2020 Mainstreamed Once-Radical Ideas

Maybe the ONLY positive trend from 2020

What’s now mainstream in the public discourse?

When Ashwini Anburajan and I did our final #2020 Quick Takes Facebook Live of the year a few weeks ago, we each brought to the session a couple of takeaways we had from 2020 and a couple of predictions for 2021.

My main takeaway (aside from 2020 surely being the worst collective year the world has ever had?): That numerous ideas that once seemed radical have become mainstream. When I say they’ve become mainstream, I don’t mean they’ve become universally accepted by any stretch. But they are ever more in the public discourse, and that’s often the very first step to a new idea becoming accepted and then agreed to.

Some examples of the kinds of terms and policies I’m talking about:

• Universal Basic Income. I may not favor Andrew Yang’s approach to this concept, but I thank him for banging this drum because I believe it’s inevitable.

• #DefundthePolice. Hey, I had never heard of this movement either 8 months ago, but a 5-minute Google educated me. And while plenty of people get stuck on how radical this concept sounds, this is a really common right-wing tactic to put something extreme out there to generate (heated) conversation and walk it back a bit, while ever moving the needle their way. The progressive movement could learn a lesson from that and #DefundthePolice is a pretty good example of it in action.

• White Supremacy. I have never heard so many White people talking about, not just white privilege, but specifically white supremacy and how that has created systems of privilege, as I have this year. Do some people feel uncomfortable with it? No doubt. But again, this moves the needle on the necessary conversations. Progress will require moving from asking whether individuals have committed acts of racist or not to seeing how it is baked in. (Same goes for patriarchy and sexism, for that matter.)

• Expunging records of people with marijuana-related crimes. California has done this, and other states and localities are moving in this direction too. As marijuana legalization efforts march on, the aforementioned increased acceptance of white supremacy as a fact of American life has made more people aware that we can’t have this new commercial sector dominated by White people making money off it and Black and brown people carrying records or sitting in prison for things that would be legal now.

• Abolishing the death penalty. Again, California has placed a moratorium on this, and other states have too, but we also know that P45* and the Justice Dept. are going on a killing spree in these last wretched days of their reign. And this has brought the death penalty and its barbarity into the national conversation in a heightened way. I’ve been anti-death penalty for decades, and have felt pretty lonely in that for much of that time. I personally connect my anti-death penalty position and my veg*nism/animal rights position to my liberal/progressive ethos. But PUH-LENTY of liberals/progressives just don’t join me on that. But hopefully, P45*’s wanton lust for killing as many people as he could before leaving office will make people think more deeply about the problems with having our government kill its own people.

Finally, I’m hoping after 2020 that the diverse identities of candidates for national office never have to be quite so newsworthy again! Are we really still going to have to marvel at women candidates or Black or Latinx or Asian or LGBTQ or or or? I hope not. I hope it’s now a given.

What am I missing…any other once-radical ideas you think are now regularly in the mainstream conversation? Let me know.

Last week(-ish)’s Op-Ed Page

As promised, Episode 42 of The Op-Ed Page podcast closed out 2020 with a PopCulturepalooza! Mariah! Perimenopause! Mulan! The Prom! And I. read. a book!!! (I may not have talked about it much, but I felt like 2020 broke my brain. I thought I’d do nothing but read, and instead, I read almost nothing.)

Plus, also as promised, I had to express my frustration that all the ongoing shenanigans from the right have robbed us of the full true celebration of the first! woman! Vice-President! that we deserve. I’m going to hold a grudge on this.

Take a listen. And subscribe, share, rate and review :)

Coming this week-ish

In a sneak peek at my 2021 kick-off episode of The Op-Ed Page, I’ll talk a bit more about my 2020 takeaways, but I’ll also share a few 2021 predictions. I’m also going to talk about my search for a tool to track my #notresolutionsjusthabits for 2021 and share the one I landed on. And finally, yes, we stayed in this entire past two weeks-ish, and OMG yes we indulged in much binge-watching , binge podcast-listening, and even read another book. So I’ll share some tasty links.

As always I appreciate a share of this newsletter or my podcast. And I appreciate feedback and hearing from you too.

As a 2021, short-term-before-I-change-my-mind bonus offer for doing any of the following (commenting or sharing this newsletter or my podcast) I will send you a video of me singing River by Joni Mitchell (accompanying myself on a slightly out of tune piano) from a Zoom holiday party I attended last week. No, I am not sharing it publicly :)

And if you think I can help you break through the things that are keeping you stuck, you can always set up your first introductory 30-minute consult for free by booking it in my Calendly.

Have a great week-ish!