Description
Adam Baldwin is an actor who has been in TV shows like Chuck, The X-Files, and Firefly. In the past couple years, he’s become an increasingly outspoken critic of Obama while becoming supportive of neoconservative ideas. He knew Andrew Breitbart for a minute before Andrew passed away, and even blogged for Andrew’s website.
What is this guy’s sociopolitical paradigm and how mature is it?
According to his own tweet, Adam Baldwin was a lifelong registered Democrat as recently as July 2010. However, less than 3 months later in this BlogTalkRadio program he starts referring to himself as a “small government conservative libertarian”. HollywoodRepublican.net has him listed as a “Libertarian”. He’s the 3rd person listed here:
How much of a typical left-winger was Baldwin when he was “formerly” a collectivist.? In a “pre-conversion” interview, contained in a bio about Kubrick, Baldwin described his left-wing views as such:
“I’m one of those bleeding-heart liberals and any left-wing statement against war is something I agree with.”
Any statement against war? Ironically, he’s now in agreement with the “conservative” echo chamber statements promoting war. His war perspective has flipped a 180, but his hive mentality hasn’t. Sounds like the Trotskyists who became the first neoconservatives, doesn’t it?
How long does it really take for someone to traverse a paradigm shift when the existing one is so deeply engrained and is a polar opposite? One’s confirmatory bias and attitude polarization can’t rewire overnight. However, as a personal observation, I’ve noticed that confirmatory bias and attitude polarization seem to exist in exaggerated degrees in people who’ve shifted from “left” to “right”. Is the extreme confirmatory bias in these “former” leftists an overcompensation for feeling insecure in the new paradigm? Experience would suggest considering this a reasonable possibility.
These days, Baldwin spends much of his Twitter time attacking leftists (guilty conscience, Brutus?). But he also attacks libertarians and lifelong conservatives over their lack of support for people like Romney or things like favorite nations (something our founders were solidly against). Most of what he presents on Twitter is typical neoconservative-influenced echo chamber Jingoistic tripe. This is a very small sampling:
Look, it’s a QFE tweet! Remember when Bush said that God told him to “[I must] go get the Palestinians their state” (this is a QFE for Adam and his neocon pals)?
QFE: "I believe this country is engaged in an ideological struggle of a kind we have never seen before." – George W. Bush, Oct. 20, 2010
— Adam Baldwin (@AdamBaldwin) December 11, 2010
Ah, the “Mission Accomplished!” speech.
ICYMI, Compare: “President George W. Bush - Speech Marking End of Major Combat Ops In Iraq…” -youtube.com/watch?v=5yCsmw…
— Adam Baldwin (@adamsbaldwin) May 2, 2012
This one is funny because it’s a year after his “conversion”. How’d that Romney landslide work out, “conservative libertarian”?
Thanks Leftists for crying "Stupid" again, as U did against Reagan, Bush, etc. If that's all U have, then a #Landslide looms.
— Adam Baldwin (@AdamBaldwin) August 14, 2011
Oops! Looks like someone doesn’t know how left-wing Israel is:
@saintrph Libs are anti-individual Liberty. The Jewish state of Israel & America are pro-individual Liberty. So, Libs must hate them both.
— Adam Baldwin (@adamsbaldwin) November 19, 2012
This one about Keynesianism is especially funny considering his Romney (a huge Keynesian) slobbering:
Good Riddance to Keynesianism! | RT @biggovt "Obama Signs Extension of Bush Tax Cuts: From the AP…" - http://bit.ly/dXsYMM
— Adam Baldwin (@AdamBaldwin) December 18, 2010
Alas, Baldwin’s failed prediction about Romney’s “impending victory” (Baldwin is known to delete his tweets - can’t imagine why he’d delete this one, but this tweet is preserved via this screencap!):
Obviously, based on the information above, the political neophyte has a long way to go in understanding what conservatism is and whom to support in that cause. If there’s a political maturity here, it’s hard to ascertain. He’s been a bleeding-heart liberal, a Libertarian, “conservative libertarian”, and most recently a rabid supporter (a personal story about this later) of neocons and Keynesians. All this ideological churn has occurred in the span of a few short years.
If Baldwin is indeed a conservative, he’s still got his training wheels on and is making conservatism look bad in the process, because people give what he says more credibility than he deserves. Why? His celeb status.
I’d recommend that Adam stfu, stfd, and give himself another several years before he continues to opine about what conservatism is and isn’t. Until then, stick with acting. As we’ll present in a future post, Baldwin likes to recommend things to people without any solicitation, so he’d probably appreciate unsolicited this recommendation.
