#Leftist leader of ‘antiwork’ blows up her own movement on TV

These are tough days for the “antiwork” crowd. Along with bedsores, sagging muscle tone, Cheetos stains on clothing and a profound sense of unjustified entitlement, another occupational hazard for the occupationless has just emerged: Contact with the outside world.

As a result of three minutes on Fox News Channel, the I-refuse-to-be-useful crowd have just seen their movement knocked off its axis by a nuclear level of ridicule. Over on the social-media site Reddit, there are 1.7 million shiftless members of a slovenly subreddit called r/antiwork. Fox’s Jesse Watters thought the group’s outlook sounded interesting so he called up one of its leaders for a chat. What transpired went so badly for the antiwork types that I fear they won’t be able to get out of bed all weekend, although I concede that’s a moot point for the armies of the prone.

Watters asked a few not-particularly-mean questions of the leader, a transgender individual named Doreen, who . . . well, I would never want to be accused of being rude. Let’s just recap how some members of the group described one of their chiefs:

• “Doreen, honey, you need to change your appearance. This is coming from someone who looked just like you. You cannot have a messy room, poorly lit conditions, messy hair and expect people to take you seriously.”

• “At this point, the face of r/antiwork is a lazy, unprepared, unappreciative dog walker.”

• “It’s like the mods handed Fox News a loaded gun, Fox News handed it back, and the mods proceeded to shoot themselves in the foot.”

• “I believe that this was clearly done on purpose by a head-hunter at Fox to showcase how ‘utterly ridiculous’ we all are.”

Actually, no, it was your own leader who showcased that. Fox simply put her onscreen. Doreen, who works 20 to 25 hours a week as a dog walker but would like to work less (either that or become a philosophy teacher, she explained, because she obviously has a lot of wisdom to pass along), told Watters “I think laziness is a virtue in a society where people constantly expect you to be productive 24/7.”

Yay laziness? That isn’t supposed to be something you say out loud. Laziness is generally regarded as a character defect, especially in the hard-charging U.S. The members of antiwork don’t want to hear it, but the percentage of Americans who were “completely satisfied” or “somewhat satisfied” with their jobs was 87% in 2021, according to a Gallup poll. Pre-pandemic, it was 93%!

After Doreen imploded, much mockery ensued on the subreddit, so against her stated philosophy, the moderators went to work feverishly removing critical posts before shutting it down entirely. (It was subsequently reopened.) Removing all of the critical remarks was like trying to bail out the basement with a teacup, but they got cracking anyway.

These folks really busted their tails in pursuit of the larger goal of not working. Alas for them, unlike regular people who work and get paid, sometimes even while enjoying it, they got the worst of both worlds: they had to go to work without pay, on deeply unpleasant duty getting garbage bags full of jokes and insults dumped all over their heads.

So not only will the antiwork movement forever be dogged by a video clip in which it disintegrated live on television— the YouTube clip has scored 2 million views, not counting the millions who saw the show live, so the implosion is now better known that the group ever was by itself — it now has to try to bring peace as its own C.H.U.D.-dish members devour each other.

Once again we find that, like those Weather Underground radicals who blew up their own townhouse in Greenwich Village, the Left has a kind of genius for destroying itself.

As another Reddit user reflected, “If only the CIA was as competent at tearing down ‘leftist movements’ as infighting leftists are.”