2020 Was 4 Years Ago - Being a Leftist Isn't Sexy Anymore.

No amount of science or astrology can explain how people changed in 2020. Overnight, “a progressive” became an agent of the future, preaching the values of an inevitable tomorrow to a nation without proper culture or morals. We were only a sliver of Americans, without a clear common denominator besides maybe, as horrible as it is to say, the TikTok algorithm. Four years later, you can’t quite put your finger on the who, what, when, where, why, or how of 2020. It was a weird time that wasn’t led by a clear protagonist, or even fought against an obvious villain. Spontaneous fluid movements crashing against solid contaminated institutions, hoping for a great flood but hardly eroding anything at all. 

In 2016, Bernie Sanders used the word “socialism” on T.V., before us middle schoolers had hit political puberty and bought into any sentiments of McCarthyism. We dodged the normal political development process of Americans for what seems like a century. I don’t think anyone in Gen Z really knew what was going on then, or the significance of not-gonna-happen-in-America words like fascism and socialism entering the discourse around presidential candidates. But then, in our first flashes of mature political thought, “socialism” was familiar, and quite possibly, part of the winning ticket. Something intangible was blowing in the wind, whispering to us for quite some time. In the back of your head, you noticed it picking up in late 2019, but it all snapped into place when the pandemic hit.

It was a revival of the Beatnik-Hippie momentum, which slowed down when Nixon slammed the brakes, and then really pittered away by 1991 when “history ended.” Protesting was sexy again. Suddenly in 2020, something loosely resembling a widespread Leftist political counterculture was back in the United States. Nobody really attempted to define any “Communist indie/alternative” lifestyle in the way the hippies did. There was no mantra like “turn on, tune in, drop out.” Still, a clear “us” and “them” was apparent among people in Gen Z.

In early 2020, I couldn’t predict how things were going. A few school friends were showing up to class wearing cuffed jeans and dangly earrings, but I didn’t know what it meant. I went thrifting once back then, but I couldn’t even figure out what I was supposed to be looking for. Over COVID, we all had time to sit and think, and with enough time, you tend to reach the same broad conclusions as your peers – especially when everyone is smoking large amounts marajuana alone. With a new aesthetic taking hold and some general political sentiments palpably agreed upon in TikTok comment sections, I was certain a clearly identifiable movement would emerge when things opened back up. Still riding that Bernie-inspired wave, new socialist-adjacent figures were appearing in Congress, and we had every right to believe The Squad would continue to expand. When we took our first steps back outdoors, most of us felt pretty good about our chances at some form of revolution. 

When you chose to step outside in 2020, it was a political decision. During the height of the pandemic, the rare time Leftists emerged in crowds was to express mass outrage at our government, a key point the Right forgets when they claim the pandemic locked up liberals and made them complacent to tyranny. But with social-distancing, all interpersonal interactions became politically clouded. If you didn’t buy into the lockdown, we’d call you a fascist… which in retrospect wasn’t necessarily true… although an awfully large glob of Americans believed in the QAnon ruse at the time. We got used to judging people on their political actions alone because they were synonymous with social interactions. It made it hard for teenagers to establish an identity around anything other than politics when all social interactions were being analyzed with incredible political scrutiny. 

Because of all this, being on the Left was sexy for a minute. The aesthetic made young people feel like they were part of something not only morally right, but also fashionable.  Online clashes with conservatives happened, but surely there were more converts than disavowers per month, through2022 at least? A whole lot of complaining, sex, and pretentiousness came out of this, but people stuck around for more than that. The Young Turks, Democracy Now, Jacobin, and many other forms of subversive media were being consumed, discussed, and even changing people’s lives. By 2021, campuses were bustling with political activity. You could stumble into a socialist workshop on any evening at many universities around the country. Democratic Socialists of America membership was skyrocketing. Cori Bush was in the House. Chris Smalls was forcing the labor issue back on the agenda in a major way. Even in the last year, there have been countless protests at universities and beyond. But the Leftist’s moniker doesn’t have the starpower it had just a few years ago.

“A lot of young people were completely activated in a major way during Black Lives Matter,” said leftist pundit and Twitch streamer Hasan Piker in a recent interview with NBC. “They were out in the streets. They were protesting. They did the activism. They did the voting. They voted for Joe Biden. Joe Biden won. And then what happened? Nothing. Nothing changed in a significant way. That probably discourages a lot of people.”

The standard, empirical culprit to the decline of people identifying as Leftists is the lack of success. AIPAC came into the 2024 Democratic primaries and poured in millions of dollars to slay incumbents with ease. If they can just take away two of the only seats that gave us hope, what the hell is the point? Fatalism, nihilism, pessimism, or whatever you want to call it is making people less motivated to get involved in political organizing. While I agree with Hasan, it feels like things have unraveled for other reasons as well. 

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Coast to coast, you can still find petrified hippies: people who still value peace and love, grass, and vibrations more than anything else. Their souls haven’t moved since the early 70’s. There’s a certain novelty to encountering these people stoned on a beach or in a dirty Jersey bar. In their time, they were running the circus. Woodstock, Vietnam, and mass drug use had profound effects on society as a whole. Hippies were really part of the main show. 

In our case, people were missing the main event, focusing on perfecting some unimportant spin-off. It’s no longer as cool to limit yourself to strictly leftist spaces either online or in the real world. Most pragmatic Leftists are now actively involved in American civil society, spiritually campaigning for progress among normal people. After hiding on college campuses and gentrified neighborhoods, four years later, some people in Gen Z are finally opening back up after quarantining for far too long. 

For most people I’ve talked to, this seems like the best decision for both their mental health and the world. After a small hiatus in the grand scheme of things, people are finally talking to their uncles on Thanksgiving once again, while still holding onto their progressive beliefs. Sometimes not arguing can be the most effective argument. 

I do not know what the right course of action really is though. Should people continue to hangout only in hardline Leftist spaces? I’m not sure. But I can tell you this: When I’m in my seventies, I do hope to run into an old man walking through New York with thigh tattoos, a mustache, and converses entirely falling apart, carrying some Angela Davis. Totally petrified. Utterly unsexy. A rolling stone.