3rd May 2022, 10:21 PM
You're very close ABF, but you're missing one thing. The democrats, most of them, are liberals, and liberals are NOT leftists. Their philosophy is still largely defined by believing in capitalism and that it's virtues are an important part of a functioning democracy.
We have two parties, a centrist party making a few small inroads to truly going left here and there, and an increasingly and frighteningly far right party who may not actually believe what they're spouting, but in practice it doesn't matter whether they believe it or not, the results are the same.
Every other point you make is spot on. The liberals have failed in being a bulwark against the dangers of far right extremists. This whole modern dynamic forged in the Reagan era is going to be the death of us if something drastic doesn't change. I'm not sure exactly which party we need to hijack, but something's gotta change.
Anyway, this little history lesson I saw on neoliberalism (it isn't the only one, but it covers a lot of things I'd picked up over the years pretty succinctly) helps to put things in perspective.
We have two parties, a centrist party making a few small inroads to truly going left here and there, and an increasingly and frighteningly far right party who may not actually believe what they're spouting, but in practice it doesn't matter whether they believe it or not, the results are the same.
Every other point you make is spot on. The liberals have failed in being a bulwark against the dangers of far right extremists. This whole modern dynamic forged in the Reagan era is going to be the death of us if something drastic doesn't change. I'm not sure exactly which party we need to hijack, but something's gotta change.
Anyway, this little history lesson I saw on neoliberalism (it isn't the only one, but it covers a lot of things I'd picked up over the years pretty succinctly) helps to put things in perspective.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)