Bestselling novelist Bret Easton Ellis was on to something when he mocked the “childlike fascism” of liberals in his new book. But he’s curiously not so brave when asked to defend his views in person.
That means he’s lost. He’s afraid, and that’s precisely the goal of the social justice movement he hates.
Ellis was a guest Friday on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” and, when faced with criticism over his commentary on the terrorizing social justice movement, he froze. Ellis had said on the show that the millennial generation, along with the social justice movement, was reacting to the apathetic nature of Generation X. Liberal New York Times columnist Charles Blow on the panel then asked Ellis what the problem was with social justice.
A stuttering Ellis said that he actually thought the #Resistance “is great” but that there was “overreach” from some liberals who could find racism in everything.
Blow, without offering details or naming any names, said he knows plenty of people who do “social justice” in “the courtrooms,” people who “do the work.” Nobody had a clue what Blow was talking about, but Ellis shrunk further.
“I think there has been an ironic use of the term ‘social justice warrior,’” he pleaded. “And I think it’s used ironically when there is a social justice warrior that does overreach and starts doing things like that. What you’re talking about is completely authentic and cool, but this stuff that goes on on Twitter … is a different kind of social justice. It’s a fake social justice.”
Ellis did this same graceless dance in an April interview with the New Yorker. In his book, he blamed liberals for their “demented narcissism” in being unable to accept the results of the 2016 election. Yet when confronted with baseline questions about Trump, Ellis caved.
“I do think birtherism was racist and the Tea Party was an abomination,” he said in the interview. “The hysteria over Trump is what I am talking about. It’s not about his policies or supposed racism. It’s about what I see as an overreaction to Trump.” He said that he thought Trump was “probably” a racist, while also calling the liberals who oppose Trump “shrilly” and condescending for how they view the president’s supporters.
This is social justice in action and Ellis didn’t even know it, despite writing what he thinks is a book that rebuts it.
As detailed in my forthcoming book, “Privileged Victims: How America’s Culture Fascists Hijacked the Country and Elevated Its Worst People,” social justice isn’t a freak accident. It’s not political correctness. It’s not over-sensitivity. It’s not “overreach.” It’s not, as Ellis said on “Real Time,” a reaction to a previous generation.
Social justice is a system and an ideology. It’s the belief that grievances experienced by nature of race, gender, or sexuality can only be ameliorated when those who have “privilege” — those who are white, straight men or some combination thereof — submit to the supposedly oppressed classes.
That means anyone deemed unworthy of their position, their “privilege,” is expected to hand it to someone else, someone with “grievance” status.
The social justice movement forces the process along by using terms such as “racist,” “sexist,” “homophobe,” and “anti-trans” to intimidate and bully those who don’t belong to the cult. Labeled any one of these and you’re expected to apologize and submit, which is effectively what Ellis did on “Real Time.”
Oh, no, I’m not talking about the real social justice warriors. I’m talking about Twitter!
If Ellis were only talking about “Twitter,” he’d have no reason to complain. It’s the real social justice monsters that are destroying the country, the ones who tried to derail Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, who try to cow the faculty and staff of their colleges into submission, and who bully and intimidate business owners, not the geeks on social media.
Screw the nobodies on Twitter. And screw Bret Easton Ellis for becoming a shrinking violet when confronted by the social justice mob.
