"And lest the Democrats get all high and mighty about the irrational component of the Republican coalition, they should remember that they have a similar problem on their far left."
"The difference is that the Dem’s 'crazies' are out on the fringe. The Rep’s 'crazies' are running the asylum."
Both major political parties have their extremists, people full of passionate intensity with opinions spiraling far from the center. Yesterday's blog post by Tam Moore spoke of his dismay at the direction his GOP has taken, from Eisenhower to Gingrich to Trump. I wrote on May 21 of my frustration with how badly Democratic leaders handled violence in Portland. Click. Voters saw street violence night after night and decided that Democrats couldn't keep America safe.
The crazies, we will always have with us.
The other politically troublesome people on the political left are people selling Critical Race Theory, and the idea that racism and patriarchy are thoroughly part of American culture--so imbedded that it may be invisible, even as it colors all relationships. The notion of the essential corruption of humanity and civilization are old thoughts in Western Civilization. "In Adam's fall we sinned all" is mainstream Judeo-Christian orthodoxy. American Transcendentalists said civilized society estranged us from our essential nature. Either way, society was corrupt. It should not be a hard sell to convince Americans that our culture gives men an edge. Traditionally males are the default "regular" human, an idea embedded in law, culture, and language, as has been White-ness.
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| Joe McCarthy, identifying thought crimes |
The "crazy" in Critical Race Theory is its evangelism and its direct accusation that people who resist its truth are oppressors who need to be outed and shamed. Americans are familiar with religious and ideological zealotry. It had been more common on the political right. Professors are pushed out of jobs in colleges with religious affiliations for visibly "wrong thought," and homosexuals and women seeking abortion have been scolded and shamed. Seven states have bans on atheists holding public office, although the Supreme Court has ruled this unenforceable. Authoritarianism of the left is mostly new. The Democratic left had been the "free thinker" and lifestyle-libertine party, the party of atheists, beatniks, hippies, and doing one's own thing. But there is the sweet joy of righteousness in pointing a finger at moral depravity in others, and some on the left have developed a taste for it. It is a political loser for Democrats, and the scolds on the left create horror stories of intolerance that circulate and damage the Democratic brand.
This section of the left, too, has been rejected by mainstream Democrats--the Democrats who center the party. Joe Biden is neither a Bernie quasi-socialist nor "woke."
Democrats have their insufferable crazies, but they outvoted them, even as Democrats have re-calibrated subtly. Joe Biden now knows not to hug women. He appoints women and Blacks to prominent positions so that his administration "looks like America." It is body language politics. How better to change the default notion that White men should be in charge than by having women and non-Whites in many of those positions? Americans' default notions of who fits a category changes when our observations change. Biden is not being extreme--unless one defines as extreme senior jobs being filled by anyone other than White males. In that case, the charge of implicit bias is confirmed.
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| Gomez: no comment on 2020 election |
Meanwhile, the GOP has succumbed to its crazies--even if everyone in the party has not gone crazy themselves. Republican majorities agree that overthrowing the government to maintain Trump in office is either an outright positive, or at least not so bad as to be openly criticized. I consider the removal of Liz Cheney and the silence of Kevin McCarthy, Mitch McConnell and other senior Republicans as strong evidence of the mainstreaming of crazy. I consider the avoidance of the issue by a savvy self-described moderate, Jessica Gomez, the new GOP candidate for Oregon governor, more confirmation. Click
Tam Moore yesterday voiced a wish that his Republican party would reform itself from within. I wish that voices of the majority of Democrats were as charismatic and sure-footed and media-savvy as are the voices of its extremes.
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6 comments:
One of the things I’ve noticed about my own behavior is this: the things I most abhor in other people’s behavior are the things that most embarrass me about myself. If someone were to tell a lie about me, that would tough; but if someone were to reveal some hidden truth about me, a truth that even I was unwilling to face, that would be the worst.
And therein lies the problem white people have with critical race theory. It forces us white people to face our hidden truth. That our successes and the successes of our ancestors on this continent, were not solely due to to our own Horacio Algeresque spunk and hard work. We had and have the unfair advantage of being white. Of our ancestors having been paid for their labor. Of them having being able to accumulate assets and own real estate. Of them getting free land from the federal govt and low interest loans. The list goes on.
It’s like those rich business owners who don’t believe in paying taxes on their hard work, neglecting the fact that government built and maintain the roads, courts, and all else that provides the underpinning of the capitalist system they totemize.
The problem with CRT is not that it’s wrong; it’s that it’s an inconvenient and painful truth.
Another plea for moderation. So. Tiresome.
It's a false equivalency to compare social democrats to white supremacists as if that elevates the case for some kind of bipartisan utopia.
Regressives point to Portland and bleat "See THEY'RE just as violent as our guys". Here's the difference: Progressives completely disavow protesters who vandalize; it's anathematic to all the principles of the movement. It's true there are BLM sympathizers whose frustration leads them astray, but unlike the far right violence it's not seen as patriotic and justified by a one eyed reading of the Constitution.
Moreover, it's easy to criticize authorities in Portland, but what's the alternative? Rubber bullets? Tanks? Napalm? The choice to be non-confrontational probably saved lives.
The "far left crazy" is a false construct. What Regressives and some Democrats call extreme is simply a less compromising position on issues all Democrats basically agree with: social and economic justice, fair taxation and all the rest. Don't fall for it.
I would like to expand on a thought in my comment from yesterday:
The problems that the two parties have with their “crazies“ are not symmetrical, so the parties will necessarily have to deal with them differently.
The black component of the Democratic Party is not “woke.“ This is a large part of how Biden won the nomination.
That black component does have its own craziness, though. You will never hear much from Democrats about the antisemitism that exists among blacks in this country. For instance, most of the attacks against Jews in Brooklyn recently have been committed by black perpetrators. What have local or national Democrats had to say about that? They have said almost nothing, because they need that base.
The Democrats could fully embrace the non-woke aspect of their black base. The antisemitic aspects of that base are apparently (sadly) not politically relevant.
Republicans have a different problem. The Trump component of their base believes something crazy that is politically relevant. But the Republicans need that base as much as the Democrats need theirs. As a result, the Republicans are not going to directly confront the craziness in their base anymore than the Democrats will confront the craziness in theirs.
You will never hear a competent Republican politician directly confront the claim that “Trump won the election.“ You will never hear a competent Democratic politician directly confront the antisemitism in their black base.
The problem that the Democrats have is easier to ignore. That’s an advantage for them. But ignoring the craziness in part of your political base is not something that’s just limited to one side.
The problem with today’s Republican Party is that its undisputed leader is Donald Trump, a pathological liar who cares about no-one but himself and convinced his minions to try and overturn an election. They’ve abandoned even the pretense of patriotism, and their platform is whatever Trump says. In other words, they’re as crazy as he is.
Free education? Go to Germany. Socialized medicine? Go to Canada, Japan, UK ect, Day Care? Go to a France . Green New Deal? Go to a European country. Strong Unions? Go to Germany. Bernie Sanders is not a lefty radical. He is instep with leaders of the G 7 societies. America is now an underdeveloped backward nation. Look at the low vaccination rates and the high COVID death spiral. Limited Broadband in Josephine County, backward. Experience airports, experience trains. Experience the great public transportation in Josephine County. Passenger trains used to run from Ashland to Portland….gone. Anyway. So shut up about the radical Democratic left, it is non existent..it is the right of center compared to European Democratic Socialist societies.
And as far as “woke”. Jews think they are superior to Blacks. Blacks think they are superior to Mexicans. Asians think they are superior to all.
Arabs are superior to East Indians. Myanmar people hate Rohingyas. Whites, who are Democrats and Republicans, love and hate everyone and will blow anyone to pieces and steal all their natural resources with a good excuse. So shut up about woke; it is situational. Unless of course you are married to one of those “others.” By the way, Native Americans are never in this woke conversation. They were dismissed a long time ago.
“The other politically troublesome people on the political left are people selling Critical Race Theory, and the idea that racism and patriarchy are thoroughly part of American culture.”
Critical race theory is an academic concept that is more than 40 years old. The core idea is that racism is a social construct, and that it is not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice, but also something embedded in legal systems and policies. This should be self-evident to anyone aware of such disparities as the wealth gap, the health gap and the incarceration gap.
White immigrants to America wiped out much of its indigenous population and practiced slavery for longer than the U.S. has existed. People in denial seem to prefer the view that our forebears were simply bestowing the blessings of Capitalism and Christianity upon inferior races. Perhaps they’d be more grateful if they were reaping more of the benefit.
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