Many on the Left Don't Realize How Radical They Are

So I had this absurd conversation on Facebook with this Leftist who is always in muh mentions. This guy has said the statue of Thomas Jefferson should come down and defended the softcore pedophile porn movie Cuties, but somehow thinks it's just everyone else who's being unreasonable. My first post was just mocking the failed experiment of CHAZ and the new one in Portland some nutjob leftists are setting up.

Mainly I was just noting it was nice moderate liberals could finally act that way now that they didn't have to countersignal Trump as Ted Wheeler promised not to tolerate "RHAZ." (Although Wheeler isn't that moderate, but he did beat a communist, so there's that.)

First I got a response from a hardcore, but still reasonable liberal,

Id like to think moderate republicans could act as such too, but at least in my social circle, they all changed their party affiliations because of Trump.

The fanatical liberal then chimed in "There are no moderate Republicans." This seemed so obviously false I (unwisely) chose to chime in,

​As far as politics goes, both sides are moving further apart, which is a bad sign. but it would seem the left has moved a bit further away from the center than the right. The chart below is from Pew.

After all, in LA, illegal immigrants (err, undocumented workers) have been elected to public office while members of congress and the Senate have called to abolish ICE which is at least as over-the-top as the "muslim ban" (which as implemented was a terrible law, but not a muslim ban).

But coming back to this, I don't think a conservative mayor in a conservative city would have ever let a fascist or neo-confederate "South is rising again" autonomous zone in their city for a day. Seattle's mayor let it go on for well over a month.

As far as politics goes, both sides are moving further apart, which is a bad sign. but it would seem the left has moved a bit further away from the center than the right. The chart below is from Pew.

After all, in LA, illegal immigrants (err, undocumented workers) have been elected to public office while members of congress and the Senate have called to abolish ICE which is at least as over-the-top as the "muslim ban" (which as implemented was a terrible law, but not a muslim ban).
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But coming back to this, I don't think a conservative mayor in a conservative city would have ever let a fascist or neo-confederate "South is rising again" autonomous zone in their city for a day. Seattle's mayor let it go on for well over a month.

Thankfully, the fanatical liberal was there to enlighten me.

cool graph.

Let me explain to you the reality though.

The nation has moved much further to the right the last 40 years. Things like the New Deal, Great Society, Medicare, Medicaid, Voting Rights Act, etc, all these things are looked down upon. The Right is trying their best to systematically take away voting rights, take away women's right, normalize right wing fanaticism.

Now "undocumented" worker has been elected to a public office. The one person I've heard about was APPOINTED to a BOARD that relates to immigration. She's an attorney! She was brought here by her parents when she was like 12 years old. What's your expectation? Why is this an issue?

As for the Conservative Mayor argument, you must be kidding. Have you lived in the south? They don't need a zone: IT'S THE STATE.

You think shooting a dude and "standing your ground" is moving left? Do you use unions with any power? Do you see union membership on the rise? Do you see environmentalists really getting their way (that it's even a left issue is super fucking embarrassing)? Do you see corporations LOSING POWER? Or do you see a corporation being given the rights of a man?
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Not sure what you're looking at, but the world has MOVED RIGHT because of the courts and the deference to corporations. Liberals are fighting for human rights, and it's not because they've gained them. Conservatives are fighting for making sure someone with less than them doesn't get more.

Why do I feel the need to argue with such idiocy? I don't know, but I do I guess. My response,

Woah bud, thanks for explaining reality to me.

Anyways, the idea that conservatism is just being a prostitute to corporations is, well, kind of a caricature. Indeed, both parties seem to be prostitutes to corps (with Republicans being especially whorish to oil, Dems especially whorish to Silicon Valley and both exceptionally whorish to Wall Street). Both bases tend to be anti-Wall Street. And the populist right is definitely anti-Wall Street. So what does it mean to be moving toward the right if that "right" is populist?

And all the South is a "conservative autonomous zone " (including Georgia and Virginia, which went for Biden). Uh huh... But California, Oregon and Washington are just moderate, right?

I would say things are moving in three directions simultaneously; 1) more establishment power, 2) increased local partisanship, 3) cultural leftward shift. There is no general shift to the right.

As far as establishment power; this is obvious. NSA and CIA spying run amok, endless wars, massive consolidation of wealth in Silicon Valley/Wall Street, etc. I've seen opposition to this across the spectrum and Trump even broke the mold by harshly criticizing some of this ('Iraq war was the worst mistake in US history" etc.) Populism itself is generally anti-corporate after all. (Although I think Trump just used populist rhetoric and governed like Bush.)

Major entitlement programs are not under threat (other than solvency). The Republicans want to get rid of Obamacare, not Medicare. That's the reactionary idea of going back to 2009. Bush's attempt to partially privatize social security went nowhere and was pretty much dropped. As far as attacks on voting rights, I don't know. There seems to be so much bullshit here with gerrymandering and lawfare nonsense. I will say that ballot harvesting is ripe for abuse. It also didn't seem like anyone had any trouble voting in 2020.

- But just go down the issues:
- Gay Marriage: Legal and Republicans have pretty much accepted it (under Trump no less)
- Transgenderism: Not even on the table 10 years ago, now we're "transitioning" 7 year olds.
- Immigration: Record levels, mainstream won't even call illegal immigration "illegal immigration" anymore. Trump made a few cuts around the edges but Biden will undo those.
- Diversity Stuff: All sorts of government, corporate and university initiatives
- Eduction: Pretty much dominated by woke, postmodernist nonsense
- Marketing: Woke capitalism is about as annoying and shallow as it gets.
- Environmentalism: Lots of subsidies to green tech and grants but only mild progress on legislation. That being said, the main stuff people care about (clean rivers, air, etc.) was mostly taken care of decades ago. The issues now are more abstract and "out there in the distance" i.e. global warming and soil depletion
- Christianity: Fading in importance both politically and civically
- Drugs: Many states have legalized marijuana, the Congress voted to legalize it and Oregon decriminalized drugs.
- Criminal Justice Reform: The bipartisan agreement to get hard on crime (which most black leaders also approved of by the way. Now there's actually bipartisan agreement we have to go the other way and Trump actually took steps in that direction
- Government spending: About what it was in 1950 as a % of GDP
- Federal Taxes: The top tax bracket is about what it was in mid-80s
- The Deficit: A Bipartisan trainwreck (although I blame the Republicans more)

It's true that unions are down and inequality up. And part of that is the pro "business" Republicans. Much of that was driven by globalization, which was a bipartisan consensus. And much by technology's ability to consolidate wealth, which just hasn't been addressed. But another part of it is because the Democrats seemed to give up on the working class and focus exclusively on wokeness and hating Russia.

The rest is red and blue states moving further apart. So gun laws get stricter in blue states and looser in red. Abortion laws get stricter in blue states and looser in red [backwards, sorry], etc. This is more a sign of the increasing partisan divide in the country that I don't see getting better anytime soon.
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Sorry for the length. This post really got away from me.

It takes a rather enfeebled mind to believe that someone pointing out trends thereby approves of them, or in this case opposes them. I oppose some of this (like "transitioning" seven year olds) and support some (like legalizing marijuana). But any challenge (even observational) of leftwing hegemony is heresy. His unhinged, semi-coherent response:

Holy shiz, I have to stop you right from the jump!

Gay Marriage? Why is that a "liberal" concept?

Transgenderism? Same question.
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Diversity "Stuff"? AGAIN, Why is this LIBERAL?

"Eduction" - love that you spelled that wrong, so I'll let it sit.

Christianity - Republicans don't even care about it. They voted for Trump. They don't care about Jesus - they care about cults. No one is stopping anyone from being a Christian. Sorry it doesn't dominate our life, like in the classrooms, or in the LABS or in the HOSPITALS. Bush made it so you can consider Christianity with "Faith based initiatives." There's practically a Christianity test to a congress person in 40+ American States.

Drugs - Sure, that's liberal. Thank goodness. But Republicans only supported drug reform when White kids started using oxycontin, etc. They never gave any fucks when it wasn't their kids, or the kid from the church. This gets back to them only really give fucks about their thing, which was an original point. This is also the "criminal justice" thing. So, yeah, this isn't a Democrat/Liberal wind. It's Republicans getting on board because it helps their constituents now. You must not remain Crack cocaine vs cocaine.

Government spending? See WARS. See deficits under all presidents. Tell me what you come up with. Yes, you got it right, Republicans. Liberal programs are designed to help. What are Republican programs for? Wait, what are their programs?

Yes, red and blue further apart. Red pretending they can't own machine guns and show up at Governor's mansion. Blue upset innocent people get killed and rightwing groups raise funds to help that person, aka, The George Zimmerman Effect.

Love ya.

This guy later accused a conservative who jumped in of lacking empathy because he made fun of equating cutting a kid's penis off with "human rights. 

A friend pointed out to me during this that there is absolutely no point to argue with such idiots. It's just a mental suck. And it is. It's infuriating. "Why is gay marriage a liberal issue?" Uhhh, because it has been you fucking idiot. Why is "preserving our God-given right to bear arms" a conservative one. Because it has been.

You just have to let it go. Indeed, I've gone round and round with him on Hillary Clinton's emails (he's always the one who brings them up) and he always talks about Colin Powell. I've repeatedly shown that excuse fails, but he just ignores it and brings it up again. He did the same thing here with the crack/cocaine difference in sentencing. Black leaders supported that discrepancy as did white leaders as the book I referenced showed. But just ignore evidence and ragepost appears to be the far left modus operandi these days.

My glib response.

Good God David this is such shill partisan hackery it's embarrassing. I think I'm gonna go ahead and disengage before wasting anymore going around in circles on this.

Then came the kicker:

Sorry to tell you, but the things you're claiming are "liberal" ideas are quite often just human rights.
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Check the most recent SCOTUS decision on religion. Y'all be fine.

While this conversation wasn't enlightening at all because of the incoherence of my debating "partner," this line was worth it.

It's an admission that I was right. We are moving to the Left culturally. But because the Left is good (and just wants "human rights") while the Right is bad (and just wants people to die in the streets or something) then we can just take for granted that any Leftwing victory is pure good with no possible objection and any Rightwing victory (real or imagined) is 1930s Germany all over again.

Unhinged stupid bullshit, yes. But that seems to be the growing consensus of how to think on the Left.

​I wisely turned to simply mocking him with a well-timed laughing emoji and turning his script around:

Sorry to tell you, but conservative ideas are quite often just muh freedom and loving 'Merica.​

Needless to say, the partisan disconnect in the United States is getting worse and dialogue is becoming more and more difficult. It's basically impossible with the likes of these people.