Political Left/Right: Shut Up Keep Talking
There’s a fundamental difference between left and right America’s self-interested approaches to political/social discourse. Liberals want conservatives to shut up; conservatives want liberals to keep talking.
Liberals, or “progressives,” tend to hold common political and social assumptions seldom challenged by their peers or national media. Nowhere is there greater uniformity of thought than inside the American left’s insular, ideological bubble. But, conservatives commonly face intramural challenges as well as routine criticism from progressives and most of media.
Fault lines opened during the 1960s when America began funding massive entitlements that incentivized a new, now-nearly-permanent underclass to disregard education, work, sexual responsibility and marriage. Despite expenditures of extraordinary amounts of public money, family structures broke down and schools became dreadful in jurisdictions where government dependents tend to concentrate.
Conservatives believe education, work, and embracing the principles of personal responsibility and social obligation do more to preserve and improve society than liberal social programs. Contrarily, liberals fabricate fanciful “root causes” as alibis for their programs’ unintended consequences, but will not consider that the root causes are not what was done topeople, but what was done ostensibly for them.
Today, challenging any progressive orthodoxy, including welfare, has consequences.
When facing ordinary policy disagreements, liberals attempt, often angrily, to distract, change the subject, dominate the discussion, or, preferably, end it. Progressives mendaciously slander adversaries as “haters,” “racists,” “Nazis,” “homophobes,” “misogynists,” and/or “xenophobes” to delegitimize honest opposition and discourage or stop free expression.
Most liberals never learned that condescension and aggression aren’t persuasive, that mockery, sneering insults and slander aren’t debate. Although they’re never at a loss for words, the American left is effectively out of arguments. The aggressive, angry negativity with which many of them respond to simple disagreement is the proof of it. Why invite opposing opinions or engage in civil discussions when character assassination and “Shut up!” have worked for years?
Thankfully, liberals almost never shut up.
In initial presidential primary debates, Democratic candidates, all liberals desperate to ensure that no one could challenge them from the left, voiced politically-suicidal policy schemes – cancelling private health insurance coverage for 180-250 million, open borders, free comprehensive medical care for illegals, free college and unrestricted abortion on demand.
Conservatives who took notes are also eager to hear more from the new “face” of the Democratic Party, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) whose Green Nude Eel [SIC?] went “splat” several months ago. More recently, AOC confused uninvited illegal border jumpers with Nazi concentration camp victims, and organized a circular House firing squad by defiantly attributing racist motives to Speaker Nancy Pelosi for factual statements about AOC and other Democratic “women of color.”
AOC’s fellow co-socialist newcomers, Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, are Muslims, perceived anti-Semites, outspoken, arguably-anti-American attention-seekers with large social media followings. Conservatives want them all to keep talking, the louder, more incendiary and frequently, the better.
Vocal, overbearing (especially office-holding or office-seeking) progressives are pure political gold for heartland and swing state conservatives, because regular Americans – “deplorables” – dislike unpleasant, condescending scolds.
