Letter to the editor: Notes on self-reflection from a “Nice Jewish Boy” - Brad Gottschalk

In the lead-up to the much-anticipated results of the US election, I made a deal with myself:

“Brad – if Trump is elected, you cannot obsess over every headline like you did during his first term”. 

There it was - the assured self-discipline I was certain my future-self could hold in Round 2 of a worse timeline, And, until then, I felt secure in my daily routine of bingeing Ezra Klein, doing the New York Times Daily Mini, and fretting over 0.1 percentage discrepancies in polls of states I will probably never visit.

I’m sorry to say to you, past-self, that I unfortunately do not have the discipline you thought I could possess. I have clearly disappointed the high expectation and regard you had in mind, because it did not take long for me to break our deal.

In this new disappointment of the liberal world, there seems to be a quiet acceptance as the sun rises. Maybe even a strange masochism in the absurdity of a world so radically changed – if global populations are voting in populists and personalities, then that is the global will. Let it all burn, baby! Maybe we can get a few good memes out of the territorial conquest and climate apathy around us.

With whichever adage about hindsight we have comforted ourselves, a clear takeaway by the Left is the desperate need for self-reflection. Is it the lack of this quality which has not only shifted power away from our camp, but more so left even young people with such disdain for progressive politics?

I want to say the answer to this question lies, too, in a clever long-term strategy the opposite camp has planned since the Obama-era. It seems our paper-mâché mountain of hope and progressive politics could break quite easily when put on the defense in the loud and busy social-media world.

Even if the answer to the question of our failure is in ugly politicking, I still feel our unchanging hubris is a large factor costing us elections. As an antidote, I want to speak to the power and importance of self-reflection within the Left-wing. In the new dawn, it is now our turn to quietly understand what long-term strategy is needed to change the tide of populist surges.

So, let’s put ourselves on the therapist’s couch. As an exercise in our political introspection, I want to use the relationship between the Left’s adoption of identity politics to real consequences within minority groups, specifically the gay community. In this example, I hope to present a short history of our failed political approach and my experience of identity politics as a young person.

Gay politics, like any other, is built on myths and stories. Why these foundational myths speak to us is of no less importance than the stories themselves. The Stonewall Riots of 1969 propelled the gay question out of the closet and into the open. The story is of an intense battle between queens and cops at a gay bar in New York City. Much like the storming of the Bastille, the reality of the Stonewall Riots is more whimper than bang – foundational stories are important.

I was born in the early 2000s and entered a world rapidly more accepting and aware of minorities and discrimination. I want to say a kinder world. And as I entered teen-hood, there emerged the border-shrinking brought forth by social media. I considered myself so lucky – I could skip out on the decades of shame belonging to my gay forefathers in the world of Caitlin Jenner and RuPaul’s Drag Race.

I bought-in to the black-and-white narrative presented to me by social media: the world is an intersectional battle against the White-Straight-Male. I am not denying whatever truth exists here, but rather analyse what we were lacking in adopting intersectional politics as the defining fight of our time. What about our gratifying echo chamber made us forget Aristotle’s philosophy of “entertaining a thought without accepting it”? The world is still a big and complicated place.

Armed with all the answers of Instagram infographics, I felt so confident in my worldview. There was something romantic about the way our global order was presented to me. Simply existing within the niche of the LGBT made me a ‘revolutionary’ from the safety of Jo’burg suburbia. Which teenager doesn’t want to rebel?

What I never realised is that the new politics of the Left - latching on to small interest groups - is not only isolating, but is also dishonest towards the minority groups it claimed to serve. Was the lip-service of perceived elitist politicians a way to evade real responsibility? Shifting voting patterns of the middle-lower class and men within minority groups certainly point to the fact that they never felt helped in tangible ways by the Left’s approach in our current landscape.

When I went to Israel on my gap year, I found a different reality in the gay community to the one I had interacted with digitally. There were real issues outside of the weaponised culture wars which I wasn’t prepared for, and which made my entry into the real-world fail. Walt Odets, in his book ‘Out of the Shadows: The Psychology of Gay Men's Lives’, explores why there is still such deep and untouched trauma for gay men, even in our progressive world.

One such example in the book which reframed for me my experience as a gay man was the illumination that our community is lacking an inter-generational conversation; that there is a generational divide which prevents community-building. This was a far cry for me from my experience in the Jewish community, which has well-established mechanisms for this inter-generational conversation. I have certainly benefited much from this experience. Another example given by Odets is of the dominant hyper-sexual culture being harmful to making real connections. This was gratifying to read about, not having participated in a conversation I was ever exposed to as part of a generation raised by the internet.

To have words put to my experience that the gay community wasn’t perfect was incredibly inspiring! I wasn’t going crazy – there are problems in this world. It isn’t all rainbows. What is it about the new culture wars that make us fervently defend rather than introspect and fix. Is this why Left-Wing politics fail when put on the defense? That we are not able to look after our own in the battle to keep Far-Right elements out of our politics? This strategy has left us divided. In a short time span, we adopted a culture and set of rules – and fervently defended them. This made us inaccessible.

I feel this shows the power and necessity of self-reflection. That facing real issues head-on rather than joining battles in the comments section is more beneficial to those we seek to help. Understanding what will make our politics accessible and relevant is a much better foundation than jumping to defend baited attacks.

The merger of culture and technology was once an exciting prospect for a brand-new world. A combination which was so clearly able to make the world a smaller and better place has left us ever more divided. In a fast-paced world, we don’t benefit from defending a rapidly evolving and half-baked culture.

I’m not sure I have the answer yet for what the Left’s next fight should be. I know it is easy to be the critic -- especially in times of failure and hurt. The world around us has changed past the ability to return to a more hopeful politics. Older readers will signal to me that this is the cyclical nature of politics – bide your time because it has felt hopeless before. This is certainly comforting, yet the world is an ever more complicated place. The rules which once felt so sure are Topsy-Turvey. 

I do hope to be part of building a future where we can move past the seemingly immovable block which is preventing us from moving forward together. For now, I hold on to the words of a tired Odysseus: “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield”!

Aleh Ve'Hagshem,

Brad Gottschalk

Mazkir Klali 2025 (Secretary General).