America Has Moderate and Radical Conservatives, but No Liberals

Your support keeps me going, I really appreciate you!I keep receiving comments and seeing news stories that follow some variation of, “First, you’re wrong to criticize conservatives, second extreme liberals are equally out of control.”You could restate this contradictory argument as, “The behavior you’re talking about doesn’t exist, and the only people doing it are people like you.”It’s utter nonsense. The bigger issue is that this form of discussion is so widespread that it has become the dominant cultural belief. The general public is inclined to assume that liberal policies don’t work. In fact, they’d rather endure the discomfort of cognitive dissonance rather than reexamine their oversimplified and inaccurate assumptions in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.We’re subjected to a constant media barrage that vindicates conservatives and blames liberals. The fact that no liberals are ever provided the courtesy of equal air time is proof of my position. The best we get is a newscaster saying, “Liberals are at fault” followed by an awkward silence.The truth is that when bad things happen in the United States it’s overwhelmingly members of the political right who are responsible. There is no “liberal bias” in the media or anywhere, saying so is just propaganda to hide the fact that history has shown over and over that conservative philosophies simply don’t work.You can’t blame the left for the problems of our country. The United States doesn’t even have a left.Quit saying there are extremists on both sidesHas there ever been a liberal political candidate who continued to have support in the midst of serious criminal accusations? There have certainly been moderate conservative candidates who have been the target of politically motivated legal inquiries. Hillary Clinton comes to mind, but she ran on a centrist platform.Republicans tried to impeach Joe Biden even though nobody managed to defend a legal justification for that action.Yes, I labeled Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton as moderate conservatives. I believe Bernie Sanders is also a moderate conservative. None of these politicians are advocating any extreme positions. Sanders wants to protect workers and give the American public some protections from a predatory health care industry. Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower essentially ran on the same platform. There’s nothing extreme about Eisenhower’s platform from 1956, and that platform remains moderate today.I’d go as far to say that the things Sanders advocates are common sense, but the phrase “common sense” has acquired a distasteful meaning in recent times.The truth is that there aren’t extremists on both sides because there aren’t two sides. We have one side. We have conservatives and a phantom scapegoat propped up to hide the reality that conservatives are ruining everything.Quit assuming there’s a rational explanation for why people support authoritarianismWith the various recent indictments of various Republican politicians, there’s been a lot of discussion over why so much of the voting public still supports an individual who has been accused of so many serious and terrible crimes.These discussions are getting nowhere because they’re all based on the assumption that there’s some “reasonable” thought process that drives people to support conservatives. This leaves us spinning our wheels because it amounts to looking for something that isn’t there.We’ve got to wind it back a bit and give equal consideration to arguments that are based on the assumption that there’s something terribly wrong with what the general population in the United States is trained to believe.We should consider that people might still support authoritarians not because liberals are “extreme” but because of the overwhelming and unsubstantiated pro-conservative messaging that’s the foundation of our political dialogue.The mechanism currently in place presents the very concept of liberalism as borderline criminal behavior. This is like a football game where the home team is given a thirty-point lead before the opening kickoff. Naturally, a true criminal would try to take advantage of the biased perception of criminality when he selected a team to represent. The pro-conservative bias in the media provided the perfect cover.If you want to solve the “Authoritarian problem” then the solution is to develop a commitment to having honest discussions. We’ve got to make our decisions based on factual evidence rather than what we’ve been traditionally trained to believe. Our current system never gets anywhere because everyone is stuck rationalizing how liberals are somehow always at fault even though they’re never in power.Education would be a good place to start, which is why conservatives are committed to an ongoing war against education.Establishment “centrist” Democrats routinely switch partiesWe need a word for when people use a patronizing and dismissive tone to lecture you on a widespread social misconception. It’s different than “mansplaining” because it’s not limited to men. Perhaps it could be called “wrongsplaining.”I’ve had a lot of arguments over the last few years where people became very hostile at my unwillingness to accept absurd axioms that are only deployed to prevent progress. Status quo apologists say things like:* “Progress can’t happen too fast”* “We haven’t had the votes to bring about real change”* “You can’t go too far to the left”All of these statements are used to justify how the DNC sends money to so-called “centrist” or “moderate” Democrats, only to have these politicians go on to obstruct the Democratic agenda, or, in extreme cases, switch parties in order to create Republican supermajorities.There’s not nearly enough discussion about this kind of behavior. It represents a complete betrayal when a candidate who got elected on a promise to protect bodily autonomy turns around and switches parties for personal political gain. The part I can’t understand is why the DNC doesn’t make their candidates sign a contract with language like, “If you switch parties, you have to pay back 1,000 times the money we gave to you.”All of these politicians are lawyers, they all know how to prevent this kind of behavior. The fact that they can’t be bothered to put such a clause down on paper is a second proof of my position.The truth is that progress can happen fast, we’ve had the seats even if we haven’t had the votes, and we’ve barely ever drifted to the left at all.The American public is frustratedWhat we have in the United States is a media that is constantly on blast about the dangers of “liberalism” even though our country has barely even tried it. We have a voting public that is finding it harder and harder to make ends meet, and the only thing we ever hear is that liberal policies will make things “worse.”Out of this chaos, a con artist emerged who perceived that American messaging is so pro-conservative that you can indulge in the most heinous acts against democracy and still be perceived as a savior.This is the lesson we all need to learn from the last decade of politics in our country.Exploitation of the Black communityThe Black community already knows this is true. They know that Democrats can’t win without the black vote, and then the DNC rarely goes on to do anything for them. The Black community is absolutely right to be frustrated with the DNC because every election cycle candidates get elected on promises that are subsequently ignored.If establishment Democrats are worried about alienating the Black vote, all they have to do is take action to serve the Black community, but they do that kicking and screaming. The only reason they win at all is because the GOP has embraced defiant, unapologetic racism.Why would it be so awful if we offered a choice better than moderate racism vs. extreme racism? There is not a party that is fully committed to anti-racism, and there should be because that’s the solution our society desperately needs.We’ve tried racism throughout the entire history of our country. It doesn’t work.Quit making apologies for the radical rightHow is it that every discussion about the premeditated coup attempt on January 6th, 2021 that led to the death of a police officer is always allowed to turn into a criticism of “extremists” on the left?Extreme? What’s extreme about the left? Is it extreme to want transgender kids to feel they have a right to live? Is it extreme to give people water as they stand in line to vote? Is it extreme to offer food to children? I firmly believe we have to stand up for everybody.All of these positions are moderate.How is it that so many people feel justified in comparing cries of “feed the children” to bloodthirsty chants from an enraged mob that built a gallows and called for the murder of a politician?Those things aren’t equal.Flashes of liberalism in American societyOur society is not making its decisions based on scientific inquiry. If you look, you’ll find plenty of evidence of liberal policies bringing America back from the brink of ruin.Roosevelt’s New Deal was highly progressive and it led to one of the most prosperous eras in American History. He was so popular Congress had to change the rules about term limits.Banishing slavery, despite being enacted by a Republican president, was also a progressive act. More recently there was the legalization of same sex marriage.The irrefutable truth about American history is that whenever our country has begun to sink under the weight of its absurd commitment to conservative ideology, progressive acts are deployed like life rafts to keep us afloat. Then we get a brief period of prosperity before the conservatives manage to wrestle back control and ruin everything once again.Let’s stop fighting the windImagine what would happen if we fully embraced progressive ideals instead of occasionally sprinkling moderate concepts on our country like salt on an overcooked steak?The problem is that moderate conservative Democrats do so little that they alienate their voter base and permit the rise of radical authoritarian movements.You can’t blame the voters because establishment Democrats can’t even be bothered to stand up for voter protections.Did you hear me, Democrats? Blaming the voters is a LOSING strategy, particularly when you allowed the Voting Rights Act to be gutted in 2013. Democrats do nothing as Republicans fortify themselves with gerrymandered districts, voter suppression, and voter prosecution.When they lose, the Democrats whine, “Why didn’t the voters come out for us?”Are you really so delusional and entitled that you can’t perceive how votes are suppressed? Or are you doing nothing because you don’t want your “base” to have enough voting power to elect any candidates that would truly stand up for them?Our political system is united against progressI strongly believe that moderate conservative Democrats would prefer to lose to radical, authoritarian Republicans rather than allow a potentially life-altering progressive movement to gain momentum.The next time somebody says, “There are problems on both sides,” make sure to correct them. The reality is that Republicans and moderate Democrats are on the same side.Right now, our only choice is to vote Democrat, but both sides are conservative, and it’s been proven again and again that this philosophy doesn’t work.Also, don’t tell me that saying so “plays into conservative” hands. How does it drive “swing voters” away to emphasize how moderate the Democratic party is?Our nation won’t improve until we stop scapegoating progressives, and instead allow the ideology that actually works to lead us into a new era of prosperity.In short, we need to stop our stubborn and irrational resistance to progress.You all make this newsletter happen! Thanks for your sponsorship! 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