Hypocrite! Greta Thunberg Cares About More Than One Thing

Those without a moral compass can't understand someone with one.

The Madleen.

As you read this, The Madleen is sailing towards blockaded Gaza, carrying Hollywood icons and boxes of humanitarian aid. Leading the voyage is Greta Thunberg, the world-famous twenty-two-year-old Swedish activist. Though her public life started with environmental advocacy, Greta, as she’s known, now champions a range of progressive causes. Given her broad portfolio, Greta’s critics claim the young Scandinavian bounces between fad issues in search of attention. The Telegraph called the journey a ‘smug stunt of the faux-virtuous activist class,’¹ The Spectator cast Thunberg as a ‘professional tantrum-thrower,’² and Fox News aired… whatever this is.

Attempts to portray progressive activists, politicians, or movements as unserious is a common attack right-wingers make against the left, especially when the figurehead is a young(er) woman. Since Greta entered public life, conservatives have slandered her as a confused child, a mere simpleton compared to the great political minds of Catturd, Donald Trump Jr., and Dave Portnoy. Rather than address the merits of Greta’s position, the reactionary echo chamber chums the water with the red meat of ‘Greta Thunberg OWNED.’ Not only is thoughtful debate unwelcome in the rightist media environment, but addressing Thunberg’s well-reasoned rationale for multi-issue activism would reveal the defects in their own political project.