I do not project ‘good’ or ‘evil’ intentions on either political party. Rather, I think most people, in both parties, want what they think is best for this country.
On the right, we view our founding principles as timeless truths to be extended to everyone. The founders, unfortunately, failed to extend freedom and liberty to everyone, and while we recognize the sin of slavery in our past, we believe the way to atone for that sin is to learn from our mistakes, and to treat everyone equally under the law.
On the left, the country’s founding is viewed with scorn. The left generally hates everything our country has ever done or stood for, and wants to radically transform our nation into something it has never been, in order to atone for the sins of our past. The left does not want the law applied the same to everyone, as doing so might lead to unequal results. The left, rather, wants the law applied differently to different people, in order to make up for the sins of the past. Thomas Sowell calls this ‘cosmic justice’, and I think that’s a fitting phrase. The left wants ‘cosmic justice’.
Sadly, the two political sides share no common values, agree on no common facts, and, thanks to different definitions for many words, they no longer even share the same language. We all agree, for example, that racism is evil, but the left and the right have very different definitions for what the word ‘racism’ means – the right using the dictionary definition, in which beliefs regarding racial superiority are ‘racist’, and the left having shifted to ‘prejudice plus power,’ where prejudice is assumed (everyone having at least subconscious prejudice), such that really ‘racism’ simply means ‘power.’
To the left, white people are in power, making white people inherently racist, and unless white people atone for their whiteness, they are evil.
To the right, the notion that white people are inherently racist is the belief that white people are inferior, and that belief is the dictionary definition of ‘racism,’ making, essentially, everyone on the left racist.
On the right, the right of POC to think for themselves, without being derided, even if that means many of them become conservative, is the single greatest civil rights issue of our time.
On the left, the right to kill babies is the single greatest civil rights issue of our time – and POC are expected to tow the Democrat party line, or they are ostracized for life.
Both sides agree that racism is evil, but because both sides use different definitions for the word, both sides view the other as racist, and by extension, evil.
Similar views are held with regard to sexism. The left views men, along with women on the right, as being evil, and the right views modern feminism as the evil rantings of people who, for whatever reason, cannot accept that women are equal to men – and are already treated accordingly under the law.
Similar views are held with regard to ‘patriotism,’ and ‘treason.’ On the right, our founding values are sacrosanct, patriotism is the quest to extend those founding ideals of freedom and liberty, ever further, and treason is the rejection of those founding ideals (and specifically the rejection of the Constitution).
On the left, patriotism is the understanding that our nation is a part of the Western, white patriarchy, and the belief that this racist, sexist society must be brought down, such that something new and fair can take its place. The left views the Constitution as a ‘living document’ that says whatever the times need it to say, and as such, following the Constitution, as written, threatens the ‘living’ version of the Constitution, and becomes a treasonous act.
Based on the definitions both sides use, the other side is both inherently unpatriotic, and guilty of treason.
Why does the left hate Trump so much? Because he espouses a love of our founding ideals, and does so unapologetically. Everything else they say about him is political theatre. Trump has faults (some of which are glaring), but every President we have ever had has had faults, as will every President we will ever have in the future. Everyone has faults. The left’s singular focus on Trump’s faults, and their obsession with making those faults seem far worse than they really are (and to constantly create new faults), is based on Trump’s unapologetic love for our founding ideals, and his desire to expand those ideals to every legal resident.
Even the notion of ‘legal resident’ has become polarized. Ten years ago, we all agreed that illegal immigration was a problem that needed to be addressed. Now, the left calls the phrase ‘illegal immigration’ racist, in spite of the fact that illegal immigrants come from all over the world. On the right, in the meantime, the left’s belief that all illegal immigrants are from Mexico (and that anything aimed against illegal immigration is also aimed against everyone from Mexico) is racist, and the right can point to opinion polls of legal immigrants from Mexico – most of whom agree with us.
Nancy Pelosi has gone so far as to call the right of illegal aliens to vote ‘the civil rights issue of our time,’ which means that Nancy Pelosi puts the right for illegal aliens to vote, right up there with the right to kill babies.
Eventually, we will either have to find common ground, or one side will simply have to force its will upon the other, with no regard for what the other side thinks. In other words, we are, for all intents and purposes, in a non-shooting civil war.
We look at all events through prisms. Robert Mueller, for example, held a press conference yesterday, in which he said he could neither exonerate Trump for obstruction of justice, nor recommend charging him with obstruction of justice. This is after saying the same thing in his report, and after telling William Barr that insufficient evidence exists to warrant a charge of obstruction.
What we are left with is a report, and a special prosecutor, who says that insufficient evidence of obstruction exists, but that it is up to Congress to decide whether or not to take actions against the President. That’s all, of course, true, and Congress does not have to abide by the same rules that a court of law does. Congress is fully in it’s power to impeach the President on obstruction of justice, even if the evidence of obstruction does not warrant charging the President with obstruction.
Congress can impeach any President, any time it wants. The same it true for Supreme Court Justices, and members of Congress – Congress can impeach anyone, at any time, without having to follow any particular standards of justice.
The Senate does have to follow some semblance of justice, in terms of hearings, when looking at whether or not to remove someone who has been impeached, from office, but Senators are free to ignore all of that when voting on whether or not to remove someone, which makes the whole semblance of justice a mirage, unless Congress views its role as non-partisan, which is no longer possible.
As a result, we can expect to see impeachment become a part of the normal political process, with each party trying to impeach members of the other party, not only in the hopes of removing people from office, but also in the hopes of affecting future elections.
Furthermore, should the left ever have the power to do so (which would require both houses of Congress, the Presidency, and a majority on the Supreme Court – which Democrats say they will get by expanding the size of the Supreme Court), the left is going to run an investigation to see how it was that a racist, like Trump, could ever have been elected. The answer they will come up with is that privileged people have too much power, and that we have to take intersectionality into account when counting votes, such that those who lack privilege have the same level of political power as those who have privilege.
And at that point, the non-shooting civil war will turn into a shooting one.
Now – I want to make it clear that I am not calling for a civil war. What I am calling for is a return to civil dialog, based on a common set of facts, and a common set of definitions. Sadly, while I think the right is by and large willing to do that, I don’t think the left is, and while it takes both sides in a conflict to agree to have peace, it only takes one side to decide to have war.
The left wants war against what they perceive as evil. Once the right wants the same, our country is finished.
