Morning After The Revolution: Dispatches From The Wrong Side Of History, by Nellie Bowles

The author means the title as somewhat of a joke, but I think she’s telling the truth but not entirely aware of it. Admittedly, I am not the intended audience for this book, which is by no means a shocker since there are few books where I am the intended audience. One of the things that makes this book interesting is that the author finds herself in a weird place in contemporary affairs. She is a liberal, certainly left-of-center, a lesbian who claims to have a wife (and who gave birth to a child thanks to what appears to have been shopping for sperm donors), and who worked for the New York Times, but someone who has genuine curiosity about investigating stories and a genuine sense of journalistic integrity that separates her from the progressive propagandists of our age. By virtue of being curious as to what the “other side” has to say, she managed to alienate herself from the mass of her profession by showing herself to be a mere liberal and not the progressive Marxist worker for the revolution that is demanded of contemporary “journalists.” Yet although I would not consider the author to be “one of us” in the sense that I would see her on the same side of any sort of moral division of humanity, it is rather interesting that the hatred she records from Progressives would indicate that Progressives see little difference between people like the author and people like me; we are counter-revolutionaries and fascists alike, if you believe them.

One of the central aspects of what is otherwise a rather scattered book is the way that the author seeks to humorously poke fun at the Progressive insistence that to not be in favor of the “current thing” without demur or without thinking critically about it is of vital importance in ensuring that one is on the right side of history. The author, for all of her faults, is simply too committed to investigation, too curious to look into what’s going on, to have such a mindless devotion to any political cause. If this book is somewhat difficult to pin down in terms of a coherent narrative, the author’s insistence on showing curiosity into what is going on in various matters like the fallen city of San Francisco and the autonomous zones of Seattle and Portland and the danger of “transgender” men who pretend to be women to the safety and well-being of actual women to parrot the Progressive line. The author seems to think that if the worst excesses of Progressivism are overcome that good old fashioned liberals can preserve the well-being of the United States in a pragmatic sort of way but I am not nearly so optimistic as the author is. The author appears to have no understanding of the need for repentance for a nation like ours that faces societal judgment for our sins, but it would take a far more morally sensitive author to reflect upon that reality.

In terms of its contents, this book is a bit less than 250 pages, divided into four parts with unnumbered chapters. The book begins with an introduction which hints at the narrative that is to follow, and then the author discusses the folly of the autonomous zones of 2020 (I), with chapters on the failure of Progressive utopias, the fondness of Progressives for masked vigilantes, and the fondness of Progressives for dubious social causes full of grifting. This is followed by chapters on “atonement” that deal with Progressive obsession with intersectionality, the most important white women in the world, the ubibuity of racism allegations, homelessness, and the abolition of the police (II). The third part of the book then deals with questions about trans issues (III), with chapters on men in women’s spas, the problem of asexuality and queer culture in general in an atmosphere of declining sex, the fallacy of assuming toddlers know who they are, and the aggressiveness of male feminists in female clothing. The final part of the book then examines the failure of San Francisco, struggle sessions, and the problem of cancel culture (IV), after which the book ends with acknowledgments.