The ageing wizards of the early 00s apex of shitlibbery, the familiar tunes, the contorted notion that they're fighting the establishment when they literally are the establishment, the ecstatic public dancing and singing to signal to others the depth of their devotion to the cause...
I often talk about how fundamental amateur drama, costumes and street theatre is to progressivism, and it is, but it doesn't quite get to the heart of what we're watching.
It's more helpful to describe this as an ageing cult constantly on the lookout for new converts and heretics to steel themselves against.
The behaviours all make a lot more sense within that intellectual framework, and you can temper your expectations accordingly.
It's never been more obvious that religion in the West didn't disappear, it was sublimated into politics and has become far more harmful and toxic than Christianity ever was.
The body modification, the public displays, the siege-like mentality of a life lived in opposition to a range of virtually nonexistent threats eg global warming, "fascism", or even 1984-esque hate figures in the vein of Emmanuel Goldstein.
It's all there right in front of us, and yet stuck in the eye of the storm with these lunatics as we are, truth and perspective have long left the building.
We're stuck in a society with a very serious cult that brooks absolutely no dissent whatsoever, and it doesn't matter how reasonable or articulate your complaints are.
This is a cult doing cult things. People need to recognise this.
What's this? It's only Fatboy Slim joining the anti-fascists against the far right in Brighton 💚