Link, and an excerpt - italics added:
A Conservative Is A Conservative, Whether He Calls Himself A Republican Or A Democrat And It Doesn't Matter If He Passes Himself Off As A "Moderate"-- They Own All Society's Problems
The two parties aren't "the same." Democrats aren't the same as Republicans. There are some good Democrats. There are no good Republicans. The identity politics Democratic politicians play-- pro-woman, pro-gay, anti-racism, for example-- is better, way better, than the identity politics Republicans play. As for corruption... well corruption is part of, and even lionized by, conservatism. Liberals at least feel guilty about their own corruption, for whatever that's worth.
When he was younger than I am now, my grandfather told me that the only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican. I'd say he hit that one out of the park. A few days ago, The Independent published an OpEd by North Carolina academics Kevin Singer and Alyssa Rockenbach, People worry that 'moderate' Democrats like Joe Biden are the same as Republicans. Our study suggests they may be right. They offered a new set of criteria to look at politicians. It helps explain why there is so much energy around the Republicans for Biden movement right now and so much more enthusiasm from that direction than from progressives, who generally dislike him less than they dislike Trump [...] deceiving themselves into thinking they will be able to have an impact on his neoliberal agenda after he's in the White House.
Friday, we put together a ritual denunciation of consevative Democrats-- misnamed "moderates" by the media and misguided academics like Singer and Rockenbach-- who had just accepted, and celebrated, endorsements by the very right-wing U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Singer and Rockenbach, though, address the idealization of "moderatism" as the ultimate political virtue. "When it comes to addressing climate change," they wrote, "Eric Levitz of New York Magazine argued that 'a major [obstacle] is the tendency of moderate Democrats to mistake their own myopic complacency for heroic prudence.' Political researcher David Adler found that across Europe and North America, centrists are the least supportive of democracy, the least committed to its institutions, and the most supportive of authoritarianism. Furthermore, Adler found that centrists are the least supportive of free and fair elections as well as civil rights-- in the United States, only 25 percent of centrists agree that civil rights are an essential feature of democracy. This finding dovetails with observations made by Martin Luther King Jr. in his letter from Birmingham Jail: 'I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the… great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Councilor or the Klu Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice.' Even Arthur Books, a self-avowed moderate, admits to 'the failure of the mainstream, moderate, progressive formula for how to create a more equal pluralist America,' adding, 'I’m a moderate guy, but the evidence doesn’t support moderation when it comes to racial equity.' That’s all well and good. But what does the data show?"
They reported on a study of beliefs and attitudes of college students across the country (IDEALS) and found that "as America battles a global pandemic and an economic collapse and reckons with systemic racism, IDEALS suggests that moderate men may be the least likely to make a positive difference.
-------------snip-------------
That moderate men most resemble Republicans has been confirmed, of all places, on dating apps. Brittany Wong of HuffPost writes, “It’s almost become a coastal cliche at this point: If someone lists their political views as ‘moderate’ on a dating app, the thinking goes, go ahead and assume the person is a conservative.” [...]
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has grown increasingly frustrated with moderate Democrats during her tenure, saying at a recent event, “The Democratic Party is not a left party. The Democratic Party is a center or a center-conservative party.” Her [ex] chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, recently deleted a tweet comparing two moderate Democrat coalitions-- consisting mostly of men-- to Southern Democrats who favored segregation and opposed civil rights. During this election cycle, a recurring criticism of Vice President Biden has been his record on school desegregation.
Have a nice Labor Day weekend. The day itself - In a cursory and wholly token-ceremonial way celebrates the only day of the year labor gets anything but imposed grinding class warfare from and by the rich, instigated since before Rome and still going; with the whine from that quarter being of ingratitude with clucking scripts from "think tanks" about economy, natural law, founder intent, order, and instigation of conflict. Each script a lie. An occasional half-truth.
If you read "rule of law" text or hear the term, clutch your wallet or coin purse. The reach is imminent.
Run the other way.
They'll get you anyway. But buy time.
The rich take it. As theirs all along. And will do it again. Forever if having their way. Holding your health and sheltered hunger-survival at bay. In hostage.
Peasants through history have always been scoped by the aristocrats as on the verge of rebellion requiring its being put down by brutality before it might even start. Brutality and guile.
Bless Mitch McConnell. A sort of Sheriff of Nottingham. Bless Rand Paul. Bloomberg.
---
Again, best wishes for the weekend to sentient people.