point out that “I’ve had many progressives” or “SJW types” on too as if he’s neutral. This is wrong and completely misses the point.

Rubin has also referenced those guests as having “regressive views” (on live streams behind their back of course as he’s too cowardly criticise anyone to their face), he’s also referred to progressives as “assholes”, said that to be an SJW is “a mental disorder”, and more generally is bashing and blaming the Left for everything every single week.

By contrast he’s called all of Paul Joseph Watson, Stefan Molyneux, Glenn Beck and Steven Crowder part of his “new center”, made his affection for clear for Milo Yiannopolous and called him an “ally”, chided the media for not listening to more insane nutjob conspiracy theorists like Mike Cernovich or Scott Adams, says Rebel Media are doing a “good job”, offered “smart political talk” with people who describe RT and InfoWars as “quality” media, given his “stamp of approval” to MRA’s with views so extreme she’s endorsed by a Saudi funded openly Islamist think tank that’s friendly with Hizb ut-Tahrir, and even went on a podcast with someone who posts about the “Jewish Question” and describes Lana Lokteff of Red Ice Radio as “a treasure to Western civilisation” and praised them as an “ally” producing “good stuff”. This could go on and on.

The idea Rubin is some sort of neutral here is utterly ludicrous. As is the idea so many have turned against him merely due to he speaks to (he can choose to speak to whoever he wants), they’ve turned against him due to the content of what HE is saying and doing himself.