OPINION: Now, More Than Ever, Centrism is the Answer
New York City wasn’t built on equality! (Needpix)
Advait Arun (SFS ‘22) is the editor of the Compass World section and a guest writer for the Caravel's opinion section. The content and opinions of this piece are the writer’s and the writer’s alone. They do not reflect the opinions of the Caravel or its staff.
Can you believe a bunch of Americans can’t even afford a $400 emergency expense or something? Yikes, I know.
But, to be fair, a lot of people just don’t bother saving their pennies.
[Is this the place? You have good taste. Pretty fancy for such a run-down street.]
Whenever I bring this up, though, my friends just go off, as if my opinion doesn’t even matter. I mean, we all voted for Biden, so I assumed they just wanted things to go back to normal after four years of Cheeto Man. Right? We all want a government that isn’t corrupt and wasteful, slow and steady progress, nothing crazy.
But ever since AOC started tweeting, they haven’t shut up about these bonkers new ideas!
[What are you going to get? Oh, jeez, this is so expensive. Must be that minimum wage hike.]
Seriously, can you imagine universal healthcare? Or a Green New Deal? The country would go bankrupt! If real Americans actually supported socialism, they would have voted for it a long time ago.
Still, even if people did vote for socialism, what would the government even do? “Help” “people?” Look: I just fail to see why we should give the American political system—the most dysfunctional system in the US—a greater role in our daily lives than it already has.
My friend Matt is stuck on the idea that some people don’t have the means to live in this country. And, like… yeah, we should do something about that. But he’s spouting nonsense about expanding welfare and creating public banking services and regulating companies and a bunch of wacko bigger-government policies—as if they’ll help people.
And even a national mask mandate? How are you going to enforce that?
It’s like they haven’t realized that attempting all these new ideas will totally change how society functions!
[Oh, sorry, ma’am. I’ll put on my mask. Yeah. Uh, I’ll have a large caramel macchiato. Do you guys take Apple Pay?]
And my friends keep jabbering, “equality, equality, equality.” Sheesh. It’s the usual AOC talk. You seriously think New York City was built on equality?
[Oh, no, sorry, I don’t have any cash on me.]
[I do have cash; they’re just going to spend it on drugs or something.]
As I was saying, if Matt cares about equality so much, he can just take the next plane ticket to Liberia.
And he’s gotta stay in his lane—like, he’s just an adjunct philosophy professor. Does he even know the first thing about supply and demand? If you don’t have the profit motive, what do you have, Matt? The “political sleaze” motive? No thanks.
Let me tell you: if the Left bothered to do any research, they would know that America can’t afford any of that. No economist would tell you that the government can create prosperity. It’s impossible!
As I learned in my undergraduate applied microeconometrics class: you’ve gotta go to recitation. It’s easy to be progressive until you learn the basics.
Lower taxes, less government in my life? Great!
Though, obviously, Republicans are… bad.
[Are those BLM protesters across the street? I always support a peaceful demonstration, haha.]
But it’s crazy that a lot of these progressives actually agree with Trump supporters, that a lot of big changes need to happen super fast. They imagine that, if everyone works together, that’ll create a totally different society where everything is somehow better... Can you believe it?
It’s ridiculous. I wish more people knew what was good for them.
Well, fine. If they want to be in the Bernie-Trump party—I’ll be in The Normal Party.
Seriously. Come up with all the crazy, pipe-dream ideas you want. But let’s face it: You can’t save everyone, so why try?
I know I’ll be doing my part to help by staying informed about the news. What else can you really do these days?
[No thank you, I’ll pass. Good luck on the petition, though!]
I mean, why else would you vote for Biden, if you didn’t want to return to normal? Normal is better than this YouTube comments section of a reality we’re scrolling through right now.
You know, it’s crazy to think this country got this far, without a crisis like this one. Well, until now.
[Hey, that was a really good first date.]
[I’ll see you next week?]
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