10-21-2022, 10:02 PM
The Center Right is exactly what we need for fending off the Hard Right. Britain in the 1930's had active Communist and fascist groups, but it also had a strong Conservative Party and a strong Labour Party. Conservatives made clear that fascists had nothing to offer but bigotry, and Labour recognized that the Soviet Union was not the paradise that it claimed to be. Conservatives showed that the fascists were unconscionable evil (concentration camps, book burning, Jew-baiting, and torture chambers) .
The Center Left (and the bulk of the American Left is Center Left) is the diametric opposite of the Hard Right. The problem is that the Center Left has little to offer the Hard Right except for ridicule that cause people on the bubble to stand with their neighbors co-workers, and drinking buddies when such people feel excoriation for believing FoX News and spouting conspiracy theories. We lack a Center Right that states clearly that this stuff is bad for business and contrary to traditions that have held the test of time.
The Center Left (and the bulk of the American Left is Center Left) is the diametric opposite of the Hard Right. The problem is that the Center Left has little to offer the Hard Right except for ridicule that cause people on the bubble to stand with their neighbors co-workers, and drinking buddies when such people feel excoriation for believing FoX News and spouting conspiracy theories. We lack a Center Right that states clearly that this stuff is bad for business and contrary to traditions that have held the test of time.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.