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Hillary Clinton articulates the obvious: Trump and the GOP invoke the epithet ‘Communists’ against Democrats because it works with their targeted constituencies, and leftists winning primaries are unlikely to survive the general election. {The Independent 8 August}
A cursory glance at Reddit reveals self-styled 'progressives' incensed with Mrs Clinton for stating what ought to be a rather self-evident reality. They would be wise to remember that bloodthirsty tribalism and mindless populism are what delivered unto us Donald Trump, and that they are no better than the millions of rubes following the orange s**tbag if reasoned argument from one of the party’s senior stateswomen is met with violent indignation. This ‘Democratic Socialism’ — and we may debate all day the extent of its relationship or resemblance to the global Communism of the pre-1989 world — is a lot harder a sell than ‘MAGA’ in a country that more than just leans to the right. I have been saying for years that right-wing radicalism shall always prove to be an easier commodity to market to the general public than the left-wing variety in a centre-right nation. Ideological zeal possesses a remarkable ability to distort one’s judgement, as contemporary #Murica (Trumpistan) demonstrates without fail on a daily basis.
The best thing for our republic at present would be the emergence of a moderate, electorally viable third party, presumably consisting of the remaining elected Democrats and Republicans disillusioned and betrayed by their parties’ retreat to the extremes of the political spectrum. Unfortunately, neither the ‘powers-that-be’ nor the majority of the general public are ever going to permit that; the public is too addicted to the team sport aspect (tribalism), the two-party duopoly does not want competition, and comparatively few Americans are in the centre anymore; of the latter, many have simply stopped paying attention altogether. America’s collective psyche hath been in a very dark place for some time now, and I see no light upon the horizon.
As concerns the mid-term elections: the Democrats are snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, yet again. They are in an untenable position: they cannot simultaneously court their increasingly radicalised left flank and expect to win over moderates and independents; victory is attainable only with support from both factions, and they also need protest votes from the remnant of the centre-right who are disgusted with what the GOP hath become under Donald Trump. This is a fundamentally ‘conservative’ (right wing) country, a fact of which Hillary Clinton is plainly cognisant; the Democratic rank-and-file would be prudent to listen to her and think before emulating populist Republican voters by championing rhetorical firebrands for public office. It is simply not going to work as well for the left as it hath for the right. Even granting that relatively few Americans are centrists anymore, staying in the centre lane is still the sanest and most rational course available to the Democrats — or, indeed, to anyone opposed to the ruling Trumpist GOP. We need to get back to the centre; it shall not be accomplished through moderate public officials and voters simply capitulating and playing dead.
πͺπ #QueSeraSera π ¨ π
