The Left’s exterior morphs even as its basic goals and values remain the same. (Kind of like Kamala.) In response to Trump’s win, the Left is experiencing systemic shock but out of that shock, it will be reborn. And we’re waiting to see what ‘form’ the ‘destroyer’ will take.

Abortion didn’t work so well and identity politics didn’t seem to pay off. At the moment the only thing that seemed to have stirred up the Left was the UnitedHealth shooting.

Despite some expectations, the alleged shooter doesn’t really fit any neat and simple political profiles (except the familiar bright but troubled young male going down an internet rabbit hole for maximum craziness), but that matters less than the reaction to the shooting.

The shooting became the ‘next thing’ for leftists, leading to justifications for the murder, celebrations of the killer, and the elevation of anti-capitalist discourse. That doesn’t necessarily mean that this is the form that leftists are going to take going forward, but at the moment it is having an influence.

I’ not saying that we’re going to see a rash of shootings (though a copycat case or two has now become a lot more likely) but some on the Left may fasten onto anti-capitalism as the way forward for a movement that seemed to have hit a brick wall during the election.