Scary Radicals
August 16, 2020
So now that Kamala Harris has been selected to be the Democratic Vice Presidential candidate, it seems like the tactic that the right-wing nutjobs have settled on is to label the establishment democrat ticket as a “radical left wing” threat. As far as tactics go, I guess it’s better than going all-out racist/sexist, but it demonstrates just how far the alt-right regressives have highjacked our political dialogue and wrestled it WAY over to the fascist side.
I wish the Democratic talking heads on the Sunday morning political circuit would implement a two-pronged approach to refute the ridiculous attack.
Go on the offensive. The United States government is currently run by radical alt-right wingnuts who believe and/or promote QAnonsense. Label them as the tinfoil-hat wearers they are. Call them the Pizzagate party. Call them the anti-science/flat earth party. Call them the police brutality party. Call them the Fourth Reich. Because that’s what they are. THAT is (or should be) what most U.S. citizens consider crazy/radical.
Emphasize that it’s not “radical” to want to protect Social Security and the Post Office, both of which the Radical Alt-Right wants to dismantle. The Biden/Harris ticket is as “radical left” as FDR, who brought the country out of the Great Depression by funding programs that created decent-paying, respectable jobs while building national infrastructure for everyone. They’re as “radical left” as FDR when he created the vital Social Security program that most older Americans rely on—and which radical Republicans are trying to defund. The Biden/Harris ticket is as “radical left” as LBJ, who signed the Civil Rights Act and established Medicare and Medicaid programs—which the radical Republicans are trying to abolish. The Biden/Harris ticket is as “radical left” as JFK, who nearly 60 years ago lamented that the United States was way behind other first-world countries when it came to providing decent healthcare to its citizens. They are “radical left” in the same way as all other Democratic presidential administrations that have built up the economy and raised the standard of living for U.S. citizens after increasingly radical right-wing Republicans have taken steps to gut the middle class in order to appease the wealthy.
It’s frustrating watching the Democratic political pundits just roll over and let their right-wing counterparts smear the Biden/Harris ticket as something scary and radical, which it most certainly is not. For this coming election, we need to appeal to the better nature of all U.S. citizens to win. Right now the right-wing nutjobs are hijacking the narrative and moving the Overton Window even more hard to the right. We’re never going to persuade the true QAnon believers/Cult45 members to believe in equality and decency and the basic constraints of reality, but hopefully rational, traditional conservatives will realize that the choice is between moderate Democrats who want to preserve a democracy for all, or a white supremacist/conspiracy-theory-addled/flat-earth movement. In November, people are going to have to pick a side. For the next few months, I hope that the Democratic talking heads can use the appropriate language to help decent people recognize who are the real “radicals” threatening democracy as we know it, and make a better choice.
