Doug1943
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- Jan 3, 2016
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- #41
Well, yes, we do disagree. You have to distinguish between the 'Hard Left' -- and even distinguish among currents within it, who have even gotten into fistfights with each other at demonstrations! -- on the one hand, and those to their 'Right' who are influenced/intimidate by them.While I agree with most of your post, I have to take issue with this line.
The entire democrat party has been co-opted by this hard left. Though some may speak as though they’re moderate, the reality is they’re bound to these Marxist tendencies by party affiliation and political survival.
I personally know academics who soft-social-democrats, and not at all Politically Correct, but who are afraid to voice their real opinions, because of loud, noisy (minority) of students and fellow academics who will then try to get them fired, or at a minimum will blight their careers.
And so I would urge you to think again about your view of 'the Left' as a hard monolithic bloc controlled by its worst part. The reason it's important to try to understand the currents, disagreements, and divisions on the Left is because in war, you see allies who may not agree 100% with you. (If we could ally with Stalin against Hitler ...) And you seek to make neutrals, neutral-leaning-towards you. And you seek to make the enemy's allies, neutral.
There are plenty of people who are Leftist at heart, but could not stomach the drift of the Left towards authoritarianism and 'Red-baiting' (as it used to be called when it was us accusing liberals of being Russian agents).
You can find some of them at this site (a very interesting on in its own right):
[ Quillette ]
Or look at this guy, who expressed his pleasure when Andrew Breitbart died 12 years ago, but is now hated by the Left because he's honest:
[ Matt Taibbi - Wikipedia ]
or this very admirable, liberal, very high-quality academic:
[Steven Pinker - Wikipedia] who says things the 'Woke' crowd hate, because they're where his research leads him. (See in particular his book The Blank Slate.)
And I should also mention the late, most lamented Christopher Hitchens, the best anti-conservative the Left had ... who, unfortunately, got convinced by the neo-Cons that invading Iraq and trying to bring liberal democracy to Afghanistan were good ideas. But he never become a conservative. None of the others are, either.
They are just the tip of the iceberg. I promise you, there are millions of people -- from liberal intellectuals, down to members of the Steelworkers Union, who have always voted Democrat, and who may well vote Democrat in the future ... but who do NOT want to 'defund the police', or cut the genitals off an 8-year old [the liberal TV host Bill Maher used to make really uncomfortable viewing for us conservatives ... but he's an honest man, and can't go along with the Woke nonsense ... good for him. And he hasn't lost his mainly-liberal audience by making fun of PC crazyiness ].
It's war. We must seek to divide the other camp, to pull some of them towards us, to make alliances where we agree on things. And remember that reality does not stand still. There will be more and more events in the future that discredit the Hard Left -- in particular, their work hollowing out the American military is going to have consequences.
We must be ready for 'Bridge at Remagen' moments and use these coming events when they happen to convince honest liberals that the people they've allowed to exert growing influence on the political nullities/career polticians who lead their party, are poison ... not just to us, but to honest, traditional liberalism (which had honorable ideals).