They should heed Russian dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza's warning at LibCon2025 to not fall for the false narratives that authoritarians use to consolidate power
I too was at the conference. While most of this article is ok, “The Wokeism Carnard” section is incredibly weak. And it inspired me to write my own article explaining the drivers of Trumpism.
True, Kamala didn't run as a "culture warrior," but in order to overcome that portrayal, she needed to repudiate the entire "woke" ethos. She needed a "Sisister Souljah moment," and it never happened.
What "woke ethos"?
Every time it seems as if people might be ready to get fed up with Trump's unprecedented concentration of power, I turn on NPR and hear some "homelessness advocate" justifying massive encampments ("They've got noplace else to go!"), or (as a gay male -- openly so, all my life -- who finds nothing "queer" about same-sex attraction) I'm being commandeered for a moral panic on behalf of "queer trans people of color."
When that's the message coming from "the Resistance," voters see those far less vulnerable than themselves (flush with foundation money) using "the most vulnerable" as a scourge on "normies" and the middle class.
This ain't rocket science, Radley!
Those who are appalled by Trump's fascistic actions need to start sounding more like James Carville or Ritchie Torres (or Andrew Sullivan or Corey Booker) -- and stop sounding like NPR.
On the Supreme Court, IMO, we need a president to treat John MARSHALL Roberts like his predecessor 200 years ago, but not in a way that resembles Andy Jackson.
First thank you for this great article and for your magnificent book on police militarization as it has been alarming me for 20 years now.
You said: "If there was widespread agreement at the conference about the urgent state of things, there was plenty of disagreement on how we got here, and how we get out."
The state of things is urgent but how we got here is now irrelevant and we won't be getting out any time soon.
1/3 of the nation affirmatively want some form of authoritarian order. Another 1/3 will tolerate the authoritarian order as long as it doesn't demand too many personal sacrifices. The last 1/3 may complain, chat about how bad it is, and make some futile showings of resistance mostly on the antisocial media platforms. Some fringe elements may actually attempt real subversion as long as no weapons are involved. A tiny number may attempt some sort of futile armed rebellion.
21st Century Nationalist Socialism will allow opposition parties that will somehow never win.
According to Newtons Third Law (I use it here only metaphorically) the damage that has been done to the rule of law by the right authoritarianism will only be undone by an equally powerful form of left authoritarianism which will also of necessity override any form of liberal democracy even if it aims to restore the liberal democracy of the "before" times.
Darwin taught that survival of the fittest wasn't about strength but about adaptability. Perhaps we need to try and stop trying to be the irresistible force trying to overcome the immovable object. Perhaps we need to see what new synthesis arrives before we decide on what to do? Since it is already too late and impossible to alter the trajectory we are on now.
I loved this article right up until you referred to Harris as a Black woman. She's mixed race, and so is Barack. Why can't we get that right? And why does it matter, anyway? I know it does, I just abhor that it does. Anyway... good open till then!
This is a great article and I agree with almost all of Mr. Balko's points. In particular, I am profoundly grateful to Shikha Dalmia and everyone else at ISMA for organizing the conference. Her achievement over the past few years has been remarkable.
However, Mr. Balko, progressives, and other Democrats are delusional if they believe that their evangelical Woke Gospel did not play a central role in Kamela Harris' defeat.
Here is a selection from my Substack post entitled "Why Kamela Lost in Nine Simple Charts."
"I’d like to finish with a point that is perhaps controversial and unoriginal but needs to be hammered home; it should now be crystal clear that Democrats are steadily alienating male voters – mostly white ones, but increasingly many who are nonwhite. This is dismissed as “misogyny” by many Democrats and there is certainly plenty of that. But when one gender and one race is singled out as the source of all that is evil and nothing that is good in a nation that they themselves were instrumental in building (to say the least), members of that group can become disheartened. No one wants to be a member of a party that considers him the enemy. I must say that I share this feeling (I have never oppressed anyone). For me, no amount of frustration with Democrats would ever make me vote for human beings as despicable as Donald Trump and his brownshirts. But clearly, tens of millions of men -- white, black and brown – overcame whatever distaste for Trump they might have had and did just that."
Events at the conference provided no reassurance that Democrats are about to moderate their dogma.
What is delusional is claiming that there is some evangelical woke gospel that among many things demonizes men as the source of all that is evil. While you might not yourself vote for Trump and his brownshirts, you clearly excuse all the people that voted for them because of some nonsense confabulation about Democrats demonizing them when in reality, those tens of millions of men in great part voted exactly because Trump is despicable and his followers are brownshirt. While you yourself attempt to wash your hands of being an enabler of fascism, you enable it indirectly by parroting its narratives. Cowardly scum.
Point No. 1? Reality is that Biden cut off the "COVID tap" too quickly, fueling bad perceptions.
No. 2? Inflation came from capitalist corporations jacking prices well above pre-COVID levels as COVID leveled off, and most of Team Biden saying bupkis.
Your final point?
White males are largely self-alienating, and spinning hasbara in relation to this and you're peddling that hasbara. And, yes, that's the world.
Other than that? Harris lost because she ran a campaign about as crappy as Hillary Clinton, and largely in the same geographic area — the Great Lakes states.
Oh, I'm an actual leftist and a non-duopoly voter for president this century, and more and more for lower offices.
Here is a question for people like yourself who believe that "capitalist corporations" caused inflation in 2021 through "price gouging." If corporations are able to hike prices at will, why didn't they double or triple prices in 2021 (or today for that matter.) Instead of a measly 10%? They would have made much bigger profits.
Why can't leftists understand that there is a limit to the amount of resources our Government can expend and the amount of money it can print? Isn't that obvious.
I like to think I have a pretty good vocabulary, but I'll admit I had to look up "hasbara." I'm not sure that's the best word, since it seems specifically to refer to Israeli policies. But I could be wrong.
2. I didn't cite "the invisible hand," because that comes from Enlightenment-era rationalism about a Deistic god winding up the universe like a clock, an idea deconstructed ultimately by quantum mechanics, but also many other things.
3. As far as leftists and "limited resources"? Federal deficits and national debt have both generally expanded more under wingnut Republicans than under nice, polite neoliberal Democrats going back to the time of Reagan. (You present as a nice, polite, neoliberal Democrat; why are you attacking leftists rather than Republicans? That said, you are justifying Balko's thesis, indirectly.) You either know this and are hand-waving, or you don't, and are welcome to look that up. Actual leftists have never been in power in the US government, so we've never had the opportunity to put your ideas to the test.
4. It depends on how you allocate federal resources, anyway, like national health care that nice polite neoliberal Democrats hate almost as much as Republicans.
I hope you don't represent the majority of Democrats, but I suspect you do. Maybe I'm wrong and Socialism will attract a majority of Americans in 2026 and 2028. I certainly hope I'm wrong.
In case it's not clear, I'm not a Democrat or a Republican.
Per my first comment:
>>Oh, I'm an actual leftist and a non-duopoly voter for president this century, and more and more for lower offices.<<
I think it should have been clear.
And, no, I don't represent the majority of Democrats. Every two / four years, no, the Democratic masses either sheepdog or stay home, sadly. If you really think I represent the majority of Democrats, IMO, you're further proving Balko right, to the degree he talks about these type of issues, though he's still libertarian 101 himself on such things, I think.
Thanks for sharing your excellent substack. I find myself a "One Nation" conservative independent who has had to vote almost entirely for Democrats since the dawn of Sarah Palin. As the Republican party has devolved into "21st Century National Socialism" I have found it harder to vote for any Republican because they are not responsible caretakers of legislative majorities. Anna Paulina Luna is my Republican representative here in Florida. Gus Bilarakis was my Representative when I moved to Florida in 2018. I watched him transition from a normal establishment Republican into a butt snorkeling Trumpist in just six years. It is a matter of voting for the lesser of two evils. And at this point (if voting will even matter in 2026 and 2028) the choice is pretty clear.
I think that black and brown men are identifying with their white peers with whom they live and work more than the elite spokespersons from within their communities who supposedly represent their interests. Proletarian whites probably have more sustained day to day contact with Blacks and Hispanics than your average bourgeois suburbanite. To reduce the whole phenomenon of what we are seeing to mere racism and misogyny (although there is some of that, too) is to really misread the reality.
Thank you for this common sense comment, being a woman a agree that portraying men "as the source of all that is evil" is unfair and counterproductive to the democratic cause!
Continuing to hammer away at the Right as "authoritarian" is laughable, when Left is inherently Authoritarian by it's very nature, and by it's own actions.
The Left campaign on more Government, most social structures that society will need to rely on, were caught lying about the truth during the pandemic and previous elections with propaganda campaigns that were outright lies and now they want to pretend the Right are the problem?
I agree with Josh of Arc. The public sees through the charade.
Only a laughable clown calls the left inherently authoritarian while in throes of fascism. How can the left be inherently authoritarian you shitgibbon when the left is by nature egalitarian?
Only someone who has lost a debate and has nothing left in the chamber uses insults and attacks the messenger, without ever addressing the message. May as well hold up a white flag. You'd get more respect.
Read my comment about Freud's The Devouring Mother below.
I'm sure she thought she was 'egalitarian' too. ;-)
The fact is that the Left are great at coming up with ideas but terrible at implementing them. The Right are great at implementing ideas, but terrible at coming up with them.
Just as the left and the right sides of the brain need each other for the entire body to be fully effective, so it is in Government. It's why the Republic was designed the way it was.
When the Left comes up with ideas and implements them poorly, they backfire so badly, that the solution is worse than the problem originally was.
See mass immigration, the Covid pandemic mandates and gender ideology as prime examples. Every one of these has backfired badly, created problems far worse than what they were trying to solve, and in turn has caused the collapse of the Left's political strength.
And if ANYBODY thinks that only one side is fully right and the other is fully wrong, that immediately discredits that person, as it is fully impossible for one side to be fully correct, and the other to be fully incorrect.
I have lost no debate you dumbshit. I am not debating you, but merely replying to your dumb ass comment. I addressed your message and insulted your dumb ass for fun. If I didn't address your message at all and held up a white flag, you wouldn't bother replying but here you are scribbling more dumb shit about the government being akin to the brain and some hypothetical person thinking one side is fully right and the other being fully wrong. Left me shit on your attempt at countering me, just like I shat on your dumb ass original comment. The left is defined by its antiauthoritarianism, it's defined by it's opposition to hierarchy and therefore authoritarianism, it's defined by seeking egalitarianism and social equality. No sit the fuck down or reflect on your ignorant political take.
Anti-authoritariansim becomes authoritarian if it doesn't check itself and consistently stay accountable to objective ideologies.
Authoritarianism is when one group imposes it's ideals on another, and that is exactly what the Left have been doing for over a decade now. Forcing people to believe and do things against their will.
The problem the Left has, is that it's subjective. Everything is relative and there is no objective ideology, and that subjectivity inevitably, inescapably causes it to turn on itself.
I'm sorry that you can only think in terms of insults, but that's the nature of subjective thinking.
Maybe one day you'll figure it out by thinking for yourself rather than just regurgitating party lines.
What are you even saying you dumb ass? There are no objective ideologies for anyone to check itself against, let alone the left. Then you say the left is subjective and it turns on itself. There has been no left that has imposed its ideals on any group. What an embarrassing word salad from what I can see from past comments is an embarrassing and embarrassed Trumpist that calls himself a liberal and accuses people of being Marxists without understanding what he is actually saying. Go take a piss stop posting nonsense in Balko's wonderful article.
A wingnut submitting shit to a racist-flirting magazine (Thinker). Well, you just tossed your credibility out the door right there. Oh, per other pieces on your site? The Thinker, even, officially retracted its vote fraud claims. https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/01/statement.html
That vote-fraud piece of of Parquette's? What fucking nuttery. Oh? Bye!
Why is it laughable? This article documented a pretty extensive list of authoritarian actions. The left on the other hand, is only a squishy authoritarianism that polices words and viewpoints with shaming and social media censorship. It is not even in the same league as the permanent damage Trump is doing to our institutions
I am glad you agree that the Left are at least in some way authoritarian, as witnessed by their censorship and cancel campaigns over the past decade.
Now talk to me about the permanent damage that Obama and Clinton have wreaked on society and our institutions, by falsely trying to remove a sitting president from his elected office through deceit, reputation sabotage, and all of manufactured lies that have been fed to the media to deceive the people, using the media as a propaganda machine?
You combine that with the censorship campaigns, and the pressures the Democrats have applied to free speech, freedom of association and freedom of movement over things like the pandemic, and you can build a strong case that the Left are every bit as authoritarian as those they accuse to be.
It's much like Freud's The Devouring Mother: They know what's best for you, and they will make sure you accept your medicine whether you want to or not. That's not Government. That's a dystopian world that never ultimately benefits anyone.
It's a short game that always will collapse on itself eventually.
The “deep state” hates Trump, no doubt about that. I’m not sure how Trump remaking it into his personal tool of vengeance is a step in the right direction. I encourage you to look into for example, what is happening at DOJ. Were some of the lawyers biased against Trump? Sure. But getting rid of anyone who dares to say no, even when it is ethically and legally justified? DOJ is supposed to be an independent agency that keeps the executive from breaking the law and prosecutes crime even from within the government. It’s clear that under Bondi it doesn’t even pretend to aspire to that ideal. Do you deny that or do you just not care?
Reading this, it doesn’t sound like you have any insight at all into why Democrats are more unpopular than they’ve been in 35 years. It can be a bitter pill accepting that most people don’t like us. But blaming it entirely on GOP lies and bigotry is a road to nowhere. And your assessment of the Harris campaign is pretty weak. No, she didn’t explicitly run on trans maximalism or open boarders. But she did very little to distance herself from the reputation she and other Democrats spent years building up as ultra-progressive culture warriors. She ran a timid, scared, minimalist campaign that attempted to avoid hard choices at every turn. The leadership of the Democratic Party simply doesn’t want to accept that the vast majority of Americans (and in many cases, even the majority of their own voters) don’t agree with the values the party projects on issues of race, gender, crime, and immigration. If you act like the views of the majority of Americans make them moral degenerates, then you’re just going to continue hemorrhaging voters until you achieve political irrelevance. And that’s exactly what Democrats are doing. They know what they have to do. They just don’t want to do it. Aside from the most progressive 10-20%, most Americans are not on board with the various identity movements that have sprung up post Obergefell. And Democrats need to reject them if they ever want to hold national power again. To progressives, that may seem like returning to Jim Crowe. To everyone else it’s a no-brainer.
Reading your trash ass reactionarism is like reading typical MAGA trash ass reactionarism. Harris did not build any reputation as an ultra-progressive culture warrior, ever. And the vast majority of Americans are not moral degenerates, but a simple majority or even a plurality may be moral degenerates to one degree or another, most of them because they're clueless lumpens. The Democrats are more unpopular than they've ever been because they are feckless, complicit, cowardly, enabling and unispiring in the face of fascism. They pander so much to the moral degenerates like you.
I agree moderate Democrats should just surrender and quietly join the Republican party if they want to have power again. From inside the GOP they may eventually be able to have a moderating influence over time and in the future.
At this point there simply is no reason for the Democratic Party to exist. It is irredeemably toxic to vast swaths of the American electorate and no messaging or candidate can change that.
Some of that toxicity has been earned because the antisocial media has amplified the fringe progressives making them appear to be far more powerful than they are. The establishment Democrats have been incapable of either embracing or silencing the fringe.
Some of that toxicity has also been cultivated by a Republican party untethered to the truth.
Remember when John McCain had the audacity to say that Barack Obama was NOT a Muslim? That sort of honesty is simply unacceptable (and unnecessary) in today's Republican Party.
I too was at the conference. While most of this article is ok, “The Wokeism Carnard” section is incredibly weak. And it inspired me to write my own article explaining the drivers of Trumpism.
https://open.substack.com/pub/unfashiontruthec/p/how-much-responsibility-does-the?r=4bqvh&utm_medium=ios
True, Kamala didn't run as a "culture warrior," but in order to overcome that portrayal, she needed to repudiate the entire "woke" ethos. She needed a "Sisister Souljah moment," and it never happened.
What "woke ethos"?
Every time it seems as if people might be ready to get fed up with Trump's unprecedented concentration of power, I turn on NPR and hear some "homelessness advocate" justifying massive encampments ("They've got noplace else to go!"), or (as a gay male -- openly so, all my life -- who finds nothing "queer" about same-sex attraction) I'm being commandeered for a moral panic on behalf of "queer trans people of color."
When that's the message coming from "the Resistance," voters see those far less vulnerable than themselves (flush with foundation money) using "the most vulnerable" as a scourge on "normies" and the middle class.
This ain't rocket science, Radley!
Those who are appalled by Trump's fascistic actions need to start sounding more like James Carville or Ritchie Torres (or Andrew Sullivan or Corey Booker) -- and stop sounding like NPR.
On the Supreme Court, IMO, we need a president to treat John MARSHALL Roberts like his predecessor 200 years ago, but not in a way that resembles Andy Jackson.
First thank you for this great article and for your magnificent book on police militarization as it has been alarming me for 20 years now.
You said: "If there was widespread agreement at the conference about the urgent state of things, there was plenty of disagreement on how we got here, and how we get out."
The state of things is urgent but how we got here is now irrelevant and we won't be getting out any time soon.
1/3 of the nation affirmatively want some form of authoritarian order. Another 1/3 will tolerate the authoritarian order as long as it doesn't demand too many personal sacrifices. The last 1/3 may complain, chat about how bad it is, and make some futile showings of resistance mostly on the antisocial media platforms. Some fringe elements may actually attempt real subversion as long as no weapons are involved. A tiny number may attempt some sort of futile armed rebellion.
21st Century Nationalist Socialism will allow opposition parties that will somehow never win.
According to Newtons Third Law (I use it here only metaphorically) the damage that has been done to the rule of law by the right authoritarianism will only be undone by an equally powerful form of left authoritarianism which will also of necessity override any form of liberal democracy even if it aims to restore the liberal democracy of the "before" times.
Darwin taught that survival of the fittest wasn't about strength but about adaptability. Perhaps we need to try and stop trying to be the irresistible force trying to overcome the immovable object. Perhaps we need to see what new synthesis arrives before we decide on what to do? Since it is already too late and impossible to alter the trajectory we are on now.
I loved this article right up until you referred to Harris as a Black woman. She's mixed race, and so is Barack. Why can't we get that right? And why does it matter, anyway? I know it does, I just abhor that it does. Anyway... good open till then!
This is a great article and I agree with almost all of Mr. Balko's points. In particular, I am profoundly grateful to Shikha Dalmia and everyone else at ISMA for organizing the conference. Her achievement over the past few years has been remarkable.
However, Mr. Balko, progressives, and other Democrats are delusional if they believe that their evangelical Woke Gospel did not play a central role in Kamela Harris' defeat.
Here is a selection from my Substack post entitled "Why Kamela Lost in Nine Simple Charts."
https://charles72f.substack.com/p/why-kamela-lost-in-nine-simple-charts
"I’d like to finish with a point that is perhaps controversial and unoriginal but needs to be hammered home; it should now be crystal clear that Democrats are steadily alienating male voters – mostly white ones, but increasingly many who are nonwhite. This is dismissed as “misogyny” by many Democrats and there is certainly plenty of that. But when one gender and one race is singled out as the source of all that is evil and nothing that is good in a nation that they themselves were instrumental in building (to say the least), members of that group can become disheartened. No one wants to be a member of a party that considers him the enemy. I must say that I share this feeling (I have never oppressed anyone). For me, no amount of frustration with Democrats would ever make me vote for human beings as despicable as Donald Trump and his brownshirts. But clearly, tens of millions of men -- white, black and brown – overcame whatever distaste for Trump they might have had and did just that."
Events at the conference provided no reassurance that Democrats are about to moderate their dogma.
I agree:
https://open.substack.com/pub/unfashiontruthec/p/how-much-responsibility-does-the?r=4bqvh&utm_medium=ios
What is delusional is claiming that there is some evangelical woke gospel that among many things demonizes men as the source of all that is evil. While you might not yourself vote for Trump and his brownshirts, you clearly excuse all the people that voted for them because of some nonsense confabulation about Democrats demonizing them when in reality, those tens of millions of men in great part voted exactly because Trump is despicable and his followers are brownshirt. While you yourself attempt to wash your hands of being an enabler of fascism, you enable it indirectly by parroting its narratives. Cowardly scum.
I think your comment absolutely proves my point. Please try to exercise a bit of restraint and logic in future posts.
My comment absolutely eviscerates your trash excusing of fascism. Fuck off and crawl under a rock cowardly scum.
Glad you didn't take it personally
You faux politeness doesn't wash away your excusing of fascism. I'd have more respect if you wrote what you actually thought.
Wrong!
Point No. 1? Reality is that Biden cut off the "COVID tap" too quickly, fueling bad perceptions.
No. 2? Inflation came from capitalist corporations jacking prices well above pre-COVID levels as COVID leveled off, and most of Team Biden saying bupkis.
Your final point?
White males are largely self-alienating, and spinning hasbara in relation to this and you're peddling that hasbara. And, yes, that's the world.
Other than that? Harris lost because she ran a campaign about as crappy as Hillary Clinton, and largely in the same geographic area — the Great Lakes states.
Oh, I'm an actual leftist and a non-duopoly voter for president this century, and more and more for lower offices.
Here is a question for people like yourself who believe that "capitalist corporations" caused inflation in 2021 through "price gouging." If corporations are able to hike prices at will, why didn't they double or triple prices in 2021 (or today for that matter.) Instead of a measly 10%? They would have made much bigger profits.
Why can't leftists understand that there is a limit to the amount of resources our Government can expend and the amount of money it can print? Isn't that obvious.
I like to think I have a pretty good vocabulary, but I'll admit I had to look up "hasbara." I'm not sure that's the best word, since it seems specifically to refer to Israeli policies. But I could be wrong.
1. I never said "at will" did I? Survey says no.
2. I didn't cite "the invisible hand," because that comes from Enlightenment-era rationalism about a Deistic god winding up the universe like a clock, an idea deconstructed ultimately by quantum mechanics, but also many other things.
3. As far as leftists and "limited resources"? Federal deficits and national debt have both generally expanded more under wingnut Republicans than under nice, polite neoliberal Democrats going back to the time of Reagan. (You present as a nice, polite, neoliberal Democrat; why are you attacking leftists rather than Republicans? That said, you are justifying Balko's thesis, indirectly.) You either know this and are hand-waving, or you don't, and are welcome to look that up. Actual leftists have never been in power in the US government, so we've never had the opportunity to put your ideas to the test.
4. It depends on how you allocate federal resources, anyway, like national health care that nice polite neoliberal Democrats hate almost as much as Republicans.
I hope you don't represent the majority of Democrats, but I suspect you do. Maybe I'm wrong and Socialism will attract a majority of Americans in 2026 and 2028. I certainly hope I'm wrong.
In case it's not clear, I'm not a Democrat or a Republican.
Per my first comment:
>>Oh, I'm an actual leftist and a non-duopoly voter for president this century, and more and more for lower offices.<<
I think it should have been clear.
And, no, I don't represent the majority of Democrats. Every two / four years, no, the Democratic masses either sheepdog or stay home, sadly. If you really think I represent the majority of Democrats, IMO, you're further proving Balko right, to the degree he talks about these type of issues, though he's still libertarian 101 himself on such things, I think.
Thanks for sharing your excellent substack. I find myself a "One Nation" conservative independent who has had to vote almost entirely for Democrats since the dawn of Sarah Palin. As the Republican party has devolved into "21st Century National Socialism" I have found it harder to vote for any Republican because they are not responsible caretakers of legislative majorities. Anna Paulina Luna is my Republican representative here in Florida. Gus Bilarakis was my Representative when I moved to Florida in 2018. I watched him transition from a normal establishment Republican into a butt snorkeling Trumpist in just six years. It is a matter of voting for the lesser of two evils. And at this point (if voting will even matter in 2026 and 2028) the choice is pretty clear.
I think that black and brown men are identifying with their white peers with whom they live and work more than the elite spokespersons from within their communities who supposedly represent their interests. Proletarian whites probably have more sustained day to day contact with Blacks and Hispanics than your average bourgeois suburbanite. To reduce the whole phenomenon of what we are seeing to mere racism and misogyny (although there is some of that, too) is to really misread the reality.
Thank you for this common sense comment, being a woman a agree that portraying men "as the source of all that is evil" is unfair and counterproductive to the democratic cause!
Really? When did Harris claim that men are the source of all evil?
I was thinking the exact same thing.
Continuing to hammer away at the Right as "authoritarian" is laughable, when Left is inherently Authoritarian by it's very nature, and by it's own actions.
The Left campaign on more Government, most social structures that society will need to rely on, were caught lying about the truth during the pandemic and previous elections with propaganda campaigns that were outright lies and now they want to pretend the Right are the problem?
I agree with Josh of Arc. The public sees through the charade.
Only a laughable clown calls the left inherently authoritarian while in throes of fascism. How can the left be inherently authoritarian you shitgibbon when the left is by nature egalitarian?
Only someone who has lost a debate and has nothing left in the chamber uses insults and attacks the messenger, without ever addressing the message. May as well hold up a white flag. You'd get more respect.
Read my comment about Freud's The Devouring Mother below.
I'm sure she thought she was 'egalitarian' too. ;-)
The fact is that the Left are great at coming up with ideas but terrible at implementing them. The Right are great at implementing ideas, but terrible at coming up with them.
Just as the left and the right sides of the brain need each other for the entire body to be fully effective, so it is in Government. It's why the Republic was designed the way it was.
When the Left comes up with ideas and implements them poorly, they backfire so badly, that the solution is worse than the problem originally was.
See mass immigration, the Covid pandemic mandates and gender ideology as prime examples. Every one of these has backfired badly, created problems far worse than what they were trying to solve, and in turn has caused the collapse of the Left's political strength.
And if ANYBODY thinks that only one side is fully right and the other is fully wrong, that immediately discredits that person, as it is fully impossible for one side to be fully correct, and the other to be fully incorrect.
That's really 'nuff said' at this point.
I have lost no debate you dumbshit. I am not debating you, but merely replying to your dumb ass comment. I addressed your message and insulted your dumb ass for fun. If I didn't address your message at all and held up a white flag, you wouldn't bother replying but here you are scribbling more dumb shit about the government being akin to the brain and some hypothetical person thinking one side is fully right and the other being fully wrong. Left me shit on your attempt at countering me, just like I shat on your dumb ass original comment. The left is defined by its antiauthoritarianism, it's defined by it's opposition to hierarchy and therefore authoritarianism, it's defined by seeking egalitarianism and social equality. No sit the fuck down or reflect on your ignorant political take.
Anti-authoritariansim becomes authoritarian if it doesn't check itself and consistently stay accountable to objective ideologies.
Authoritarianism is when one group imposes it's ideals on another, and that is exactly what the Left have been doing for over a decade now. Forcing people to believe and do things against their will.
The problem the Left has, is that it's subjective. Everything is relative and there is no objective ideology, and that subjectivity inevitably, inescapably causes it to turn on itself.
I'm sorry that you can only think in terms of insults, but that's the nature of subjective thinking.
Maybe one day you'll figure it out by thinking for yourself rather than just regurgitating party lines.
What are you even saying you dumb ass? There are no objective ideologies for anyone to check itself against, let alone the left. Then you say the left is subjective and it turns on itself. There has been no left that has imposed its ideals on any group. What an embarrassing word salad from what I can see from past comments is an embarrassing and embarrassed Trumpist that calls himself a liberal and accuses people of being Marxists without understanding what he is actually saying. Go take a piss stop posting nonsense in Balko's wonderful article.
A wingnut submitting shit to a racist-flirting magazine (Thinker). Well, you just tossed your credibility out the door right there. Oh, per other pieces on your site? The Thinker, even, officially retracted its vote fraud claims. https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/01/statement.html
That vote-fraud piece of of Parquette's? What fucking nuttery. Oh? Bye!
Why is it laughable? This article documented a pretty extensive list of authoritarian actions. The left on the other hand, is only a squishy authoritarianism that polices words and viewpoints with shaming and social media censorship. It is not even in the same league as the permanent damage Trump is doing to our institutions
I am glad you agree that the Left are at least in some way authoritarian, as witnessed by their censorship and cancel campaigns over the past decade.
Now talk to me about the permanent damage that Obama and Clinton have wreaked on society and our institutions, by falsely trying to remove a sitting president from his elected office through deceit, reputation sabotage, and all of manufactured lies that have been fed to the media to deceive the people, using the media as a propaganda machine?
You combine that with the censorship campaigns, and the pressures the Democrats have applied to free speech, freedom of association and freedom of movement over things like the pandemic, and you can build a strong case that the Left are every bit as authoritarian as those they accuse to be.
It's much like Freud's The Devouring Mother: They know what's best for you, and they will make sure you accept your medicine whether you want to or not. That's not Government. That's a dystopian world that never ultimately benefits anyone.
It's a short game that always will collapse on itself eventually.
The “deep state” hates Trump, no doubt about that. I’m not sure how Trump remaking it into his personal tool of vengeance is a step in the right direction. I encourage you to look into for example, what is happening at DOJ. Were some of the lawyers biased against Trump? Sure. But getting rid of anyone who dares to say no, even when it is ethically and legally justified? DOJ is supposed to be an independent agency that keeps the executive from breaking the law and prosecutes crime even from within the government. It’s clear that under Bondi it doesn’t even pretend to aspire to that ideal. Do you deny that or do you just not care?
Reading this, it doesn’t sound like you have any insight at all into why Democrats are more unpopular than they’ve been in 35 years. It can be a bitter pill accepting that most people don’t like us. But blaming it entirely on GOP lies and bigotry is a road to nowhere. And your assessment of the Harris campaign is pretty weak. No, she didn’t explicitly run on trans maximalism or open boarders. But she did very little to distance herself from the reputation she and other Democrats spent years building up as ultra-progressive culture warriors. She ran a timid, scared, minimalist campaign that attempted to avoid hard choices at every turn. The leadership of the Democratic Party simply doesn’t want to accept that the vast majority of Americans (and in many cases, even the majority of their own voters) don’t agree with the values the party projects on issues of race, gender, crime, and immigration. If you act like the views of the majority of Americans make them moral degenerates, then you’re just going to continue hemorrhaging voters until you achieve political irrelevance. And that’s exactly what Democrats are doing. They know what they have to do. They just don’t want to do it. Aside from the most progressive 10-20%, most Americans are not on board with the various identity movements that have sprung up post Obergefell. And Democrats need to reject them if they ever want to hold national power again. To progressives, that may seem like returning to Jim Crowe. To everyone else it’s a no-brainer.
I agree with you.
https://open.substack.com/pub/unfashiontruthec/p/how-much-responsibility-does-the?r=4bqvh&utm_medium=ios
Reading your trash ass reactionarism is like reading typical MAGA trash ass reactionarism. Harris did not build any reputation as an ultra-progressive culture warrior, ever. And the vast majority of Americans are not moral degenerates, but a simple majority or even a plurality may be moral degenerates to one degree or another, most of them because they're clueless lumpens. The Democrats are more unpopular than they've ever been because they are feckless, complicit, cowardly, enabling and unispiring in the face of fascism. They pander so much to the moral degenerates like you.
Ok thanks.
I agree moderate Democrats should just surrender and quietly join the Republican party if they want to have power again. From inside the GOP they may eventually be able to have a moderating influence over time and in the future.
At this point there simply is no reason for the Democratic Party to exist. It is irredeemably toxic to vast swaths of the American electorate and no messaging or candidate can change that.
Some of that toxicity has been earned because the antisocial media has amplified the fringe progressives making them appear to be far more powerful than they are. The establishment Democrats have been incapable of either embracing or silencing the fringe.
Some of that toxicity has also been cultivated by a Republican party untethered to the truth.
Remember when John McCain had the audacity to say that Barack Obama was NOT a Muslim? That sort of honesty is simply unacceptable (and unnecessary) in today's Republican Party.
https://open.substack.com/pub/unfashiontruthec/p/how-much-responsibility-does-the?r=4bqvh&utm_medium=ios