Morning Reads for Tuesday, October 24

Andrew C. Pope and Benevolous:

Well you guys prove my point: for the left the term “left wing extremist” (based on ideology and not on, say, violent actions) do not exist. Which forfeits you the privilege of being taken aback when right wingers take the same stance with their own camp.

“Find me a Democrat advocating the criminalization of an entire class of American citizens.”

Sigh. The “lost cause” revisionists have to give up their Confederate symbols, especially those that were erected to protest desegregation because such things constitute injuries to the sensitivities of the descendants of those impacted by slavery and Jim Crow right? That is fine. But tell me why the children of Cuban, Chinese, Soviet and Vietnamese refugees have to put up with all the Che Guevara/Castro hagiography?

That is one example. There are many more. You are certainly capable of identifying them. But that would require acknowledging the possibility that far left ideology can be offensive and harmful. But where this was certainly the case at least as far back as the days of Jimmy Carter and Zell Miller, modern progressives and other left-liberals cannot and will not. Which was precisely my point, and that is exactly why you are going to be far less likely to see Republicans declare their own out of bounds.

It is similar to how the left-wing identity politics being espoused by none other than Stacey Abrams, soon to be the DPoG’s standard bearer, paved the way for the rise of Trumpism. The difference is that where neo-conservative and moderate Republicans are appalled by the rise of the alt-right, Democratic Party “analysts” won’t even admit that the two years of Black Lives Matter riots – peaking with the murder of 5 police officers during their protest in Dallas – cost Hillary Clinton more votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin than Russian ads on Facebook and Google ever could have. Or that her decision to accept the advice of her advisors and embrace newer gender identity politics – in contrast with more the traditional and mainstream feminism that Clinton herself espoused in the 1990s and as recently as the 2008 election but rejected this time around in order to fit in with the “coalition of the ascendant” strategy (which Barack Obama pointedly rejected by the way in both 2008 and 2012) – played a role in Clinton performing so badly with white males and her even losing the white female vote (where Obama did far better with both).

Long story short: Democrats moving further to the left gives occasion for your opponents to move further to the right. It is what the data says: http://www.people-press.org/2017/10/05/the-partisan-divide-on-political-values-grows-even-wider and that is why feigning offense over candidates like Moore will have little utility.

Andrew C. Pope:

No. I am saying that there are more extreme, dangerous and offensive ideologies out there than bigotry and that the left is capable of them. Your refusal to acknowledge this is part and parcel of what has gotten us to this moment.

And as for bigotry: http://politics.blog.ajc.com/2017/08/12/stacey-evans-gets-rocky-reception-at-netroots-conference/

Also: ” is equivalent to saying “cops shouldn’t shoot unarmed black people.””

Look at Black Lives’ Matter’s actual policy agenda shall we? https://policy.m4bl.org/platform/
They want to end incarceration. (In one part they call for an end to private jails … and in another they call for an end to public ones too.) And that is merely the tip of the iceberg. But hey, it is not bigotry so that means that it is not extreme, dangerous or offensive right?