Little Morsel #8: The Party That Hates Its Own Fans
Have you ever noticed how the people screaming loudest about freedom are always the ones getting the worst deal? Itâs like cheering for a team that keeps tackling you. Every. Single. Play. And after the game, you still buy the jersey. You defend the coach. You swear, with a bloody lip, that next season will be different.
Thatâs the modern conservative movement. Not âconservativeâ like careful, or thoughtful. Conservative like preserving a system thatâs perfected the art of hurting the very people who swear loyalty to it.
The core belief goes something like this: Everyone is on their own. Suffering builds character. If youâre struggling, you didnât try hard enough.
It sounds tough. It sounds virtuous. But itâs a psychological trap. It trains people to resent anyone who gets helpâincluding, secretly, themselves. It makes compassion feel like a moral failing.
So when a policy comes along that would actually make life easierâcheaper insulin, a cap on a medical bill, anything that stops an illness from becoming a financial death sentenceâthe reaction from that base isnât relief.
Itâs suspicion.
Because if hardship is the proof of your worth, then easing hardship feels like cheating. The system has them scared of the cure.
Letâs look at the part that should stop everyone cold.
There was a rule, a simple one. It said medical debt couldnât go on your credit report. Not erase the debt. Not forgive it. Just⌠stop a hospital from destroying your financial future because you got sick.
That protection was killed.
Letâs translate that:
You can survive a heart attack⌠and still lose your apartment.
You can beat cancer⌠and still get denied a car loan.
You can do everything ârightââand the system still gets to look you in the eye and say, âToo bad.â
And who gets hit hardest? The same working-class voters who were told, for decades, that this party was âon their side.â
This isnât strength. Itâs not discipline. Itâs not freedom.
Itâs loyalty to a machine that profits from your pain. Youâre not a fan in the stands; youâre the tackling dummy.
Nowâbefore anyone claps too hard for the other teamâletâs be brutally honest. Democrats have their own symphony of failure. They fundraise off fear. They talk a big game about justice while protecting the donor-class backers. They mistake a well-meaning tweet for a result, a symbolic gesture for systemic change.
Thatâs precisely why this isnât about liberal versus conservative anymore. Thatâs a stale food fight.
This is about progressivism versus stagnation.
Progressivism isnât left. Itâs forward.
Itâs the radical, common-sense idea that if one of us drowns in medical debt, all of us are poorer for it. That a society should be judged not by how cruel it can be to the âundeserving,â but by how many people it keeps standing. Itâs the understanding that you canât MAGA your way out of a $200,000 hospital bill. You canât bootstrap your way through chemotherapy. And you sure as hell canât call it âfreedomâ if getting sick costs you your home, your credit, and your future.
At some point, the question stops being, âWho do you vote for?â Thatâs the easy part.
The real question is, âWhy is anyone still defending the team that keeps tackling them?â
When does the loyalty you show to them ever come back to you? Whereâs your jersey? All you get is the bill. And another concussion.
The play isnât going to change. The coach isnât coming to save you. Maybe itâs time to stop cheering for your own bruises.
The play isnât going to change. The coach isnât coming to save you.
If a team keeps tackling its own fans, thatâs not tradition â thatâs a business model. And every time you defend it, youâre not proving your toughness. Youâre underwriting the next hit.
Maybe freedom isnât cheering harder. Maybe itâs finally leaving the stadium.
â The Baker














