From the comments – which of course you’re reading – a phenomenon to ponder. A small but telling feature of our unrelentingly progressive times.

It began with this exchange from Question Time, the BBC’s flagship political debate programme, in which Green Party candidate Sarah Wakefield struggled with causality. Specifically, the apparently alien notion that a rapidly growing UK population – overwhelmingly a result of immigration – requires more housing. And thus the two topics – immigration and housing availability – being very much related.

🚨 WATCH: The Reform and Green candidate in the Makerfield clash over immigration

Sarah Wakefield: “Do you think if we locked down our borders, we’re going solve the housing crisis?”

Rob Kenyon: “The more people you have in the country, the more houses you need” #BBCQT pic.twitter.com/Fsog3KOFz8

— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) June 4, 2026

Ms Wakefield is, it seems, somehow unaware that immigration accounts for almost all population growth over the last six years, and the vast majority of such growth over the last twenty years.

When not struggling with simple arithmetic, Ms Wakefield spends her time announcing that farming is riddled with “white supremacy” and is in need of “decolonisation.” British food production, says she, “entrenches racial oppression.”

Still, whatever her shortcomings in terms of readily available facts and observable reality, she does put her face to eye-catching use.

Which prompted the following from your host:

And,

In reply, commenter [+] shared a link to this video, which may amuse, and deployed the term Longhouse Face.

Which in turn brought us this not implausible observation:

Dicentra added,

Quite.

This facial phenomenon has subsequently, and happily, attracted wider attention. Among the commentary to be found elsewhere, this caught my eye:

Cue the meme.

Another glimpse into the mind of the scrupulously progressive:

Because, says Mr Gold, our pronoun-stipulating essayist, a sense of connection with one’s home, one’s territory, one’s ancestry and how one came to be, is “utterly arbitrary.” A thing of no importance, unworthy of consideration. Says he, or he/him, “The only sensible form of government is one-world government.”

You see, becoming even less important, even smaller in relation to the steering of the ship, one of billions instead of millions, is a good thing, it turns out. And that irrelevance is sensible, a thing to which the rest of us should apparently aspire. Star Trek, I fear, has much to answer for.

Mr Gold is happy to be described as a “rootless cosmopolitan.” Lofty and unaffiliated, and thus exempt from customary expectations. Because status, baby. One simply must be seen having those designer opinions. Whatever the practical consequences of those opinions might prove to be.

And while pointedly disdaining as foolish and low-status any sense of connection with, or affection for, the country in which he just happens to live, Mr Gold is simultaneously an emphatic supporter of Palestine, regarding which very different assumptions would seem to apply.

The world of things just happening, entirely by chance and for no reason whatsoever – in the progressive mind, at least – has been poked at here before.

From which:

Because apparently all things are possible in progressive metaphysics.

Update, via the comments:

Geoff asks, not unfairly,

Well, Mr Gold’s obliviousness does seem rather contrived, a modish affectation. And despite his ostentatious sneering at pretty much anything patriotism adjacent, I remain unconvinced that a country inhabited only by people who think as he does would long survive.

Readers may wish to ponder how Mr Gold, and doubtless many of his peers, can denounce Mr Trump as some kind of quasi-fascistic, totalitarian nightmare, an end to democracy, while simultaneously enthusing about a one-world government, as if the prospect had no implications for democracy.

Also, it’s unclear where the boundaries of this disdained patriotism are. Does it include the feeling that one’s country is more than a hotel, a holiday resort, or an economic zone? Does it include a background sense of attachment, of lineage and continuity, of history? Does it include the sense – say, while driving through the countryside – that “I like this place, I know this place”?

I ask because, while I’m not prone to flag-waving or wearing patriotic hats, I do understand a sense of belonging, of attachment, of home.

And I think I understand the kinds of people who disdain such things.

Though I can’t say I like them.

A question is asked and answered:

Highly neurotic, antagonistic, passive-aggressive. Borderline. https://t.co/xFEKa2jooG

— J.D. Haltigan, PhD 🏒👨‍💻 (@JDHaltigan) May 24, 2026

Bluesky is, it has to be said, a strange, unhappy place. One where everything, but everything, is fraught, problematic and seething with complication.

Including grilled cheese sandwiches and the paranormal:

Readers may recall previous mentions of the platform as a favoured watering hole for those who demand the pre-emptive deletion of untoward thoughts:

Got banned from BIuesky within the first 30 seconds for posting a biological fact pic.twitter.com/uxQzPVn2SR

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) November 17, 2024

People so immensely progressive that they are enraged by even polite statements of fact. Such that, in response to polite statements of fact, they issue repeated, quite colourful death threats and publicly share the polite person’s home address, including photos of his front door and directions to the nearest subway station.

One might almost appreciate the attention to detail.

People so immensely progressive that they then complain that the person being threatened, by them, has taken screenshots of said threats. Because, in the world of the immensely progressive, that constitutes harassment, the “doxing” of trans people, and indeed “trying to have them killed.” By simply quoting their own words.

Update, via the comments:

Rafi quotes this,

And adds,

Answers on a postcard, please.

The whole thing had an air of inversion and unrealism, of something not unlike madness. It called to mind the James Damore ‘Google memo’ incident, detailed here, or Cathy Newman’s bewildering interview with Jordan Peterson. It didn’t feel like a difference in political outlook, so much as one of incompatible psychology. It became quite surreal.

At one point, Mr Singal was the most blocked person on Bluesky*, with mass reporting campaigns and a petition of at least 18,000 Bluesky users demanding that he be banished immediately. Amid endless, openly malicious efforts at defamation and numerous, quite vivid demands that he be killed, with helpful instructions on how to go about that task.

The participants in this weird fever included Harvard-educated professionals, or supposed professionals, and alleged champions of decency and justice. Albeit of a kind who favour gratuitous pronouns in their bios, and who claim that the US is a “totalitarian fascist state.”

And lest we forget, this uproar, this psychotic reaction – what some have dubbed a tightening purity spiral – was not a result of Mr Singal being rude or abusive or racist or indecent, or anything of that sort. But for politely correcting factual errors and suggesting that maybe, just maybe, children shouldn’t be drugged and mutilated such that their lives will be forever ruined.

That’s quite a feat.

Much of the left-leaning tech-related media joined in the farce, of course, with claims that “marginalised communities” – people “who escaped Twitter” – escaped! – “now feel their Bluesky experience is at risk because of Singal’s joining.” As if he, one man, a political liberal who has only ever voted for Democrat candidates, were befouling their paradise, their refuge, “harassing” users with his polite statements of fact.

Taken as a snapshot of progressive psychology, a general mindset – like the ‘Google memo’ saga and the Cathy Newman interview – it was quite… revealing.

*That title, of most blocked, is now held by JD Vance, The official White House account, and the US Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The results can be… revealing:

You see, caring about your family, your ancestors, your lineage, your children, is “actually absurd,” apparently. And by implication, some kinds of context – where you came from, say – are to be scorned as worthless.

An earlier, related exchange comes to mind:

One more time:

I’m guessing that’s some kind of progressive metaphysics.

Though I doubt mere obliviousness would fully explain this phenomenon. There’s an element of contrivance, of affectation and perversity.

Mr Convente is currently invoking victimhood – because people have read his pronouncements and have either laughed or pointed out why those pronouncements are unconvincing. Mr Convente is also calling Mr Burkett various vulgar terms and is insinuating some nefarious racial motive, despite offering no actual evidence to that effect.

Because if you pause to consider the physical basis of family, even in measured terms, and if you point out the logical idiocy of the “It’s only by chance you were born to said ancestors” school of thought, seemingly favoured by so many progressives, then this can only be explained by some seething racial animus. Apparently.

Mr Convente also declares, with some pride, “I don’t want kids.” Being, as he puts it, “too selfish.”

Our Betters, ladies and gentlemen. See their pieties shine.

Lifted from the comments, which you’re reading, of course.

Lifted from the comments, a revealing choice of words:

Also, while there is nothing wrong… Again, a revealing tone, I think.

Mr Yglesias, since you ask, is currently said to earn around $1.4 million a year, chiefly from his 18,000 Substack subscribers. It therefore seems quite likely that he has savings and investments of some sort. I wonder what it is that he thinks happens to that money while he’s terribly busy complaining about the rich.