I'm an old school Southern Democrat. I'm Progressive and extremely to the left of modern Democrats. I believe that everyone is entitled to a standard of living and that includes a home and a mode of transportation and a mode of communication and a way to provide for themselves. I hate how the New Southern vision was sabotaged by Reagan and the Republican Party. We could've had a more inclusive and diverse South. I'm from the Gulf Coast. When I was growing up the Gulf Coast was the last bastion of Southern Democratic dominance. Republicans have taken over our area and corrupted the minds of our people. Southern Democrats are often seen as a monolith but just like the overall Democratic Party it was a big tent. I believe we can revive the Progressive tradition in the South but it's going to take effort.
There is an actual definition of narcissism and what I’m describing fits that definition. American society is deeply narcissistic since the Reagan Era and it transcends political lines and philosophies. And no, this wasn’t “punching down.” I’ve gone through extreme struggle myself and still never turned to drugs. That was literally the point of my video: hardship can explain someone’s behavior but it doesn’t automatically excuse every choice they make. I’m talking about personal responsibility from the perspective of someone who has actually had to practice it, not someone looking down from a comfortable position.
In my experience on the Gulf Coast the people society labels “homeless” and "misfortunate" are still higher than me on the socioeconomic ladder. That was literally the point of my video: hardship can explain someone’s behavior, but it doesn’t automatically excuse every choice they make. I’m talking about personal responsibility from someone who has actually had to practice it.
In my experience on the Gulf Coast, the people society labels “homeless” and "misfortunate" are always still higher than me on the socioeconomic ladder. That’s part of what I’m talking about when I call modern society narcissistic. People who have family connections, community connections and people willing to bail them out can repeatedly fall apart and still have a safety net, while people like me who have had to hold everything together through extreme hardship are assumed to be privileged simply because we managed to keep going.
That mentality transcends political lines. Both sides can become so focused on whoever they think is the most deserving or most victimized that someone in an extreme situation like mine can be completely overlooked. Then when I point that out, I’m somehow called privileged for not fitting the expected narrative of what a struggling person is supposed to look like. That’s the narcissism I’m talking about: a society so wrapped up in its own narratives that it can look directly at someone who is genuinely struggling and still make the situation about itself.
It’s masked elitism. People convince themselves they’re defending the marginalized while quietly dismissing and attacking those who are genuinely struggling. It's about deciding which people are “worthy” of empathy and which ones aren’t. If you don’t fit their preferred image of poverty, they assume you must be privileged, even when your actual circumstances say otherwise. That isn’t solidarity; it’s looking down on people while pretending to look out for them. I’m expected to shrink my own suffering just to fit someone else’s narrative, then somehow be treated as privileged and above people who are objectively in a better position than I am.