Populist Left and Right Close to Realizing How Much They Have in Common

Posted by CircuitGuy 5 years, 4 months ago to Politics
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It’s been my fear since early 2016, when I read a protectionist op-ed by Bernie Sanders, that all the people who want scapegoats for their problems and government force paid for with borrowed money to punish the scapegoats would one day realize how much they have in common. We are not there, but we’re getting closer.

[kidding, but only a little]
So I’m hoping people pandering to the deplorables of the world can step up their game at doing what they do best.
1. Bring up some token thing related to transgendered people or some minority group that promises to make people feel hurt or uncomfortable and thereby to make the deplorables feel less pathetic.
2. Creative ploys to make people look bad or hurt people’s feelings, either in meetings or just in creative insults.
3. Positive reforms of any kind generate some outrage, so you can always measure the effectiveness of reforms by the amount of outrage you generate. Aim for the level of reform associated with peeing on someone’s furniture.
4. Deny science of climate change and evolution.

Socialists need to their part.
1. Remind people that if you disagree with any oftheir policy ideas, it means you agree with President Trump’s juvenile, bigoted, and mean-spirted antics.
2. Try to suppress bigoted speech.
3. Work on little things to make unsophisticated people uncomfortable or hurt: Ban ATVs and sleds in gov’t parks. Ban certain types of clips and ammo. There’s no way to force them to ride a downtown bus to an art gallery, but you can insist on their having transgender bathrooms or anything that makes them feel a little uncomfortable and makes urban people feel self-righteous.
4. Deny science of GMOs, organic foods, and economics.

Everyone remember: Being hurtful and childish are noble if they’re for a righteous cause. Pat yourselves on the back for your good work.
[/kidding]

I’m only partly kidding when I say the clown show is protecting people from statism. If these people ever realize they’re on the same side, they’ll come to a compromise to borrow 1 billion for each group’s favorite programs.

More than ever, I hope they keep stupidly hating one another for no clear reason. I think people who blame others for their problems and want government to use force to fix it are in the majority if they worked together.

I’m not planning ever to go to another political fundraiser to have drinks and meet potential people in the tech (for me) and legal (for my wife) ecosystems, and then maybe have a chance to shake a politician’s hand and remind her to remember the neo-liberal view that a lot of people at the event probably agree with at least somewhat. Going to their events feels like tacit consent to the clown show and to the intrusion into my life.
SOURCE URL: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/06/06/she-sounds-like-trump-his-best-tucker-carlson-endorses-elizabeth-warrens-economic-populism/


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  • Posted by freedomforall 5 years, 4 months ago
    First, they the swamp dwellers (that you defend repeatedly if they are Democrats, but criticize if they are not and if the Democrats tell you to) are already working together. They pretend to be enemies, but the results betray their common goals: greater central power and wealth for all politicians of the swamp regardless of party.

    Second, your never ending smarmy posting pretending to favor liberty and supporting the exact opposite exposes your membership in the swamp.
    Your commentary - learned in the Bill Clinton school of debating - belongs where all such vituperous vomit belongs. Go. Wrap your arms around the porcelain throne and regurgitate all your intentionally misleading chunder.
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  • Posted by exceller 5 years, 4 months ago
    Hogwash.

    There is nothing in common between Warren and Trump.

    BTW, "populist", is the derogatory word of the left for anything that considers the interest of the country and her people. It is used routinely by the left in Europe to denigrate leaders who drive to defend sovereignty, defense against migrants, and national interests.
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  • Posted by PeterSmith 5 years, 4 months ago
    I disagree that anyone is "denying science" re climate change, but yes conservatives are using that issue to drive a wedge into evolution.
    I wouldn't call today's conservative movement as "the right."
    They are simple the religious arm of the left wing.
    So it's not a case of "left and right" discovering how much they have in common, but people realizing that they are in fact ALL leftists, due to their collectivism. That there is no right wing in mainstream politics and that therein lies all our issues.
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    • Posted by exceller 5 years, 4 months ago
      "I disagree that anyone is "denying science" re climate change, but yes conservatives are using that issue to drive a wedge into evolution."

      You sound like your friend ewv.

      Wedge into evolution? What the he** is that?

      Can you point out one single example where the left has been using facts or logic?

      It is the left that has created the "Global warming" religion as a new tool for control.

      In the process they used "modeling" to prove the Earth will be flooded and Armageddon ensue. Don't ask them for gaps in the "theory". If you do, you are a fascist, a liar, and generally a despicable person.

      You won't be able to sell your "argument" to sane people who use their heads for thinking.
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      • Posted by PeterSmith 5 years, 4 months ago
        I'm not sure what you're point is.
        I agree the left created "global warming" but they based it on the usual Christian religious ideas of original sin and altruism, to appeal to a Christian scarred, Western Civilization.
        So, unless you're prepared to fight against Christianity, you have no argument against environmentalism, as it's in principle the same thing.
        So is socialism, fascism, etc.

        But many religious conservatives have used the fact that environmentalism is bogus, to suggest that things like evolution is bogus too, which is what I was referring to.

        "You won't be able to sell your "argument" to sane people who use their heads for thinking."
        If by "sane people who use the heads for thinking" you mean "religious conservatives" then you're right.
        That's a feature though, not a bug.
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