Below is my column in The Hill on the disgraceful Democratic attacks against Elon Musk over his status as a naturalized citizen. For years, some of us have raised concerns over the adoption of McCarthyite tactics and rhetoric by the left to demonize those with opposing viewpoints, including critics of the massive censorship system under the Biden Administration. Those attacks are now reaching a dangerous crescendo after the 2024 loss in the presidential election.
Here is the column:
This month, 75 years ago, Sen. Joe McCarthy (R-Wisc.) gave his infamous speech denouncing disloyal Americans working at the highest levels of our government. It was the defining moment for what became known as McCarthyism, which attacked citizens as dangerous and disloyal influences in government.
Some of us have criticized the rising “rage rhetoric” for years, including that of President Trump and Democratic leaders, denouncing opponents as traitors and enemies of the state.
In the 2024 election, the traditional red state-blue state firewalls again collapsed, as they had in 2016. The response among Democrats has been to unleash a type of new Red Scare, questioning the loyalty of those who are supporting or working with the Trump administration in carrying out his promised reforms.
Elon Musk is the designated disloyal American for many on the left. That rage has reached virtual hysteria on ABC’s “The View.” This is the same show before the election on which hosts warned that, if Trump were elected, journalists and homosexuals would be rounded up and “disappeared.”
After the election, democracy seemed to stubbornly hang on, so the hosts had to resort to attacking as disloyal anyone joining the government or supporting Trump’s policies.
This week, co-host Joy Behar followed many others in questioning Musk’s loyalty and attacking him over being a naturalized American citizen: “The guy was not born in this country, who was born under apartheid in South Africa. So, [he] has that mentality going on. He was pro-Apartheid, as I understand it.”
Behar was then forced, perhaps by panicked ABC lawyers, to walk back the comment — such retractions having become a regular feature on “The View“. What came out was the type of jumbled confusion that results when you interrupt a lunatic on the metro in mid-rave.
Behar stated: “I’m getting some flack because I said that Musk was pro-apartheid. I don’t really know for sure if he was … He was around at that time, but maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t—he might have been a young guy, too. So, don’t be suing me, okay Elon?”
This anti-immigrant attack on Musk, however, has worked its way into many Democrats’ talking points, even though their party had previously claimed to defend immigrants against racist Republicans seeking to close the Southern border and deport criminal illegal immigrants.
On Capitol Hill, Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) launched a xenophobic tirade that should have shocked the conscience of the nation. She warned citizens that Musk could not be trusted because he is an immigrant who has been a citizen for only a couple of decades: “Mr. Musk has just been here just 22 years and he’s a citizen of three countries. I always ask myself the question: With the damage he’s doing here when push comes to shove, which country is he loyal to? South Africa, Canada, or the United States? And he’s only been a citizen, I’ll say again, 22 years.”
Former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney was another joining in to attack Musk for being an immigrant. “You may be unfamiliar with that part of our history since you weren’t yet an American citizen,” she wrote on Musk’s social media platform, X.
These attacks are straight out of McCarthy’s playbook. It was McCarthy who insisted that “there are no degrees of loyalty in the United States — a man is either loyal or he’s disloyal…” Of course, McCarthy (and the earlier Red Scare) attacked government employees, writers and others on the left. It is now the left that is employing the same tactics, including censorship, blacklisting and public vilification.
Throughout the 2024 campaign, the Democrats, including President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, painted Republicans as either aspiring or actual fascists. That continued recently with Minnesota Gov. and former Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz (D), who referred to Republicans as “fascists and Nazis.”
Even journalists and civil libertarians have been reviled using the same terms. After a hearing on censorship two years ago, MSNBC contributor and former Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) attacked journalists and members who had spoken in favor of free speech. She denounced the member witnesses (Sen. Chuck Grassley, Sen. Ron Johnson and former Rep. Gabbard) as “Putin apologists” and Putin-lovers.
Stacey Plaskett, the Democratic delegate representing the Virgin Islands in the U.S. House, even suggested arresting respected journalist Matt Taibbi, who, along with Michael Shellenberger, testified on their investigation into a massive censorship system developed under the Biden administration.
The attack on Musk is particularly disgraceful, given his contributions to his adopted country. Ironically, filmmaker Michael Moore denounced the deportations of criminal illegal immigrants last week by noting that Trump was deporting someone who might cure cancer or be the next Steve Jobs. Well, this is a naturalized citizen who not only could be the next Elon Musk. He is Elon Musk.
As politicians and pundits question Musk’s loyalty, Space X is moving to rescue two astronauts stranded in space. Musk has volunteered his time and skills to achieving a record reduction in the size and waste in government. One can disagree with his priorities or the means he uses to achieve his goals, but he has nobly stepped forward to serve his country despite death threats from the left.
Musk is also facing such attacks in Canada, where thousands have signed petitions to strip him of his citizenship. The left did not seek to revoke the citizenship of figures who have eviscerated free speech and other individual rights in that country. It is Musk who is persona non grata.
This is nothing new for Musk, whom the left has targeted since he announced an intention to buy Twitter and restore free speech protections on that site.
The concern is not for Musk, who has the intestinal fortitude (and financial means) to stand up to a global mob. Moreover, with polls showing overwhelming support for reducing the size of government and the budget, the campaign to obstruct these efforts is unlikely to resonate with voters.
The danger is more acute for the country as disagreements over policy are transformed into attacks over loyalty. It is the most dangerous form of rage rhetoric, an effort not to debate but to demonize those with whom you disagree.
When you have members of Congress standing in front of the Capitol, denouncing naturalized citizens as untrustworthy after a mere 22 years as a citizen, it is a moment that would have made McCarthy blush.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.
Any American who prioritizes what Trump wants over the Constitution is a traitor.
so because we want a smaller government we are traitors?
You are traitors because you are trashing the Constitution and the rule of law to do it.
And dont’ say “What laws are being broke?” You know, we all know.
Lying again. I am a better American than you will ever be.
Just like Timothy McVeigh.
Leftists always say that but they never specify what specific provision of the constitution is being trashed or how. It’s just a talking point with no substance.
When the “Joe Biden” administration went all in on censorship, they cheered and conservatives were able to point to a specific part of the Constitution that was being trashed: the First Amendment.
OldManFromKS,
Well said. Dont forget Biden’s student loan was UN-Constitutional, members of his own party said so and so did SCOTUS. But when Democrats are trashing the Constitution, it is okay.
“Our constitution is not good…..Our constitution is actually trash.
There are two things going on there. One, the veneration that this country has for the Constitution is simply weird. It’s crazy. It’s not what other countries do for their written documents. We act like this thing was etched in stone by the finger of God, when actually it was hotly contested and debated, scrawled out over a couple of weeks in the summer in Philadelphia in 1787, with a bunch of rich, white politicians making deals with each other, right? These politicians were white slavers, white colonizers and white abolitionists — who were nonetheless willing to make deals with slavers and colonists. No person of color was allowed into the convention“.
– Elie Mystal
https://www.salon.com/2022/03/23/elie-mystal-our-constitution-is-actually-trash–but-the-can-be-fixed/
Extrapolating Elie Mystal’s “logic”, blacks have a far higher prevalence of black on black violent crime than any other demographic group, blacks have been abandoning their children and wives in record numbers as recorded by Daniel Moynihan in his 1965 report on black families, blacks create rap music that glorifies abuse of women, violence and thug life, demand money for reparations in spite of the fact that Africans enslaved Africans before Europeans even discovered Africa, and the list goes on. So it follows, blacks are trash, per Elie Mystal’s “logic”.
Such the thinking of a defective mind.
Rule #1 Leftists always lie.
Rule#2 When in doubt in dealing with Leftists, refer to Rule #1.
Yes, it was contested but it was accepted and ratified by the states and amended. It is the law of the land. Constitutions are the Bibles of government and organizations. All organizations have them.
“No person of color was allowed into the convention“.”
Cicero, Lock and Hume weren’t at the convention either; for that matter, Moses wasn’t either. Yet, their writings can be seen in the written document known as the Constitution. Those who complain in the fashion of Elie Mystal do an injustice to everyone who wishes to live free and prosperous lives.
Are you trollling the good professor’s blog on a government computer? Or on government time? Time that us taxpayers pay you? Did you respond to the “What did I do this week?” email and CC your immediate supervisor? Or are you having difficulty find five things you actually did that was related to your job? Is that why you are so in a rage at Musk and DOGE? That they might find you are useless or redundant at your job and can be replaced by someone better?
Franke is nothing but a crybaby loser. Why os anyone responding to him?
I read what you wrote about the Constitution, and you do not understand it. You are led by ignorance, not knowledge, and you have no basis to accuse others of being a traitor. Some of your statements are traitorous, but I don’t know if one should charge you with such actions because you lack comprehension abilities.
The ends do not justify the means.
Do you wear a pager? Is it on your person right now? Asking for a friend
One problem that Joe McCarthy had, was that there were so many damned subversives, that it came off looking like he was some kind of nut. That how in the world could there be so many subversives? McCarthy had to be nutz! And a bad person. The reality was, and is, that there really were that many people who were working to undermine the country. McCarthy’s personality flaws did not help his cause, either, because he was not well liked by many of his colleagues.
This is the same problem that Trump faced, when he claimed the 2020 election was rigged. How silly! Sure, there might be some fraud, here and there, around the edges, but not enough to steal the election. Personally, I find it quite possible that the election was stolen and, in fact, probable.
Hopefully, as DOGE does its thing, and Bondi and Patel and Gabbard and RFK, the scope of the problems facing the country will become more evident. I mean, would anybody have thought that a demented President could be hidden from the public? Think how many people had to be in on that. WH staffers, politicians, the press, security forces, etc.
We can all forget any thoughts that large-scale conspiracies are not practical, because somebody will always blab about it.
Back to McCarthy, from wiki –
McCarthy remains a controversial figure. Arthur Herman, popular historian and senior fellow of the Hudson Institute, says that new evidence—in the form of Venona-decrypted Soviet messages, Soviet espionage data now opened to the West, and newly released transcripts of closed hearings before McCarthy’s subcommittee—has partially vindicated McCarthy by showing that some of his identifications of Communists were correct and the scale of Soviet espionage activities in the United States during the 1940s and 1950s was larger than many scholars had suspected.[193] In Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America’s Enemies, journalist M. Stanton Evans similarly argued that evidence from the Venona documents shows significant penetration by Soviet agents.[194]
Americans owe their freedom to foreign assistance.
Has JD Vance ever said thank you to the French?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Baptiste_Donatien_de_Vimeur,_comte_de_Rochambeau
He didnt have to. The THOUSANDS of Americans who died in France already did.
Now, STFU
The new battlefield is economic and boardrooms. It’s no longer on the bloodshed battlefields .
France was our first enemy nation. Remember the French and Indian Wars.
The issue of loyalty and allegiance resides at the core of the “natural born Citizen” eligibility restriction in the Constitution…, which is why Kamala Harris in the Oval Office would have been an unmitigated disaster. Recall that she could not think of anything Biden did in office that she would do differently. Unmitigated disaster. Full stop.
#74. The situation in the US is completely immoral and Obama has successfully reset normatives. The world is in pillage and plunder mode. What Musk and Republicans are attempting is to make it more difficult to pillage and democrats don’t like it.
OT :
The EU is moving ahead toward full scale war and considering using Russian frozen assets at the Central Bank to fund Ukraine’s war. That sum is 300 billion. It’s another pillage and plunder effort. The US should stay far away from the EU as it puts the finishing touches on its own suicide. RIP
Italy’s Georgia Meloni supports the war effort. A note for the Meloni fans. Meanwhile China is chugging along with business and economic development.
Have a great day, America, with the hordes of hungry homeless, unaffordable housing, and mythological levels of crime.
Mysk? He’ll be fine on Mars. Not to worry.
Why does the military exist? Who does the military work for? Civilians? Why is it so wrong for civilians to expect the military to do their bidding? Why have a military at all if it can’t do the bidding of the civilians who they work for? Why have a fire department at all if it’s too dangerous to fight fires?
News flash zippy, the majority of Americans are against war, want peace. They also are smart enough to know WWIII is a bad idea. If you want to fight Russians so badly, why dont you go and enlist in the Ukrainian army and volunteer for the front lines? Zelensky passed a law allowing foreigners to enlist in the Ukraine army.
I predicted that you would roll out
that same old hackneyed fallacious argument.
You’re like a parrot, man.
You keep saying the same old fallacious things over and over again.
You have no critical thinking skills.
You seem proud of this.
You like to advertise it here so boldly.
Polly wanna cracker?
Upchuck, the position that you take implies
that the military can be dissolved
because civilians are expected to do all of the fighting from now on.
This is ridiculous and presposterous and you’re an idiot if this is what you want.
What if civilians such as accountants, doctors, lawyers, and Hooters servers would like to see Ukraine liberated?
Do you really want to see a bunch of accountants, doctors, lawyers, and Hooters servers bleeding to death on a battlefield?
It defeats the purpose of having a military (to defend civilians), if
civilians are put in harm’s way.
Your point might sound clever on the surface to a certain audience, and it might aid and abet Putin, but if the time is taken to analyze it, it crumbles like a cookie.
I never said any of that. What I said was the majority of Americans want peace. Not war. I never said or implied anything about the military being dissolved. That was your own moronic leap is logic. And it failed.
I’ll tell you why, you fvcking moron. The primary function of the military is to DETER war.
You’re a brain dead spastic if you dont understand that distinction, and think that a soldiers purpose is to die.
Why does the military exist?
You would have been fine had you stopped there. But your following series of questions revealed you are either ignorant, or stupid. Perhaps both.
Fundamentally, the military exists for the same reason we the people created a government; to secure our natural right to life, liberty and property. The Latin phrase: Si vis pacem, para bellum translates to: If you want peace, then prepare for war. More recent quotes like walk softly, but carry a big stick or peace through strength hold similar meanings.
The military doesn’t work for civilians, it works for the Commander-in-Chief that the civilians elected.
I can’t believe we are talking about The View. That program is nothing but hate and rage. What socially redeeming value do they bring to any of this. You could take the brains of the personalities on that program, pull out the part that still works and place it in a thimble and have most of the thimble unused.
These individuals are the strongest argument I know of for therapeutic abortions and I am a prolife physician.
If the whole cast was in a car and had a wreck on the expressway, it would not matter whether they survived or not, you would still have to rope off an acre of land, designate it as a toxic dump and call in the EPA.
This has nothing to do with immigrants, but it everything to do with bright and imaginative people leaving the Democratic Party. Musk was once a democrat as was President Trump. They were fawned over when they were democrats but thought about it and veered off from that crazed herd before it went over the cliff.
Give them all the shovels they want so they can dig the largest hole imaginable and disappear into it. It might even be better if they take the shovels and go after each other and let the citizenry watch. Put up stands, flood the hole with shoulder high water and give them some rowboats and we could recreate the best days of the colosseum when the Romans staged sea battles.
GEB,
Well said. As I stated before, The View is nothing more than a remake of the Jerry Springer show. But in their case, they are the hot mess to watch.
Jerry springer and world wide wrestling– it’s all so phoney
“Loyalty to the USA” – embodied in the pure American loyalty of The Oval Office House Plant, our latest, greatest Democrat president. And of course, the eight years of proven loyalty to America delivered by Obama, who was so loyal that he vowed to fundamentally change with his phone and pen the America he was apparently loyal to.
With Loyal Americans like Biden, Pelosi, Schiff, Schumer, we don’t need external Marxist enemies to threaten the nation.
Musk, meanwhile was born to an American mother – one who for whatever reason did not apply for him to have citizenship before he reached the cutoff age to apply for that citizenship.
Have any of Musk’s “loyalty” critics been asked how they’re sure it wasn’t passed to him through his mother’s milk and blood?
Not that it matters – none of his Democrat critics are loyal Americans. They’re Cheap Fake Americans.
It could be proven scientifically, using the scientific method of making and reporting observations, that Putin is the true warmonger, so it would make more sense to use that term, warmonger, against Putin more than anyone else in the world right now. It is a farce how they avoid using it against him. Putin is the most deserving of having that term, warmonger, used against him. There is a lot of projection coming from both the Trump and the Putin regimes. I feel embarrassed for them that they think this tactic should work for them.
The true warmonger is Biden. They had a tentative peace deal in the spring of 2022 in Istanbul, but Biden squashed the peace deal and kept the war going. Biden is the one who kept sending war material to the Ukraine to keep the war going. Biden is the one who kept the meat grinder going, killing thousands and thousands of people. Trump is the one who is trying for a peace deal to end the war. Mean while, it is the Democrats who seem to be the ones who want the war to continue.
“It could be proven scientifically, using the scientific method of making and reporting observations, that Putin is the true warmonger”
You claim that your premise could be proven scientifically, then immediately devolve to a lot of hand waving as your only support. Which suggests three non-exclusive possibilities: You are an idiot who cannot perform what you claim is possible; you are a liar, and your claim is false; you are too lazy to back up what you claim.
Democrats go absolutely non-linear over one LEGAL immigrant, yet they kept their collective heads in the sand for 4 years over millions of ILLEGAL immigrants.
Democrats are nothing more than confused haters that have become desperate with the fear of losing power. Such is the fate of ANY organization run by incompetents. And how do you know when the incompetents are in charge of any organization? A demonstrated series of bad decisions justified by incoherent reasoning. As in ‘deporting someone who might cure cancer or be the next Steve Jobs” when referencing illegal and likely undocumented immigrants while at the same time saying ““Mr. Musk has just been here just 22 years” and “may be unfamiliar with that part of our history since you weren’t yet an American citizen”.
The goal of jumbled justifications is to confuse not only potential observers of the incompetents but their stooge supporters. So, how easily are you confused?
Ex Dem,
Well said.
The Dems as usual need their Bogeyman, they beat Trump into the ground and into a second term. Because Elon Musk is truly pulling back the curtain on fraud, graft and down right theft of taxpayers money he must be attacked at all cost. You have to seriously ask yourself, regardless of what party you support, what is this so called democrat party, who are they, what they’re doing to the nation? At this point to coin their phase “they are the biggest threat to the republic and democracy”.
Democrats have been smearing “the other side” and calling them names for years. Nothing new to see here. What choice do they have when their ideas and programs are stupid, or fail to work? Admit that they are wrong? Heaven’s No! Never that! They are too good and too smart to be wrong! They are college-educated, after all! But it is getting to the point where their stupidity and grift is too much, even for loyal Democrats. See this:
During a Friday appearance on ‘Realtime With Bill Maher,’ former Chicago Mayor and US Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel, an CNN’s Fareed Sakaria slammed progressive policies that have resulted in a populist backlash.
“I read that the current mayor of Chicago has an approval rating of 6.6%. What’s going on in Chicago?” asked Maher.
Rahm Emanuel: “We’ve gone through 5 years where people became way too permissive as a culture. Which is why everything is locked up at CVS and Walgreens, that’s a disaster.
“I don’t want to hear another word about the locker room, I don’t want to hear another word about the bathroom. You better start focusing on the classroom. In 7th grade if I had known I could have said ‘they’ and got in the girls bathroom, I would have done it.”
Zakaria then chimed in, “This is a huge Democrat party problem. Democrat cities are terribly run. Cost of housing is crazy.
“The budget of New York state is twice that of Florida. Lots of taxes, lots of regulation, but nothing gets done. Democrats have to own this: The answer to everything is not more taxes, more regulations. People are fed up with it, and feel that it isn’t working.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/why-everything-locked-cvs-rahm-emanuel-fareed-zakaria-admit-democrat-cities-are-terribly
The 3 minute video at the link is even worse for the Democrats.
Floyd,
And yet, they continue to double or triple down on their own failed policies. And they continue to run their platforms on those same failed policies. And the same people keep voting for them.
UpstateFarmer- that repetitive behavior is called insanity in the medical world. Usually we put them in a padded room and keep close watch so they don’t hurt themselves
GEB,
Ah! So there is a medical diagnosis! Makes more sense now.
“. . . which country is [Musk] loyal to?”
When D’s smear, there is usually a twisted logic to it. There’s always a thread, a frayed thread, tying the action to the smear. That thread is why some fall for the smear. Like the smear about Trump and Madison Square Garden
But this smear has no thread, at all. Not even a frayed one:
*Suppose* Musk’s primary loyalty is to S. Africa or Canada. How does cutting America’s spending help either of those countries?
Only difference is, between Venona and what we have seen of the KGB files(would be more useful to get ahold of the GRU files), McCarthy was incredibly right and pretty much ever reaction to his actions speak to this.
Democrats have nothing. They are so desperate, they willingly sink to new lows. It is all they have. So they amp up the rage rhetoric to eleven. These people are absolutely disgusting in their lies. I can see why sane, normal, traditional Democrats are so ashamed of their own party. The level of stupid and crazy these leftists are engaging in is incredible and not in a good way.
Great comment Upstate. The problem is that for some reason Democrats take forever to come to the realization that their party left them. A prime example of this phenomenon is Professor Turley still calling himself a Democrat??
How does any sane, logical and moderate Democrat stay in a party that has Hakeem (please forget who my uncle is) Jeffries, AOC, Jasmine Crockett, Stacey Plaskett (the last two are not only radical and ignorant, they are nasty and ugly faces of their party), Schumer, Schiff and Swalwell?
The Democrats ought to ask Congressman Brian Mast which country he’s loyal to. For that matter, the entire Congress ought to ask itself, how can we be loyal to America when our political existence relies on Israeli lobby money.
“…when our political existence relies on Israeli lobby money.” Ok, so you are claiming that our 4 trillion dollar economy, our billions and billions of dollars that go into campaigning locally and nationally, our extensive media platforms and outlets, our colleges and our Constitution are dependent on the MONEY (note the trope) that comes from a nation the size of New Jersey?
Note that this Jew hater doesn’t mention all of the money, influence and subterfuge that comes from China?? Notice that he has no issue with CAIR?? Notice that he has no issue with the Iran lobby and the fact that they had a mole right in our government pushing agreements and sanction relief?? Notice that he doesn’t mention the EU and their sycophants like Hilary Clinton pushing censorship of the right?? Notice that he doesn’t mention the Arab money going to colleges that have become hotbeds of radical support for terrorists???How much does Qatar give to our universities?
Nope, according to Giocon it is only Jewish money that is ruining our great country.
Get rid of APAC money out of our government.
Anoither Jew hater who finds one, and only one, lobby an issue in DC. No mention of CAIR???
In the email, the above icon looks like it came from Traveler. Based on the typical anti-Jewish error made, one can assume it is Traveler because APAC money is not part of the government. It is lobby money, much like money raised by Democrats and Republicans. It provides a reasonable point of view.
We supply real money to many countries, with tremendous amounts going to the countries of the Middle East. Right now, Egypt has broken its peace treaty with Israel and has lined up far too many tanks, soldiers, and instruments of war in the Sinai, which is not permitted under the peace agreement. Will that lead to war where American dollars indirectly subsidized Egypt’s armed forces?
Our friend GioCom has truly outdone himself in sheer stupidity. The GDP of Israel isn’t even close to the amount Musk is after, and Israeli lobby money is a drop in the ocean by comparison.
Republican primary mission should be a 50% cut in federal spending…ALL federal spending
Also a complete end to federal aid and loan backing of cities, states, non-profits and colleges
Ban Public Unions
REMOVE the centralize power and money!
So Jon you still a Democrat ?
Very clear that Democrats are Fascists who use government and business to consolidate power!
The Party should be abolished and 10,000’s jailed! They are on the path of 1930’s Germany!
@guy
i actually resent people constantly making this query of the Professor. You are just as ideologically bent, IMO. No one need join a ‘club’ to be an independent thinker or actor in the world. Respectfully, take your partisanship and shove it. That is just as small minded as anything else that’s been discussed.
One need not ascribe to a particular licensed community to be a conscious person in the world. even now, some people do not realize that November was not a ‘conservative’ victory, it was populist, and united, amongst people that think a great many different things. We are America, and that includes a whole lot of folks, many of which are abhorrent to conservatives, but still have the right to live freely.
Leave the Professor alone, and understand that given everything, as conservatives, you are a minority the rest of us happened to agree with on issues that extended beyond the church. THAT is the gravity of the things we are facing, and you’d better learn to get along with the people you previously dismissed out of hand.
Quite literally all that seems to remain on our modern left is ugliness, corruption, and distortion; no honor, no integrity, no hope, no love, no empathy or compassion. It’s sad to see, and it’s sad to see it only be compounded day by day.
re: James
The United States has about 330 million citizens with 330 million opinions. Those 330 million citizens don’t fit neatly into bumper-sticker labels like Leftists, Rightwing, Conservative or Liberal.
In reality most Americans don’t fit into labels. A citizen can be both fiscally-liberal and socially-conservative (like George W. Bush) or fiscally-conservative and socially-liberal (like Bill Clinton).
Maybe stop using labels and start debating the actual substance of individual issues? Labels divide Americans which only benefits our foreign enemies and harms our own country.
“Maybe stop using labels . . .”
You first.
And good luck with that.
@Sam
Precisely. the left *invented* labels, starting with ‘political correctness’ decades ago. Spare us, anonymous coward. There really is such a thing as facts on the ground, and denying facts on the ground is straight up delusion. wish for a utopia all you like – that will not be a realistic reflection of disparate humanity any time soon, and using the cudgel sure isn’t going to work. That, by definition, actually makes the modern left, the ‘dictators’. As in dictate the way other people should behave and believe. And that is sure as hell not what America is about, even if you disagree with the person standing next to you at the supermarket. We should probably be investigating fragility instead, and why simple ideas send some people over the edge.
And legally speaking, all of this, if uncorrected, is a death knell to our courts and rule of law. That idiot 14 year-old you laugh off might be a SCOTUS judge someday, having never evolved in their world view, and possibly still not being able to do their own laundry. We all have to live in the world we are creating, and we have to carry the burden wherever anything falls short.
For grownups, life is not one long tequila sunset with sex at the end.
@Anonymous
I’ve lived long enough to know better. It’s only the modern left shoving people into boxes. November did not happen n a vacuum, and it’s a much longer conversation, but self-awareness is not a strong suit on their part. Your comment is hysterical. No duh.
James,
The Free Press had a very interesting article about not left or right but those who want to maintain the status quo and those saw and know the status quo is the problem and have to break it in order to fix the system. Obviously those who are so dependent on the status quo are the ones screaming the most. The secondaries are those with TDS and are against anything Trump is for, even deporting violent, criminal illegals or cutting of waste, fraud, and abuse in the government. Trump is winning, they are losing and they are losing their minds in the process.
@Upstate
True, but I also disagree at the same time. 😂 The modern left are completely unified in an almost hive-mind like state that pretty much everyone else is not. It’s why they smack more of s regime than a party to me. I don’t disagree that elitism is at the root, though.
James,
Well said and you got the hive mind part right. I am waiting for RFKs recommendations for eating healthy and exercise and the hive mind to scream how it is bad, fascist, racist or whatever. Heck, NPR even did a report that exercise was a gateway to white supremacy. How stupid is that?
@Upstate
Really, at this point, given the literal, identical, nature of the modern left’s talking points or ‘opinions’, one would have to be pretty foolhardy to believe it is coincidence or anything organic. And this is global. I haven’t seen anything like it since the Cold War, and folks older than me may remember even further back.
I know the ‘vote blue no matter who’ crowd just falls in line, because at this point they are basically ideologues; the rest of us have to think very carefully about these things and see the larger picture. What the modern left is selling is decidedly not freedom, or even ‘equity’. It’s machination to establish a caste society, one which they control, indefinitely. Thank the Gods that at least in this country, we had better sense in November, and rather dramatically.