Normies for animal liberation
For the past some years, I’ve tried to employ a political strategy, which, in my head, I refer to as “Normies for Animal Liberation.” Normies, of course, is slang for normal people. This is why I’ve tried to work within the Democratic Party. It’s why I’m trying to find a way into Christianity. It’s why, when I’m writing for the general public, I use the phrase animal welfare, not animal liberation.
I think there’s wisdom in this approach. Bernie Sanders — arguably the most successful, explicitly-socialist politician in American history — has a rhetorical trick. Commentator Matt Yglesias recently pointed it out on social media. Sanders always frames his economic ideas, which, in our country, represent the left-wing of the possible, as moderate and common-sense.
In the 1930s, American communists adopted a similar strategy. Marxists at the time employed the slogan "Communism is 20th Century Americanism," which cast socialism as an extension of the United States' democratic ideals. I’m not an expert on the subject, but my understanding is this approach roughly coincided with a high-water mark for Marxism and the broader economic left in America.
I tell myself I’ve only moderated rhetorically, and not substantively. My efforts to elect Democrats and enact more animal-friendly policies, like increased funding for cultivated-meat research, isn’t so far afield from the support of one of my early-intellectual influences, Noam Chomsky, for tactical votes for Democrats.
Similarly, I convince myself I haven’t completely abandoned what motivated my long-time atheism. I still don’t believe in a personal God who grants wishes. Rather, I’ve come to accept an impersonal understanding of God, the ground of being, as the Christian socialist Paul Tillich apparently described it.
I argue that when talking publicly about animal welfare — as opposed to animal rights or liberation — I’m speaking in language a general audience understands and is sympathetic to. I’m merely redefining animal welfarism to include my opposition to domestication as a whole, and won’t hide this if pressed.
But then there are days when fascism appears to be on the march and the Democratic Party seems unwilling to take even basic steps to stop it and advance animal interests. On days like this, it’s hard not feel like my strategy over recent years has been a terrible mistake. I wonder if I wouldn’t do more good by letting me freak flag fly. Why moderate myself, if even just rhetorically?
I have to admit the question has troubled me a great deal. But, ultimately, I’ve come to the realization that lasting change requires majority support. This acknowledgement necessarily alters strategy, because politics, on a certain level, is a numbers game. You want more people on your side than opponents have on their side. Normies must be for animal liberation in order for it to succeed.
This is one reason why I focus on increasing public funds for cellular-agriculture research. My hope is that once cultivated meat is indistinguishable from slaughtered meat and cheaper to produce, much of the resistance to animal liberation will slowly disappear. I don’t think it will disappear entirely, but I believe it will make regular people notably more sympathetic to anti-speciesism.