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It's pretty easy to dunk on this kind of thing, but it might be useful instead to understand what it means, where it comes from, and why it so well illustrates the difference between socialists and liberals
First, there's the confused moral perspective. Waldman first tries to establish a moral foundation for herself by saying she usually donates money to people who are suffering privation, but we immediately see a divergence:
Her definition of 'good' is doing something relatively easy (donating money) to treat a symptom (people suffering from deprivation thanks to poverty), instead of doing something more difficult (political organizing) to treat a cause (capitalist control over the means of living).
Beyond that, she shows her moral outlook to be contingent (poor people only deserve to be helped if they meet my ethical standards) instead of principled (poor people deserve to be helped because they are suffering, regardless of their moral character)...
...and an abstracted belief in politics as a process of theoretical trickle-down aid to the poor and charity as a means of alleviating suffering (if you deserve it and people can afford it), as an alternative to directly aiding and empowering all people to get what they need.
There's also the persistent and foolish belief that politics exist in stasis, that they're sort of inherent from birth, and that it's not really possible or desirable to work on changing their beliefs and understanding, just to punish or reward them for acceptable behavior
But beyond all this, there's this feeling that to Waldman, politics isn't about ideology; it's a series of moral negotiations with herself (rage, loathing, then shame), her therapist ("feelings can follow behavior"), the public ("perform compassion and healing"), even Joe Biden.
This is the kind of complete misunderstanding of class, politics, and power that will insure liberals will never really make a difference. They don't get that ideology is not identity, that politics is the process of gaining and using power to achieve an end and not therapy
We don't glorify the working class because we think they're morally superior to other classes. We empower the working class because they are the ones being exploited *and* the force powerful enough to destroy the system that exploits them
The negotiation isn't over morality. It's over power. You strengthen and build up those who support your goals and add to your power; you weaken and wreck the people who oppose them. That's the formula for political effectiveness, not constantly honing your self-perception.
