The whole idea of freedom of conscience, the predecessor to freedom of speech, is that the ideas, by themselves, should be enough to convince people. If the ideas won't do it, either try other people or improve one's ideas.
Most republicans would be satisfied to turn the back the clock fifteen years, not seventy-four as you suggest. This is the problem with the use of a both-sidism model in an asymmetric contest. Republicans don’t care if an adult chooses a trans lifestyle but trying to normalize it in the classroom is something else again. Same with an open border, same with crime, same with absurd democrat values that put the economy in a tailspin. How about democrats threats to individual freedom, apologia for censorship. I was once a Democrat and it took me a lifetime to see what was right in front of my face. I think the basic difference between Rs and Ds is that Rs see government as likely to do more harm than good (as does the constitution) and Ds view government as the lever with which to move the world.
I think you're right about the R party electorate’s center of gravity (and I was also once a D), but both parties tend to get dragged toward the extremes, and the extremes provoke and feed each other. Thus, for just one example, the Dems seem fiercely wedded to affirming gender transition for minors and drag queen story hour, and this not only rightly alarms normies, but also whistles up the religious factions on the right who want to overturn Obergefell (again, the center had accepted it; most everyone has someone gay in their families). Likewise with immigration: the absolute necessity of controlling the border (too late!) gets hitched to racist demonization of all nonwhite immigrants. At this point we need a correction so badly we have to risk an overcorrection, but it remains to be seen what faction takes charge and how far it goes. Certainly it's idiotic (and deliberate bad faith) to argue as the Ds do that border concerns are de facto racist, or protecting kids' unmolested development is de facto transphobic or homophobic (or that criticizing Israel is antisemitic, for that matter, but there's plenty of bad-faith idiocy on that score to go around).
I do think the Rs are less monolithic and their center of gravity is closer to common sense, and their scare stories about the Ds are closer to being true, precisely because the extremism on the left is better concealed (from its own adherents) in plain sight. Also, antiwar hope glimmers dimly in at least some sectors of the right, and that the Cheneys are now on the D side driving us into WWIII kinda seals the deal.
What has disturbed me for months is the widespread premise that "both sides" are holding to extreme positions. It slips off the tongue too easily, and creates a framework for thinking about the issues that I believe is essentially false. I know "right wing extremist" is a favorite phrase of the mainstream media, but when I read Trump's one-page policy statement, I do not see any extremism. If you want to call Trump policy "reactionary," then you'll get no argument from me—it most certainly is a last-ditch attempt to preserve what traditionally have been the rights and freedoms of the American citizen. My own opinion is that "both-sidism" is particularly unhelpful because it doesn't squarely face the gravity of the threat, which, at this moment, is the first step toward doing the right thing.
I will be accused by both sides of "both-sidesism." My take is this:
The threat of totalitarianism on the "right" (these terms are obsolete but I'll use them as shorthand) is overestimated. It is more obvious, but less monolithic, than that on the left. While there is serious totalitarian intent on the right—particularly from white Christian nationalists—and these groups are systematically advancing in their capture of the courts and state legislatures, there are also Wild West libertarian populists and live-and-let-livers.
The threat of totalitarianism on the "left" is more insidious because concealed under a velvet glove of "joy" and "justice." It is also far more seamlessly monolithic in that the "left" owns the mainstream media, the universities, the corporate HR departments, the state bureaucracy, and the NGOs. It is much more organized and focused in its determination to censor and surveil and its control of "the narrative"—it has an iron grip on the minds of the elite.
Because the "left" has gone too far, particularly with the sexualization and transsexualization of children in schools, the racialization of everything, the green gospel, the obeisance to “expert” authority, and the deprioritizing of families, we need a moral retrenchment. But we won't get it from the Democrats.
The problem is that what we'll get from the Republicans is likely to be a rollback all the way to the obsolete and cruelly rigid norms of the 1950s. The humane gains of the intervening years for women and racial, sexual, and religious minorities could be lost as re-demonization of these groups becomes a sanctioned free-for-all.
Most Americans are not at either extreme.
As for the ransacking and poisoning of the environment, the Republicans vacillate between corporate pressure for unregulated exploitation and RFK jr.'s crusade for human and environmental health without hamstringing the economy. I'd have preferred that emphasis over either the Democrats' carbon-counting obsession or the Republicans' fossil fuel free-for-all. It's dubious whether RFKj's vision can survive its baptismal immersion in MAGA.
Both parties have a weakness for war. Neither totalitarianism will end the empire.
The whole idea of freedom of conscience, the predecessor to freedom of speech, is that the ideas, by themselves, should be enough to convince people. If the ideas won't do it, either try other people or improve one's ideas.
Most republicans would be satisfied to turn the back the clock fifteen years, not seventy-four as you suggest. This is the problem with the use of a both-sidism model in an asymmetric contest. Republicans don’t care if an adult chooses a trans lifestyle but trying to normalize it in the classroom is something else again. Same with an open border, same with crime, same with absurd democrat values that put the economy in a tailspin. How about democrats threats to individual freedom, apologia for censorship. I was once a Democrat and it took me a lifetime to see what was right in front of my face. I think the basic difference between Rs and Ds is that Rs see government as likely to do more harm than good (as does the constitution) and Ds view government as the lever with which to move the world.
I think you're right about the R party electorate’s center of gravity (and I was also once a D), but both parties tend to get dragged toward the extremes, and the extremes provoke and feed each other. Thus, for just one example, the Dems seem fiercely wedded to affirming gender transition for minors and drag queen story hour, and this not only rightly alarms normies, but also whistles up the religious factions on the right who want to overturn Obergefell (again, the center had accepted it; most everyone has someone gay in their families). Likewise with immigration: the absolute necessity of controlling the border (too late!) gets hitched to racist demonization of all nonwhite immigrants. At this point we need a correction so badly we have to risk an overcorrection, but it remains to be seen what faction takes charge and how far it goes. Certainly it's idiotic (and deliberate bad faith) to argue as the Ds do that border concerns are de facto racist, or protecting kids' unmolested development is de facto transphobic or homophobic (or that criticizing Israel is antisemitic, for that matter, but there's plenty of bad-faith idiocy on that score to go around).
I do think the Rs are less monolithic and their center of gravity is closer to common sense, and their scare stories about the Ds are closer to being true, precisely because the extremism on the left is better concealed (from its own adherents) in plain sight. Also, antiwar hope glimmers dimly in at least some sectors of the right, and that the Cheneys are now on the D side driving us into WWIII kinda seals the deal.
What has disturbed me for months is the widespread premise that "both sides" are holding to extreme positions. It slips off the tongue too easily, and creates a framework for thinking about the issues that I believe is essentially false. I know "right wing extremist" is a favorite phrase of the mainstream media, but when I read Trump's one-page policy statement, I do not see any extremism. If you want to call Trump policy "reactionary," then you'll get no argument from me—it most certainly is a last-ditch attempt to preserve what traditionally have been the rights and freedoms of the American citizen. My own opinion is that "both-sidism" is particularly unhelpful because it doesn't squarely face the gravity of the threat, which, at this moment, is the first step toward doing the right thing.
Yes girl! So true.
One of them wins (?) and in four years we have to listen to bunch of crap again. Not that the crap ever really stops.
I will be accused by both sides of "both-sidesism." My take is this:
The threat of totalitarianism on the "right" (these terms are obsolete but I'll use them as shorthand) is overestimated. It is more obvious, but less monolithic, than that on the left. While there is serious totalitarian intent on the right—particularly from white Christian nationalists—and these groups are systematically advancing in their capture of the courts and state legislatures, there are also Wild West libertarian populists and live-and-let-livers.
The threat of totalitarianism on the "left" is more insidious because concealed under a velvet glove of "joy" and "justice." It is also far more seamlessly monolithic in that the "left" owns the mainstream media, the universities, the corporate HR departments, the state bureaucracy, and the NGOs. It is much more organized and focused in its determination to censor and surveil and its control of "the narrative"—it has an iron grip on the minds of the elite.
Because the "left" has gone too far, particularly with the sexualization and transsexualization of children in schools, the racialization of everything, the green gospel, the obeisance to “expert” authority, and the deprioritizing of families, we need a moral retrenchment. But we won't get it from the Democrats.
The problem is that what we'll get from the Republicans is likely to be a rollback all the way to the obsolete and cruelly rigid norms of the 1950s. The humane gains of the intervening years for women and racial, sexual, and religious minorities could be lost as re-demonization of these groups becomes a sanctioned free-for-all.
Most Americans are not at either extreme.
As for the ransacking and poisoning of the environment, the Republicans vacillate between corporate pressure for unregulated exploitation and RFK jr.'s crusade for human and environmental health without hamstringing the economy. I'd have preferred that emphasis over either the Democrats' carbon-counting obsession or the Republicans' fossil fuel free-for-all. It's dubious whether RFKj's vision can survive its baptismal immersion in MAGA.
Both parties have a weakness for war. Neither totalitarianism will end the empire.