I think one must understand the money these Lefties have gotten used to in the last 40 years. The bloating of government and the unrestrained borrowing to fund boondoggles is unprecedented. And unlike old-line Republicans they were not wealthy. They entered politics and government and became rich. They are no longer idealistic—they are pursuing income streams from grants to social and climate-friendly programs—and from things like funding Ukraine.
Pretty much what I was going to write. The New Left is getting paid. Strip off all of their histrionics, and it comes down to the threatened loss of their transfer payment, their government or NGO or academic job, their grant, their forgiven student loan, their right to get a free abortion. This is why they hate Elon: he is effective, he has exposed their scams, their make-work jobs, their Life of Julia. Hence, the ones who flip out go and scratch swastikas on cars bought by their fellow leftists. The Democratic Party is the party of government, and it is reacting to uncovering their waste, fraud and abuse the way a wasp reacts to wasp spray.
But when you break it down by person, this just hasn't been true for me. I've never met a hysterical leftist with a cozy activism sinecure, and the only one with such a sinecure I've met seemed safe and secure to the point that her identity had completely moved beyond her beliefs into some sort of immutable self-conception.
I also met one gunning for an activism career, and he was somewhere in between.
Well i venture to say that person is in it for the feeling of love/belonging/self-congratulation—i say that is pretty much akin to sex as a motivation. May not display it openly but i bet on low self-esteem and relaionship issues in the broader community. Clinging to educational achievements, higher IQ (??), need for validation and a sense of superiority.
There are those with sinecures and there are the useful idiots, who are convinced that those with sinecures are wonderful people and the vital foundation of all of our well-being.
One of the ironies is that the useful idiots venerate their elites in precisely the way that they falsely accuse their critics of venerating the rich.
Very good point. I’ll go on to say that I’m 62 and remember the PMRC very well. I was at Cal State LA and gave a couple of speeches on the issue for a Persuasion class I was taking. Congressional testimonies from Frank Zappa, Dee Snider, but it was John Denver’s testimony that really struck a chord with me. That was one of my first remembrances of censorship. It was around that time that Alan Bloom came out with “The Closing of the American Mind.” I read it a few years later and it still is one of those books that you can’t put down. It remains very prescient to today. For me it wasn’t until the mid-90’s when I really began to notice the ‘political correctness’ taking shape in my work place and in some of the people I came across. It took the shape of bastardizing language and a self-importance attitude that took hold with the 90’s dot-com boom and popular music. I went from seeing Jesse Jackson Jr. in a 1988 presidential campaign to seeing Ron Paul a couple of times when he ran for President. The point you made, Marta, about the influence of money is spot on, I think. And with it comes power. The Left have been brewing this pot for decades and they firmly believed they could con us into their game. But the American people are smarter than that. We “Won’t Get Fooled Again”.
I bet $1,000 that the highest positive correlation to voting Democrat is their dependence on government money in the form of federal/state/local (eg teachers) employment or services (eg welfare, education, healthcare, etc).
Exactly! They haven’t all made their money in exactly the same grift, but the power is what allows them to do it. Cloak it with feel-good ideas, take advantage of useful idiots like those indoctrinated by left-wing university professors and actual unhappy unattractive people, and it looks sort of humanitarian. But at the higher levels it’s all about the bucks one way or another.
All true but I don't think that it explains the True Belief. If it was just the Benjamins, there would be a pivot to that which keeps 'em rolling in. A la Mr Zuckerburg, et al.
I really have never seen so many who appear to have lunatic True Belief, but i think it comes more from young or impressionable people or members of the newly entitled groups, not from the big decision-makers. In the end everything in life comes down to money or sex and i think for the politicians and government employees it is money. For student types or little old ladies in tennis shoes or childless cat ladies maybe it is sex (looking for acceptance where little has been heretofore given them.)
Behind the hippie live-and-let-live attitudes that Sasha describes, which I remember well, there was another implicit thread: far-left ideas, in which we were indoctrinated in college. The war in Vietnam was a big driver. When I went to college in 1970, we were inculcated in communist philosophy through the writings of Marx, Lenin, Engels, Marcuse, Fanon. Our professors were adults who had embraced far left-wing ideas years before, and they passed these views along to the teaching assistants and on down to us idealistic know-nothings. "By any means necessary" was a popular slogan at the time. It meant, and still means, "kill as many people as you must in order to achieve the workers' paradise and rid the world of Jews." It took me years to critique those views objectively.
But society-wise, these ideas never went away, they just became more entrenched in the form of DEI and CRT and now the most insidious of the isms, trans ideology, the intention of which is to destroy the stability of a culture from the inside, by "dismantling" the family and the human body itself.
There are generations of Democrats who hold these views and believe it makes them nobler and smarter people. When Hillary labeled Republicans (i.e., my fellow Americans) "deplorable" and nobody batted an eye, it was already too late. Now a black person who votes conservative is labeled a white supremacist.
Addendum: James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose get the credit for putting this perspective on paper in "Cynical Theories." It's not an easy book to read, but it's essential, IMO.
FWIW, trans-men (i.e., actual women) will sometimes use the men's facilities if they can pass convincingly enough. If they haven't had all the surgeries they may still get their period.
And many of these anarchists are given a nice hotel room, three squares and 80 bucks a day. And some drugs. Like I've said a many times on this forum: Follow the money. Forensic accounting would be a good field to get in. There is SO MUCH corruption. There should be reconning for them--but we all could get caught up in it. Some (really) bad things are getting close to happening...
I am in my 60's now and have been a Democrat all my life. I grew up with guns as a kid in Kansas, and then later in life moved to England, where they have no guns. Soon I became anti-gun, because I know longer saw the purpose of them. 20 years later I moved back to America, and America had changed. I barely recognized it. I was still a Lefty, but all my nephews leaned right and they would talk to me about how they saw the world. And what they told me made sense. The final straw was when the girl I was dating told me that she had voted for Trump in 2020, and I told her that I questioned her moral compass. It really hurt her and she nearly dumped me, and it was at that point that I realised that I was living in this self righteous, holier than thou bubble. Who was I to question someone else's moral compass. How condescending could I have been. What made me right and her wrong.
They say, never judge another person until you have walked in their shoes. And I thought to myself, how can 50% of Americans be right, and 50% of Americans be wrong. After all, we are all Americans. It just didn't make sense or ring true.
After that deep soul dive, I really started to listen to both sides, and what I discovered, is that while people on the right were fighting for basic human rights and the American dream of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, my party ran out of things to fight for. it's almost as if they started making shit up to fight for.
Racism as an issue had pretty much come to an end in the 90's. But the Left just couldn't let it go. They were digging up shit from the past like it happened yesterday. And when Black Lives Matter failed as a movement, they championed the whole DEI movement. They were clutching at straws to find an issue that made them feel good about themselves, because "being good" was so important.
Meanwhile, prices of everything were skyrocketing, the wealth gap was increasing, and the working class folks were struggling to put food on their tables. The folks that the Left used to fight for, were being left behind, so that they could pursue their loftier, nebulous goals, that only affected a small percentage of society.
Interestlingly, most of my Right wing friends are of the "live and let live" type, and many of them are gay, and abhor the whole DEI movement.
And upon returning to America and seeing that it was falling apart, one of the first things I did was to go get my carry and conceal license and then buy a gun, before the Lefties tried to take that right away too.
There is nothing wrong with diversity, or being gay, or trans or black or anything else that makes you happy in your own life, but the Left, shoving it down everyone else's throat so that they can feel good about themselves, is a fast track to exclusion. That is not what our country is about.
Love that comment. Touches on a few things I always think about the left when they always say they can't date someone who is a trump supporter because of their morals, they question their character. I always think, what values are you talking about thinking that Trump supporters have that are so abhorrent? It's outrageous. And the second thing about exclusion, the left preaches inclusion, if they're so inclusive why don't they include Donald Trump and his supporters? They don't because you have to think like them, act like them, talk like them, and that's a definition of exclusion--- like a clique. Thanks again great comment.
Abortion on demand and gender fluidity. That's their entire agenda, outside of foisting climate craziness on the susceptible (and scaring the bejeebers out of the next generation. No wonder there's so much depression and anxiety.).
"If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life" — Henry David Thoreau
Yeah, I feel like the Ds recreated original sin with the 1619 project. And the atheist religion that was created allowed corruption and greed and the buying of indulgences. Corporations were "good" if they subscribed to DEI, no matter if they hollowed out the middle class.
"and it was at that point that I realized that I was living in this self righteous, holier than thou bubble. Who was I to question someone else's moral compass. How condescending could I have been. What made me right and her wrong."
Bravo to you! You had an epiphany that has seemingly eluded the Leftie Elite. They ARE the ones to question someone else's moral compass. Because they are much smarter and much better people than the rest of us rabble.
True believers don't act in a cult manner. Watch "The Chosen" series. THAT'S how it's supposed to be......I know, I know, "good luck with that". It took me years to find a church where the people were true believers filled with God's spirit (and hint - they actually read and studied the Bible, not "dogma" or "church doctrine"). Christ said "Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor (the word in the Greek text is "those you come in contact with in your life, those who are in your sphere of influence") as yourself" and he said "Be as wise as a serpent and as harmless as a dove".
And he also said "if you take care of the disenfranchised - clothe the naked, feed the hungry, visit the prisoners, care for the sick - whatever you do for them will be just the same as if you had done it for me."
"There is nothing wrong with diversity, or being gay, or trans or black or anything else that makes you happy in your own life, but the Left, shoving it down everyone else's throat so that they can feel good about themselves, is a fast track to exclusion."
I lean libertarian and after being very put off by Trump in 2016 (when I was for the rational responsible conservatarian Rand Paul at the time, naturally; still would be, but now I think he's far too milquetoast compared to his dad to ever actually change anything), I voted for him twice thereafter: once as a protest vote in 2020, when the libertarian candidates went with antiracism and open borders (instead of freedom and opposing mandates, the whole point of the party) and the Democrats lied about race and riots, and again in 2024 as a straight-up middle finger "f**k the globalists" vote, because the Xiden regime was awful, repressive, and evil. He might have dressed it up in (small d) democratic regalia, but even the vile tyrant Vladimir Putin was at least SOMEWHAT less of a gaslighting liar than our own government. I'll give him this much: at least the main thing not to criticize in Russia (Putin himself) doesn't change with the wind from day to day, unlike the woke DEI trans climate cultists and their pet illegals.
While I'm not a huge fan of the Republicans, at least I might get a table scrap from them every now and again. Democrats offer nothing. Take trans. OK, you wanna be trans? Great, knock yourself out. I'm not stopping you. But I am NOT obligated to believe a man somehow "became" a woman. I am NOT obligated to be attracted to or date them (not that it's a huge issue for me, a middle aged happily married guy, but to me a MtF is a man, baby, AND ALWAYS WILL BE). They are NOT entitled to compete in female sports. They are not women. They are men wearing a woman skinsuit (or "womanface," as it was once called).
But of course it's belittled as "pee pee bills" when it's about pre-op BOYS or MEN (called women by delusional gaslighters) in the WOMENS' locker room. As a man, a trans in our space doesn't amount to much for us, and is probably more dangerous for the trans person. But for a woman, it's the other way around.
I was raised that life ain't fair, there's actually no such THING as fair, and nobody owes you anything (at least not without a contract), not even a how do you do, beyond respecting your inalienable rights as an adult. And the left isn't even delivering the bare minimum of "respecting my rights." That's always been true, and I've always distrusted leftist thought since I was 5 or 6 years old (the emotional manipulation is EXTREMELY and even viscerally, physically off-putting to me. I'm wired kind of weird; commercial advertising isn't usually very effective on me, either) -- but the Covid mandates, censorship regime, and all-out hysteria where they flipped their position on a dime between Jan 2020 and March 2020 and in the process betrayed nearly everything they ever claimed to stand for made it crystal clear.
Before, I merely opposed the left. I thought they were wrong, misguided, too easily emotionally manipulated. Now I know beyond ALL doubt: they are pure evil. They and their worldview must be annihilated to preserve whatever good is left in humanity. I'd prefer a better "hero" than a spastic orange lip-flapping Mr Potato Head, but frankly, I was actually happy and living my best life in 2019, then the left and globalists crapped all over it and made a dystopian hellscape (other than telework, which we're now slowly being screwed over on). But I guess I'll take what I can get. They hurt us, they wronged us, and there is no longer any limit to where I'll go in getting that shoe on the other foot.
I will NOT make the mistake, ever again, that those demons have better angels.
This nails it. The left refuses to acknowledge (look in the mirror, people) that they are the intolerant ones. Every argument of theirs only ends in screeching hysterics. And they can’t stand it that the rest of us won’t listen to them anymore or only laugh when they try to cancel us for not following their rules. They are the bigoted ones, the privileged prejudiced ones, the self righteous know it alls who try to accuse us of being the same. The temper tantrums have to stop, or they need to go to their rooms without any supper. And I’m taking your phone away as well, Missy. The whole weekend.
Yes. It's happened to me more times than I care to count. "A good father chastises his children". The Creator is a good father who set up universal principles. Smart people learn lessons from their falls.
You have enough of a long term perspective, experience and talent to write a needed “The Disastrous Rise and Fall of The American Left”.
Include even the lies we were told to start wars in Vietnam and Iraq, as well as the idiotic blunders leading to the invasions of Afghanistan, Ukraine and Israel - an intentionally opened border — as well as the lies to 2020 voters that allowed Biden to be elected in the first place
So many lies — so much hatred — so much needless death — all combining to today’s Democrats being lost and in free fall.
We MAGA people aren’t hysterical because ‘we’ understand feelings are not facts. We also know climate change is a hoax started with Al Gore as global warming, then became climate change under Obama because the global warming wasn’t real and so, as usual, a play on words made CC hit on all aspects of weather. I’m a child of the 60-70s and I thank God I never was a hippie free-love or drug user. I always thought the 70s were an ugly time. I was always a Republican, but now consider myself a MAGA conservative.
So your take is that the people on the left, in the absence of religious beliefs to ground them in moral principles, constructed a set of behaviors that defined what a "good" person is. Over time that set of behaviors deemed "good" became intertwined with political beliefs that led to the perception that they firstly were "right" and second had the power (at least during the Obama years) to make everyone else meet their definition of "good." I hope I captured that right?
I can't disagree with that take.
If I didn't characterize that right someone comment with what I left out or got wrong...
Humans are worship machines. Whether it's God Almighty, the Dodgers, Led Zeppelin, or their own personal accomplishments and acquisitions, humans *need* to worship SOMETHING.
And so often, in the absence of God, that worship turns to the state - the government.
What you got wrong is the claim that morality is based on religious belief. Is there no objective, non-religious reason why people should not kill, rob and defraud each other? The concept of man's right derives from the objective nature of man. Human existence and prosperity depend on rationally derived principles that protect property and life from predators.
One of those principles is humility. Religious people are taught to be humble in their devotion to a higher power. The absence of humility (and gratitude) on the Left conduces arrogance and hysteria and rampant warfare against all it sees as obstacles to random pursuit of self-worth.
Sasha wrote: "In the past, goodness was tied to Christianity, which was tied to traditionalism, and was something we on the Left always pushed back against. Well, not anymore."
I made no claim of any kind; I was reconstructing the argument made in the essay.
I would like to point out to you that Humanism is an outgrowth of a non-supernatural morality based originally on Christian principles. Primitive people believe that what we call humanitarian principles only apply to members of their tribe. The next tribe over the hill is fair game in the struggle for survival; and friendly tribes that they trade with are accommodated on a transactional basis. The ancient Jews accepted Jewishness as the criterion for common acceptance. Rome where Christianity developed, was the the center of world culture and Christianity sought converts from everywhere and so included everyone in the sense of those to whom we owed love, ie seeking their best interests. Some Eastern religions are also inclusive, even extending to non-human animal species. But we should not expect the whole world to recognize the principles of humanitarianism as the basis of all morality.
Bible scripture says that God imprinted on humans, from the beginning, to have a moral compass, but the Apostle Paul was clear that that "compass" can be "seared with a hot iron" so that there is no longer a knowledge of good and evil.
Morality is supported by religious belief, among those too shortsighted to realize that the rules provide the best opportunity for a reasonably fair chance at a good and satisfying life for the largest portion of the people. Whether God gave the rules to help people, or the elders distilled those rules from experience over centuries is not important; following them is. Virtue is (or brings) its own reward.
I think morality comes from Judeo/Christian religious beliefs and Bible scripture says that God imprinted on humans, from the beginning, to have a moral compass, but the Apostle Paul was clear that that "compass" can be "seared with a hot iron" so that there is no longer a knowledge of good and evil. Look at those regions of the world that are devoid of any knowledge of them - killing of people on the solstice for favor from the spirits, burning of the wife if the husband dies, raping of the village woman on the full moon, etc.
They’ve completely lost their minds. My Wife and I used to be Australian Greens party members- back when they cared about the environment. Nowadays they are radicalised lunatics, screeching about Palestine, not a word about Syria, dredging up as many Pakistani and other Muslims to foist as candidates. They’re insane.
Wow, I can remember when you had that great prime minister who told the muzzles to go back to where they came from if they didn't want to be Australians and to behave like Australians.
Read that again, I said "survived," not won. Did you survive the information war or are you one of its casualties? The hysteria from the victims is a direct result of their ignorance of this information war.
I survived just fine the funny thing is all this horseshit of the end of the republic/Democracy or whatever hyped horseshit they pronounced during elections is just that. Harris was a terrible candidate, Biden did her no wonder trying to run and despite ALL of that she still managed to get a close election in the states that mattered.
"They won’t do what I did - get to know that world." Getting to know real people instead of caricatures is the key.
I do not share your letter writer's view of the Republicans of the past. In my experience, they were just the good people you were happy to have living next door. Of course, this was in the 50's and early 60's, when for the most part the Democrats were also the good people you were happy to have living next door.
As soon as it became possible (1971) I registered to vote. Of course I became a Democrat, like nearly all of my young peers. The Democrats were exciting, and said all the good things. The Republicans were much more nuanced on the issues. Nuance is not usually a characteristic of youth -- I found the Republicans to be boring.
Although I clung to my Democratic Party membership for more than 50 years, along the way I began to realize that while the Democrats SAID the right things, it was the Republicans who actually DID them. For example, the Democrats talked a lot about waging War on Poverty, but President Johnson's policies actually had the effect of destabilizing our culture, especially in the cities, trapping more and more people in poverty. The Republicans didn't talk in a way that sounded compassionate, but their values and policies actually helped people to escape that cycle.
Looking back, I see that those we -- pejoratively -- called conservatives may have been boring, but they were solid, dependable, and in real life a lot of fun to be with in ways that didn't break the law or cause mental and social instability.
I got the nuance, probably due to my mom (although she was never dogmatic, only an example and testimony) and voted for Reagan in '80, which was my first vote.
Leftists have always used mafia style corruption; intimidation, blackmail, violence, etc., to gain power /enslave others since time began. Drugs, promiscuity, prostitution, abortion, music that glorified its use/abuse is used to destroy life, create dependency, always in the name of "tolerance" which was NEVER extended to anyone confronting or exposing their corruption. Rejection or revision of God was essential. The book, Color, Communism, Common Sense by Manning Johnson (a black man & former recruited communist) explains how Soviet leaders assisted in infiltration of the church which they found advantageous as opposed to outright destruction. Paramilitary groups (kkk, blm, antifa, etc.,) used as enforcers.
Whether it was Jane Fonda spitting on US soldiers fighting communism in Vietnam, or her comrades in Weather Underground blowing up people & things. So. Damn. Peaceful.
US has been under attack by leftist groups since our founding. Daniel Greenfield wrote an excellent, well documented & fascinating book, "Domestic Enemies: The Founding Fathers’ Fight Against the Left", highly recommend ~
Republicans technically ended their slave plantations in 1865, but Tammany Hall Corruption is one way back example of it continuing :
Tammany Hall, a Democratic Party political organization in New York City, was notorious for its corruption throughout much of its history. The organization engaged in widespread graft and bribery, often using government jobs, contracts, and legislative favors to maintain control over the city's politics.
One of the most infamous periods of corruption was under the leadership of "Boss" William M. Tweed, who initiated complete boss domination of Tammany Hall in 1868. During Tweed's rule, corruption reached a peak, with New York City being plundered of more than $200 million....
Ditto for every other dem hellhole, Chicago, Detroit, etc., uses mafia tactics, often preying on immigrants, using them as vote slaves.
Clinton's crimes weren't getting a BJ in WH, he sold the US manufacturing out to China, check out 'Chinagate' which is the crime he was trying to avoid having attention drawn to at the time. Prior to that, Clinton's were connected to notorious Dixie Mafia. This book (which hasn't been challenged) illustrates how billions of dollars of cocaine, cash and weapons passed through Mena, Arkansas under their watch during the 1980s, also covers Whitewater, the BCCI banking scandal, Travelgate, Filegate and novice stock investor Hillary Clinton's infamous-and mind-boggling-windfall profits derived from trading cattle futures. ~
CIA Bush's, Demoncrat McCain's & others were infiltrators to make an appearance of a 2 party system due to leftist fears of Reagan. Does anyone seriously think voting corruption hasn't been achieved under their watch? In 1980's (Bush/Gore election )hey arranged a "consent decree" DENYING Republicans the right to be poll watchers, or contest elections. Wasn't till mid-2000s, RNC took it to the Supreme Court trying to get the consent decree eliminated. Laughably, predictably, leftist screech "racist" !! ~ https://www.npr.org/2018/01/09/576858203/decades-old-consent-decree-lifted-against-rncs-ballot-security-measures
Until Trump bravely decided to put a stop to uniparty "Cloward Piven" strategy to overwhelm US system, there hasn't been much choice. Elon & other innovative, successful, life, liberty & freedom loving people waking up to what's at stake has been a Godsend. Elections remain a corrupt mess, but I hear & am hopeful a strategy to combat this can still be implemented prior to midterms.
Wow! So much to unpack here. Thank you for the links to back up your claims. Our old guard Democrat friends and family won’t bother believing any of this, unfortunately. Too difficult for them to face the truth about all the lies they have been told and have believed in all these years.
Democrats have it in their nature. They want to boss people around. Even as hippies there was the cool thought process, "free love", "drugs", "turn on, tune in, drop out". They hated our society...nothing has changed they still do. If there is anything bad in our history the magnify it and offer it as proof we are racist and not even in search of justice. Their belief is a religious dogma based on virtuosity.
They have always been racist, from lynching, to Jim Crow, to George Wallace and Joe "anti-bussing" Biden
The great Civil Rights changeover is a myth. They have gone from the KKK burning.crosses to burning Teslas.
Their Brown Shirts are Antifa. Welcome Sasha to the ideal of true inclusion.
My hippie 68yo BIL still believes there is slavery going on in America today and cannot have a normal conversation about anything. He lives off his family’s wealth. Hasn’t had a real job since his 20’s and absolutely lives in his white $$$ male privileged bubble consuming NPR daily. He has no diversity in his life whatsoever. His friends all look, dress and even smell alike-patchouli stink and he smokes weed every day. He has a lot to say about the world and what’s “right”. I can’t stand listening or talking to him so it’s small talk when we get together.
The left is intolerant because its entire worldview is predicated upon lies that are retold over and over again in the belief that if told enough the lies become truth. They can not tolerate any dissent and they will destroy all that fail to toe the line on the lies. The fact that certain people are just figuring this out does not mean that its a new thing. The left has always lived and gained power via lies.
Yes, and their old lies such as denying that a National Socialist German Workers' Party was in fact a Socialist Workers' Party have become worn out and exposed.
So, they just stay quiet about them, hoping no one will challenge them on the subject so they don’t destroy their credibility for their new lies.
Being tolerant does not mean accepting views that you believe are wrong. If you disagree with someone then a primary challenge is certainly appropriate. Tolerance does not mean that you never challenge views you disagree with.
But Republicans haven't been into doing this until Trump. Dems would be cut-throat, underhanded, double-dealing, vicious with a smile (or not) but Republicans never wanted to "Bring it" or "get their hands dirty" or "bare-knuckle" fight. NOW they are, thank God, because our constitutional republic was about to go under. And btw, I didn't mention "illegal" or "against the law" in this list, because Republicans, including me, are against doing that to win (although Dems have shown that they aren't).
The wisdom shared in this column and in all of the subsequent comments makes me think of a phrase Rush Limbaugh used to use when referring to the electorate in the USA: “The collective wisdom of the American People.”
If you only had a surface knowledge of Rush, you might believe him to be a conceited, bloviating blowhard. But in truth, he was incredibly humble.
He understood his success only happened because of timing- he was able to articulate that “collective wisdom” when no one else could or would. His voice was a gigantic relief to the America who actually made everything work- laborers, professionals, engineers, architects, retail workers, truckers, pilots, medical professionals, mothers, fathers, farmers, teachers - everyone who got up, got to work and took care of business- TCBing, as Elvis called it.
That’s why Trump is who he is too. He’s like Rush in giving us voice. They are the ones standing at the open window hollering,
“WE’RE MAD AS HELL AND WE’RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE!”
THAT’s MAGA.
That said, we’re no where CLOSE to victory and we’re in very serious danger of losing.
That’s why we have to remain steadfast. It’s not enough to read Sasha - we have to SHARE Sasha. Talk to people, keep plugging away. Call your representatives and give them kudos if they have earned it and verbal HELL if they haven’t.
Be wary of lip service, watch for courageous action, skin in the game. Educate yourself about the truth of what Trump is doing and then share it! Don’t automatically believe the gloomers, research first, evaluate later.
Thank you SASHA fie providing us with such a powerful example to emulate. She’s the real deal, everyone!
Sasha the left has not changed since the 60's. I am old enough to have lived through it and remember clearly how intolerant, hateful and violent they were as they are today. They spit in our faces upon returning home from Vietnam and called us baby killers. They encouraged rampant drug use, alcohol and sex without commitment. Much like they do today. The left blew up buildings, police stations, killed cops, and innocent bystanders, just like they do today. They burned our flag and openly despised our country. The left was not cool then and are not cool today. The current left wing of the Democratic party are hardcore Marxists just like they were in the 60's. They have not changed and will not change. The left uses the useless idiots as their muscle to destroy, murder, rape, and plunder their way to total control and power. If DJT had not been elected we would be heading straight to hell.
Yes well sad. I always thought that the Democrat party had two sides- one was the tolerant good people like the JFK and RFK who really wanted to help the poor and do the right thing. But there was always that undercurrent of the party of slavery, the party that started the KKK, the Marxist undertones that was always there and that's all that's left. There are no centrists in that party all you have is AOC and Bernie Sanders- two socialists and socialism always turns to Communism. That's what we're fighting.
Thank you, DM. I have to say I was somewhat dismayed at the inclusion of the "Hair" clip. Yesterday's Treat Williams reminds me of today's Greta Thunberg: snot-nosed youth who believe they know everything and have the right to shout down their betters. That is the milieu from which many of us emerged. What is needed now is greater thoughtfulness, wisdom, maturity, and the courage to fight for what is true. Fighting to take America back from those who have polluted the minds of Americans for decades is why we voted for Trump. If you fought for us in Vietnam, I salute you, and deeply regret the disdain that I and others had for your service. God help us.
We never should've been in 'Nam, unless we were there to WIN, which we weren't. As for Hair, I call the $1000 a plate, jeweled, pretentious, "upper crust who think they know everything" snot-nosed, too. Both extremes are bad.
I was a student at UC Berkeley in the late 1960s and I think your letter writer has a romanticized memory of the time.
Yes, I knew the “easy laid back “Keep on Truckin’” types” who just wanted to smoke weed and “do their thing”, but I also remember the violent student groups like Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the bomb-making Weather Underground, and the insane Symbionese Liberation Army that kidnapped Patty Hearst and went on a bank robbery spree until they were wiped out in a gun battle with the LA Police. The mellow “tolerant” left was a sideshow to these violent felons. Today's radical left is quite peaceful by comparison.
I think one must understand the money these Lefties have gotten used to in the last 40 years. The bloating of government and the unrestrained borrowing to fund boondoggles is unprecedented. And unlike old-line Republicans they were not wealthy. They entered politics and government and became rich. They are no longer idealistic—they are pursuing income streams from grants to social and climate-friendly programs—and from things like funding Ukraine.
Pretty much what I was going to write. The New Left is getting paid. Strip off all of their histrionics, and it comes down to the threatened loss of their transfer payment, their government or NGO or academic job, their grant, their forgiven student loan, their right to get a free abortion. This is why they hate Elon: he is effective, he has exposed their scams, their make-work jobs, their Life of Julia. Hence, the ones who flip out go and scratch swastikas on cars bought by their fellow leftists. The Democratic Party is the party of government, and it is reacting to uncovering their waste, fraud and abuse the way a wasp reacts to wasp spray.
You and Marta get the comment prize of the day.
But when you break it down by person, this just hasn't been true for me. I've never met a hysterical leftist with a cozy activism sinecure, and the only one with such a sinecure I've met seemed safe and secure to the point that her identity had completely moved beyond her beliefs into some sort of immutable self-conception.
I also met one gunning for an activism career, and he was somewhere in between.
Well i venture to say that person is in it for the feeling of love/belonging/self-congratulation—i say that is pretty much akin to sex as a motivation. May not display it openly but i bet on low self-esteem and relaionship issues in the broader community. Clinging to educational achievements, higher IQ (??), need for validation and a sense of superiority.
There are those with sinecures and there are the useful idiots, who are convinced that those with sinecures are wonderful people and the vital foundation of all of our well-being.
One of the ironies is that the useful idiots venerate their elites in precisely the way that they falsely accuse their critics of venerating the rich.
Very good point. I’ll go on to say that I’m 62 and remember the PMRC very well. I was at Cal State LA and gave a couple of speeches on the issue for a Persuasion class I was taking. Congressional testimonies from Frank Zappa, Dee Snider, but it was John Denver’s testimony that really struck a chord with me. That was one of my first remembrances of censorship. It was around that time that Alan Bloom came out with “The Closing of the American Mind.” I read it a few years later and it still is one of those books that you can’t put down. It remains very prescient to today. For me it wasn’t until the mid-90’s when I really began to notice the ‘political correctness’ taking shape in my work place and in some of the people I came across. It took the shape of bastardizing language and a self-importance attitude that took hold with the 90’s dot-com boom and popular music. I went from seeing Jesse Jackson Jr. in a 1988 presidential campaign to seeing Ron Paul a couple of times when he ran for President. The point you made, Marta, about the influence of money is spot on, I think. And with it comes power. The Left have been brewing this pot for decades and they firmly believed they could con us into their game. But the American people are smarter than that. We “Won’t Get Fooled Again”.
Dems used to be hip, but now they’re HIP (hateful, intolerant and petulant).
I bet $1,000 that the highest positive correlation to voting Democrat is their dependence on government money in the form of federal/state/local (eg teachers) employment or services (eg welfare, education, healthcare, etc).
In my case, you lose. Can't do a correlation with n=1 but spending time in the belly of the beast gives a certain insight.
Check is in the mail. Meanwhile, do you have a better highest positive correlation for Dem voters?
AWFUL. Of course, there is cross correlation.
It must end
Either that or our constitutional republic will end or we'll split up.
I agree
And how about insider trading? Or is Nancy Pelosi just really clever at playing the Market?
Exactly! They haven’t all made their money in exactly the same grift, but the power is what allows them to do it. Cloak it with feel-good ideas, take advantage of useful idiots like those indoctrinated by left-wing university professors and actual unhappy unattractive people, and it looks sort of humanitarian. But at the higher levels it’s all about the bucks one way or another.
And Hilary—commodities trading genius!
And don't forget the "Clinton Foundation." The Clinton's ultimate grift.
Agree. When threatened with what you’re used to, especially money you’ll say anything, and do anything including your integrity.
All true but I don't think that it explains the True Belief. If it was just the Benjamins, there would be a pivot to that which keeps 'em rolling in. A la Mr Zuckerburg, et al.
I really have never seen so many who appear to have lunatic True Belief, but i think it comes more from young or impressionable people or members of the newly entitled groups, not from the big decision-makers. In the end everything in life comes down to money or sex and i think for the politicians and government employees it is money. For student types or little old ladies in tennis shoes or childless cat ladies maybe it is sex (looking for acceptance where little has been heretofore given them.)
Behind the hippie live-and-let-live attitudes that Sasha describes, which I remember well, there was another implicit thread: far-left ideas, in which we were indoctrinated in college. The war in Vietnam was a big driver. When I went to college in 1970, we were inculcated in communist philosophy through the writings of Marx, Lenin, Engels, Marcuse, Fanon. Our professors were adults who had embraced far left-wing ideas years before, and they passed these views along to the teaching assistants and on down to us idealistic know-nothings. "By any means necessary" was a popular slogan at the time. It meant, and still means, "kill as many people as you must in order to achieve the workers' paradise and rid the world of Jews." It took me years to critique those views objectively.
But society-wise, these ideas never went away, they just became more entrenched in the form of DEI and CRT and now the most insidious of the isms, trans ideology, the intention of which is to destroy the stability of a culture from the inside, by "dismantling" the family and the human body itself.
There are generations of Democrats who hold these views and believe it makes them nobler and smarter people. When Hillary labeled Republicans (i.e., my fellow Americans) "deplorable" and nobody batted an eye, it was already too late. Now a black person who votes conservative is labeled a white supremacist.
Addendum: James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose get the credit for putting this perspective on paper in "Cynical Theories." It's not an easy book to read, but it's essential, IMO.
What a concept thoughtful reading,,please spread it around...Imagine a text that makes you think? Instead of Marxist drivel encased in gobb!
One example,,,Men can menstruate, thus feminine napkins in boys rooms, need I say more...
FWIW, trans-men (i.e., actual women) will sometimes use the men's facilities if they can pass convincingly enough. If they haven't had all the surgeries they may still get their period.
And many of these anarchists are given a nice hotel room, three squares and 80 bucks a day. And some drugs. Like I've said a many times on this forum: Follow the money. Forensic accounting would be a good field to get in. There is SO MUCH corruption. There should be reconning for them--but we all could get caught up in it. Some (really) bad things are getting close to happening...
Exactly! Well said, Marta.
Spot on!
Bingo bongo 💯
Well said.
I am in my 60's now and have been a Democrat all my life. I grew up with guns as a kid in Kansas, and then later in life moved to England, where they have no guns. Soon I became anti-gun, because I know longer saw the purpose of them. 20 years later I moved back to America, and America had changed. I barely recognized it. I was still a Lefty, but all my nephews leaned right and they would talk to me about how they saw the world. And what they told me made sense. The final straw was when the girl I was dating told me that she had voted for Trump in 2020, and I told her that I questioned her moral compass. It really hurt her and she nearly dumped me, and it was at that point that I realised that I was living in this self righteous, holier than thou bubble. Who was I to question someone else's moral compass. How condescending could I have been. What made me right and her wrong.
They say, never judge another person until you have walked in their shoes. And I thought to myself, how can 50% of Americans be right, and 50% of Americans be wrong. After all, we are all Americans. It just didn't make sense or ring true.
After that deep soul dive, I really started to listen to both sides, and what I discovered, is that while people on the right were fighting for basic human rights and the American dream of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, my party ran out of things to fight for. it's almost as if they started making shit up to fight for.
Racism as an issue had pretty much come to an end in the 90's. But the Left just couldn't let it go. They were digging up shit from the past like it happened yesterday. And when Black Lives Matter failed as a movement, they championed the whole DEI movement. They were clutching at straws to find an issue that made them feel good about themselves, because "being good" was so important.
Meanwhile, prices of everything were skyrocketing, the wealth gap was increasing, and the working class folks were struggling to put food on their tables. The folks that the Left used to fight for, were being left behind, so that they could pursue their loftier, nebulous goals, that only affected a small percentage of society.
Interestlingly, most of my Right wing friends are of the "live and let live" type, and many of them are gay, and abhor the whole DEI movement.
And upon returning to America and seeing that it was falling apart, one of the first things I did was to go get my carry and conceal license and then buy a gun, before the Lefties tried to take that right away too.
There is nothing wrong with diversity, or being gay, or trans or black or anything else that makes you happy in your own life, but the Left, shoving it down everyone else's throat so that they can feel good about themselves, is a fast track to exclusion. That is not what our country is about.
No one ever trusts the do gooders.
Love that comment. Touches on a few things I always think about the left when they always say they can't date someone who is a trump supporter because of their morals, they question their character. I always think, what values are you talking about thinking that Trump supporters have that are so abhorrent? It's outrageous. And the second thing about exclusion, the left preaches inclusion, if they're so inclusive why don't they include Donald Trump and his supporters? They don't because you have to think like them, act like them, talk like them, and that's a definition of exclusion--- like a clique. Thanks again great comment.
Abortion on demand and gender fluidity. That's their entire agenda, outside of foisting climate craziness on the susceptible (and scaring the bejeebers out of the next generation. No wonder there's so much depression and anxiety.).
Here in Boston it's extremely common on the dating apps to see women with statements like
No Trumpies please
Swipe left if you voted Trump
Etc
I'd say thank you to them! You dodged a bullet!
LOL. And they whine about not being able to find anyone to date!
And they say they're the intolerant, non-judgmental one. I saw one who also wrote she was open-minded. Sure she was.
Translation: as long as YOU were open to HER mind. LOL
Of course!
"If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life" — Henry David Thoreau
Reminds me of Reagons quote.
https://youtu.be/xhYJS80MgYA?si=HEYDCPSPK7oJSy3S
Well said. Very well said.
True
Yeah, I feel like the Ds recreated original sin with the 1619 project. And the atheist religion that was created allowed corruption and greed and the buying of indulgences. Corporations were "good" if they subscribed to DEI, no matter if they hollowed out the middle class.
Really, Ds created many "sins" before that (and long long before that), but the 1619 project was a major biggie!
"and it was at that point that I realized that I was living in this self righteous, holier than thou bubble. Who was I to question someone else's moral compass. How condescending could I have been. What made me right and her wrong."
Bravo to you! You had an epiphany that has seemingly eluded the Leftie Elite. They ARE the ones to question someone else's moral compass. Because they are much smarter and much better people than the rest of us rabble.
Did you marry the girl?
Not yet, but still with her. She has opened my eyes to so much. I've definitely been Red Pilled. And I didn't even know I was asleep.
As Morpheus says to Neo, "Do you think that is air you are breathing..."
My experience, precisely, friend, only the cult I was born into was christian.
True believers don't act in a cult manner. Watch "The Chosen" series. THAT'S how it's supposed to be......I know, I know, "good luck with that". It took me years to find a church where the people were true believers filled with God's spirit (and hint - they actually read and studied the Bible, not "dogma" or "church doctrine"). Christ said "Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor (the word in the Greek text is "those you come in contact with in your life, those who are in your sphere of influence") as yourself" and he said "Be as wise as a serpent and as harmless as a dove".
And he also said "if you take care of the disenfranchised - clothe the naked, feed the hungry, visit the prisoners, care for the sick - whatever you do for them will be just the same as if you had done it for me."
Though it sounds as if you have been lucky already, I do wish the best of luck to you and yours, with good will in the bond of peace.
Well, I wouldn't call it luck, but blessings from my Father in the Heavenly realm.
💯
"There is nothing wrong with diversity, or being gay, or trans or black or anything else that makes you happy in your own life, but the Left, shoving it down everyone else's throat so that they can feel good about themselves, is a fast track to exclusion."
I lean libertarian and after being very put off by Trump in 2016 (when I was for the rational responsible conservatarian Rand Paul at the time, naturally; still would be, but now I think he's far too milquetoast compared to his dad to ever actually change anything), I voted for him twice thereafter: once as a protest vote in 2020, when the libertarian candidates went with antiracism and open borders (instead of freedom and opposing mandates, the whole point of the party) and the Democrats lied about race and riots, and again in 2024 as a straight-up middle finger "f**k the globalists" vote, because the Xiden regime was awful, repressive, and evil. He might have dressed it up in (small d) democratic regalia, but even the vile tyrant Vladimir Putin was at least SOMEWHAT less of a gaslighting liar than our own government. I'll give him this much: at least the main thing not to criticize in Russia (Putin himself) doesn't change with the wind from day to day, unlike the woke DEI trans climate cultists and their pet illegals.
While I'm not a huge fan of the Republicans, at least I might get a table scrap from them every now and again. Democrats offer nothing. Take trans. OK, you wanna be trans? Great, knock yourself out. I'm not stopping you. But I am NOT obligated to believe a man somehow "became" a woman. I am NOT obligated to be attracted to or date them (not that it's a huge issue for me, a middle aged happily married guy, but to me a MtF is a man, baby, AND ALWAYS WILL BE). They are NOT entitled to compete in female sports. They are not women. They are men wearing a woman skinsuit (or "womanface," as it was once called).
But of course it's belittled as "pee pee bills" when it's about pre-op BOYS or MEN (called women by delusional gaslighters) in the WOMENS' locker room. As a man, a trans in our space doesn't amount to much for us, and is probably more dangerous for the trans person. But for a woman, it's the other way around.
I was raised that life ain't fair, there's actually no such THING as fair, and nobody owes you anything (at least not without a contract), not even a how do you do, beyond respecting your inalienable rights as an adult. And the left isn't even delivering the bare minimum of "respecting my rights." That's always been true, and I've always distrusted leftist thought since I was 5 or 6 years old (the emotional manipulation is EXTREMELY and even viscerally, physically off-putting to me. I'm wired kind of weird; commercial advertising isn't usually very effective on me, either) -- but the Covid mandates, censorship regime, and all-out hysteria where they flipped their position on a dime between Jan 2020 and March 2020 and in the process betrayed nearly everything they ever claimed to stand for made it crystal clear.
Before, I merely opposed the left. I thought they were wrong, misguided, too easily emotionally manipulated. Now I know beyond ALL doubt: they are pure evil. They and their worldview must be annihilated to preserve whatever good is left in humanity. I'd prefer a better "hero" than a spastic orange lip-flapping Mr Potato Head, but frankly, I was actually happy and living my best life in 2019, then the left and globalists crapped all over it and made a dystopian hellscape (other than telework, which we're now slowly being screwed over on). But I guess I'll take what I can get. They hurt us, they wronged us, and there is no longer any limit to where I'll go in getting that shoe on the other foot.
I will NOT make the mistake, ever again, that those demons have better angels.
Wow, excellent post!
This is damn good. Well done, Sasha.
This nails it. The left refuses to acknowledge (look in the mirror, people) that they are the intolerant ones. Every argument of theirs only ends in screeching hysterics. And they can’t stand it that the rest of us won’t listen to them anymore or only laugh when they try to cancel us for not following their rules. They are the bigoted ones, the privileged prejudiced ones, the self righteous know it alls who try to accuse us of being the same. The temper tantrums have to stop, or they need to go to their rooms without any supper. And I’m taking your phone away as well, Missy. The whole weekend.
Pride comes before a fall, yes?
Yes. It's happened to me more times than I care to count. "A good father chastises his children". The Creator is a good father who set up universal principles. Smart people learn lessons from their falls.
Sasha - so well done.
You have enough of a long term perspective, experience and talent to write a needed “The Disastrous Rise and Fall of The American Left”.
Include even the lies we were told to start wars in Vietnam and Iraq, as well as the idiotic blunders leading to the invasions of Afghanistan, Ukraine and Israel - an intentionally opened border — as well as the lies to 2020 voters that allowed Biden to be elected in the first place
So many lies — so much hatred — so much needless death — all combining to today’s Democrats being lost and in free fall.
Don't forget the essential "follow the money" aspect!
We MAGA people aren’t hysterical because ‘we’ understand feelings are not facts. We also know climate change is a hoax started with Al Gore as global warming, then became climate change under Obama because the global warming wasn’t real and so, as usual, a play on words made CC hit on all aspects of weather. I’m a child of the 60-70s and I thank God I never was a hippie free-love or drug user. I always thought the 70s were an ugly time. I was always a Republican, but now consider myself a MAGA conservative.
Same.
So your take is that the people on the left, in the absence of religious beliefs to ground them in moral principles, constructed a set of behaviors that defined what a "good" person is. Over time that set of behaviors deemed "good" became intertwined with political beliefs that led to the perception that they firstly were "right" and second had the power (at least during the Obama years) to make everyone else meet their definition of "good." I hope I captured that right?
I can't disagree with that take.
If I didn't characterize that right someone comment with what I left out or got wrong...
Humans are worship machines. Whether it's God Almighty, the Dodgers, Led Zeppelin, or their own personal accomplishments and acquisitions, humans *need* to worship SOMETHING.
And so often, in the absence of God, that worship turns to the state - the government.
Or The Revolution. Everyone has a God shaped hole inside of them and something will fill it.
As the great St Augustine said,
“Our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee.”
He was a womanizer, a drinker, carouser par excellence until he FINALLY figured it all out. Read his “Confessions.”
https://www.vatican.va/spirit/documents/spirit_20020821_agostino_en.html
Worship and obedience to the government is exactly what the Dems/globalists want.
That seems to be a part of her argument.
Of course. I was just expanding on the point.
And that always turns out really bad.
What you got wrong is the claim that morality is based on religious belief. Is there no objective, non-religious reason why people should not kill, rob and defraud each other? The concept of man's right derives from the objective nature of man. Human existence and prosperity depend on rationally derived principles that protect property and life from predators.
One of those principles is humility. Religious people are taught to be humble in their devotion to a higher power. The absence of humility (and gratitude) on the Left conduces arrogance and hysteria and rampant warfare against all it sees as obstacles to random pursuit of self-worth.
Sasha wrote: "In the past, goodness was tied to Christianity, which was tied to traditionalism, and was something we on the Left always pushed back against. Well, not anymore."
I made no claim of any kind; I was reconstructing the argument made in the essay.
Did I not reflect Sasha's argument correctly?
I would like to point out to you that Humanism is an outgrowth of a non-supernatural morality based originally on Christian principles. Primitive people believe that what we call humanitarian principles only apply to members of their tribe. The next tribe over the hill is fair game in the struggle for survival; and friendly tribes that they trade with are accommodated on a transactional basis. The ancient Jews accepted Jewishness as the criterion for common acceptance. Rome where Christianity developed, was the the center of world culture and Christianity sought converts from everywhere and so included everyone in the sense of those to whom we owed love, ie seeking their best interests. Some Eastern religions are also inclusive, even extending to non-human animal species. But we should not expect the whole world to recognize the principles of humanitarianism as the basis of all morality.
My Friend can"t explain the difference between the "objective nature of man" and "God." Perhaps you can?
Bible scripture says that God imprinted on humans, from the beginning, to have a moral compass, but the Apostle Paul was clear that that "compass" can be "seared with a hot iron" so that there is no longer a knowledge of good and evil.
Morality is supported by religious belief, among those too shortsighted to realize that the rules provide the best opportunity for a reasonably fair chance at a good and satisfying life for the largest portion of the people. Whether God gave the rules to help people, or the elders distilled those rules from experience over centuries is not important; following them is. Virtue is (or brings) its own reward.
I think morality comes from Judeo/Christian religious beliefs and Bible scripture says that God imprinted on humans, from the beginning, to have a moral compass, but the Apostle Paul was clear that that "compass" can be "seared with a hot iron" so that there is no longer a knowledge of good and evil. Look at those regions of the world that are devoid of any knowledge of them - killing of people on the solstice for favor from the spirits, burning of the wife if the husband dies, raping of the village woman on the full moon, etc.
I saw that and glad somebody else picked it up.
They’ve completely lost their minds. My Wife and I used to be Australian Greens party members- back when they cared about the environment. Nowadays they are radicalised lunatics, screeching about Palestine, not a word about Syria, dredging up as many Pakistani and other Muslims to foist as candidates. They’re insane.
Insane is the exact word for them
Wow, I can remember when you had that great prime minister who told the muzzles to go back to where they came from if they didn't want to be Australians and to behave like Australians.
So can I. It was great…
"But you have to wonder, why aren’t the people on the MAGA side hysterical?"
Because we survived the information war, and the Left did not: "You’re in a War (and You Don’t Even Know It) | Eric Weinstein [ARC 2025]"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbdJtrXYBZs
Winners dont have to get hysterical losers have no choice because when was the last time either party blamed themselves for a loss?
Read that again, I said "survived," not won. Did you survive the information war or are you one of its casualties? The hysteria from the victims is a direct result of their ignorance of this information war.
I survived just fine the funny thing is all this horseshit of the end of the republic/Democracy or whatever hyped horseshit they pronounced during elections is just that. Harris was a terrible candidate, Biden did her no wonder trying to run and despite ALL of that she still managed to get a close election in the states that mattered.
And those that did survive came back with Agent Orange Man.
"They won’t do what I did - get to know that world." Getting to know real people instead of caricatures is the key.
I do not share your letter writer's view of the Republicans of the past. In my experience, they were just the good people you were happy to have living next door. Of course, this was in the 50's and early 60's, when for the most part the Democrats were also the good people you were happy to have living next door.
As soon as it became possible (1971) I registered to vote. Of course I became a Democrat, like nearly all of my young peers. The Democrats were exciting, and said all the good things. The Republicans were much more nuanced on the issues. Nuance is not usually a characteristic of youth -- I found the Republicans to be boring.
Although I clung to my Democratic Party membership for more than 50 years, along the way I began to realize that while the Democrats SAID the right things, it was the Republicans who actually DID them. For example, the Democrats talked a lot about waging War on Poverty, but President Johnson's policies actually had the effect of destabilizing our culture, especially in the cities, trapping more and more people in poverty. The Republicans didn't talk in a way that sounded compassionate, but their values and policies actually helped people to escape that cycle.
Looking back, I see that those we -- pejoratively -- called conservatives may have been boring, but they were solid, dependable, and in real life a lot of fun to be with in ways that didn't break the law or cause mental and social instability.
I got the nuance, probably due to my mom (although she was never dogmatic, only an example and testimony) and voted for Reagan in '80, which was my first vote.
Leftists have always used mafia style corruption; intimidation, blackmail, violence, etc., to gain power /enslave others since time began. Drugs, promiscuity, prostitution, abortion, music that glorified its use/abuse is used to destroy life, create dependency, always in the name of "tolerance" which was NEVER extended to anyone confronting or exposing their corruption. Rejection or revision of God was essential. The book, Color, Communism, Common Sense by Manning Johnson (a black man & former recruited communist) explains how Soviet leaders assisted in infiltration of the church which they found advantageous as opposed to outright destruction. Paramilitary groups (kkk, blm, antifa, etc.,) used as enforcers.
Whether it was Jane Fonda spitting on US soldiers fighting communism in Vietnam, or her comrades in Weather Underground blowing up people & things. So. Damn. Peaceful.
US has been under attack by leftist groups since our founding. Daniel Greenfield wrote an excellent, well documented & fascinating book, "Domestic Enemies: The Founding Fathers’ Fight Against the Left", highly recommend ~
https://www.amazon.com/Domestic-Enemies-Founding-Fathers-Against/dp/B0D6QSNBRV/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&sr=1-1
Republicans technically ended their slave plantations in 1865, but Tammany Hall Corruption is one way back example of it continuing :
Tammany Hall, a Democratic Party political organization in New York City, was notorious for its corruption throughout much of its history. The organization engaged in widespread graft and bribery, often using government jobs, contracts, and legislative favors to maintain control over the city's politics.
One of the most infamous periods of corruption was under the leadership of "Boss" William M. Tweed, who initiated complete boss domination of Tammany Hall in 1868. During Tweed's rule, corruption reached a peak, with New York City being plundered of more than $200 million....
(https://search.brave.com/search?q=Tammany+Hall+corruption&source=desktop&summary=1&conversation=eae7b61b264bcd83eb96eb)
Ditto for every other dem hellhole, Chicago, Detroit, etc., uses mafia tactics, often preying on immigrants, using them as vote slaves.
Clinton's crimes weren't getting a BJ in WH, he sold the US manufacturing out to China, check out 'Chinagate' which is the crime he was trying to avoid having attention drawn to at the time. Prior to that, Clinton's were connected to notorious Dixie Mafia. This book (which hasn't been challenged) illustrates how billions of dollars of cocaine, cash and weapons passed through Mena, Arkansas under their watch during the 1980s, also covers Whitewater, the BCCI banking scandal, Travelgate, Filegate and novice stock investor Hillary Clinton's infamous-and mind-boggling-windfall profits derived from trading cattle futures. ~
https://www.amazon.com/Hillary-Bill-Drugs-Clinton-Trilogy/dp/0978573358
CIA Bush's, Demoncrat McCain's & others were infiltrators to make an appearance of a 2 party system due to leftist fears of Reagan. Does anyone seriously think voting corruption hasn't been achieved under their watch? In 1980's (Bush/Gore election )hey arranged a "consent decree" DENYING Republicans the right to be poll watchers, or contest elections. Wasn't till mid-2000s, RNC took it to the Supreme Court trying to get the consent decree eliminated. Laughably, predictably, leftist screech "racist" !! ~ https://www.npr.org/2018/01/09/576858203/decades-old-consent-decree-lifted-against-rncs-ballot-security-measures
Until Trump bravely decided to put a stop to uniparty "Cloward Piven" strategy to overwhelm US system, there hasn't been much choice. Elon & other innovative, successful, life, liberty & freedom loving people waking up to what's at stake has been a Godsend. Elections remain a corrupt mess, but I hear & am hopeful a strategy to combat this can still be implemented prior to midterms.
Wow! So much to unpack here. Thank you for the links to back up your claims. Our old guard Democrat friends and family won’t bother believing any of this, unfortunately. Too difficult for them to face the truth about all the lies they have been told and have believed in all these years.
Democrats have it in their nature. They want to boss people around. Even as hippies there was the cool thought process, "free love", "drugs", "turn on, tune in, drop out". They hated our society...nothing has changed they still do. If there is anything bad in our history the magnify it and offer it as proof we are racist and not even in search of justice. Their belief is a religious dogma based on virtuosity.
They have always been racist, from lynching, to Jim Crow, to George Wallace and Joe "anti-bussing" Biden
The great Civil Rights changeover is a myth. They have gone from the KKK burning.crosses to burning Teslas.
Their Brown Shirts are Antifa. Welcome Sasha to the ideal of true inclusion.
Kirn calls the current Tesla / Luigi movement the ‘feather underground’
My hippie 68yo BIL still believes there is slavery going on in America today and cannot have a normal conversation about anything. He lives off his family’s wealth. Hasn’t had a real job since his 20’s and absolutely lives in his white $$$ male privileged bubble consuming NPR daily. He has no diversity in his life whatsoever. His friends all look, dress and even smell alike-patchouli stink and he smokes weed every day. He has a lot to say about the world and what’s “right”. I can’t stand listening or talking to him so it’s small talk when we get together.
The left is intolerant because its entire worldview is predicated upon lies that are retold over and over again in the belief that if told enough the lies become truth. They can not tolerate any dissent and they will destroy all that fail to toe the line on the lies. The fact that certain people are just figuring this out does not mean that its a new thing. The left has always lived and gained power via lies.
Yes, and their old lies such as denying that a National Socialist German Workers' Party was in fact a Socialist Workers' Party have become worn out and exposed.
So, they just stay quiet about them, hoping no one will challenge them on the subject so they don’t destroy their credibility for their new lies.
See Massie, Collins about MAGA tolerance. The "beauty" is neither are tolerant with dissenters.
Your references are too vague for most readers to grab your point.
Vague? Trump has threaten to primary him for disagreeing just recently how is that vague?
Being tolerant does not mean accepting views that you believe are wrong. If you disagree with someone then a primary challenge is certainly appropriate. Tolerance does not mean that you never challenge views you disagree with.
What Trump did wasnt tolerant it was just outright bullying and I come to expect MAGA follower will tolerate anything Trump does to own the left.
HL3, are you always this whiny? Try to accept reality: the nitwit you lefties nominated got trounced. Cry me a river.
That’s called politics and it bare bones and bloody.
But Republicans haven't been into doing this until Trump. Dems would be cut-throat, underhanded, double-dealing, vicious with a smile (or not) but Republicans never wanted to "Bring it" or "get their hands dirty" or "bare-knuckle" fight. NOW they are, thank God, because our constitutional republic was about to go under. And btw, I didn't mention "illegal" or "against the law" in this list, because Republicans, including me, are against doing that to win (although Dems have shown that they aren't).
Pretty much in a nutshell. Politics is ugly and often filled with lies and fearmongering.
Politics is the art of lying about your opponent and getting away with it.
The wisdom shared in this column and in all of the subsequent comments makes me think of a phrase Rush Limbaugh used to use when referring to the electorate in the USA: “The collective wisdom of the American People.”
If you only had a surface knowledge of Rush, you might believe him to be a conceited, bloviating blowhard. But in truth, he was incredibly humble.
He understood his success only happened because of timing- he was able to articulate that “collective wisdom” when no one else could or would. His voice was a gigantic relief to the America who actually made everything work- laborers, professionals, engineers, architects, retail workers, truckers, pilots, medical professionals, mothers, fathers, farmers, teachers - everyone who got up, got to work and took care of business- TCBing, as Elvis called it.
That’s why Trump is who he is too. He’s like Rush in giving us voice. They are the ones standing at the open window hollering,
“WE’RE MAD AS HELL AND WE’RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE!”
THAT’s MAGA.
That said, we’re no where CLOSE to victory and we’re in very serious danger of losing.
That’s why we have to remain steadfast. It’s not enough to read Sasha - we have to SHARE Sasha. Talk to people, keep plugging away. Call your representatives and give them kudos if they have earned it and verbal HELL if they haven’t.
Be wary of lip service, watch for courageous action, skin in the game. Educate yourself about the truth of what Trump is doing and then share it! Don’t automatically believe the gloomers, research first, evaluate later.
Thank you SASHA fie providing us with such a powerful example to emulate. She’s the real deal, everyone!
Sasha the left has not changed since the 60's. I am old enough to have lived through it and remember clearly how intolerant, hateful and violent they were as they are today. They spit in our faces upon returning home from Vietnam and called us baby killers. They encouraged rampant drug use, alcohol and sex without commitment. Much like they do today. The left blew up buildings, police stations, killed cops, and innocent bystanders, just like they do today. They burned our flag and openly despised our country. The left was not cool then and are not cool today. The current left wing of the Democratic party are hardcore Marxists just like they were in the 60's. They have not changed and will not change. The left uses the useless idiots as their muscle to destroy, murder, rape, and plunder their way to total control and power. If DJT had not been elected we would be heading straight to hell.
Yes well sad. I always thought that the Democrat party had two sides- one was the tolerant good people like the JFK and RFK who really wanted to help the poor and do the right thing. But there was always that undercurrent of the party of slavery, the party that started the KKK, the Marxist undertones that was always there and that's all that's left. There are no centrists in that party all you have is AOC and Bernie Sanders- two socialists and socialism always turns to Communism. That's what we're fighting.
Thank you, DM. I have to say I was somewhat dismayed at the inclusion of the "Hair" clip. Yesterday's Treat Williams reminds me of today's Greta Thunberg: snot-nosed youth who believe they know everything and have the right to shout down their betters. That is the milieu from which many of us emerged. What is needed now is greater thoughtfulness, wisdom, maturity, and the courage to fight for what is true. Fighting to take America back from those who have polluted the minds of Americans for decades is why we voted for Trump. If you fought for us in Vietnam, I salute you, and deeply regret the disdain that I and others had for your service. God help us.
We never should've been in 'Nam, unless we were there to WIN, which we weren't. As for Hair, I call the $1000 a plate, jeweled, pretentious, "upper crust who think they know everything" snot-nosed, too. Both extremes are bad.
I was a student at UC Berkeley in the late 1960s and I think your letter writer has a romanticized memory of the time.
Yes, I knew the “easy laid back “Keep on Truckin’” types” who just wanted to smoke weed and “do their thing”, but I also remember the violent student groups like Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the bomb-making Weather Underground, and the insane Symbionese Liberation Army that kidnapped Patty Hearst and went on a bank robbery spree until they were wiped out in a gun battle with the LA Police. The mellow “tolerant” left was a sideshow to these violent felons. Today's radical left is quite peaceful by comparison.