I wonder at the current polarity in politics. It's not about government overreach, more or less, like when I was growing up. Reagan was an elderly man who saw the government explode. He thought maybe it was too much, not like when he was growing up. Smaller or bigger. The culture wars were not as pronounced, though I guess they were beginning in the rhetoric.
Now DeSantis is trying to be a thought police in colleges, schools and libraries, but to his mind he's just trying to be free of the liberal ideology. The culture war has advanced past the smaller or larger government to how and what the government does.
Both sides seem like flaming hypocrites to the other side. Conservatives think they're ridding the government of a anti-semite, when what they're doing is enforcing their politics. Progressive Jewish people don't feel protected from anti-semitism. But Ilhan Omar is pro-Palestine, and like so much in politics either you're a hawk or a panda. Either you hate China too much or you love China too much. Either you hate Palestine or you hate Israel.
There's no trying to make peace, be reasonable, there's always spinning. The Jewish people in my neighborhood are anti-taxation, and therefore conservative, even if it's a proven fact that conservatives are no less taxing or fiscally responsible. They voted for the Republican running against Hochul, a centrist, and the far right Trump lover in Zedlin. All this talk about socialism and we're so far right. What's the opposite of socialism? What's the word of abuse for that? It's fascism. They're railroading the people against their interest, or narrow and gerrymandered majorities, gaming the system. Look at the supreme court, you can't say that's a representative of America, it's a cheated majority for the right, with unqualified and criminal right wing justices, and highly qualified and intelligent left wing justices, such that it's illegitimate.
DeSantis isn't having less government, he's just deploying it alone the lines of conservative interests, and fighting an ideological battle, with college purges and witch hunts like the cold war. Trump is more of a trying to charm the populace, DeSantis has no charm, he's an intelligent machiavellian, who is trying to get his way in the ideological fight, culture wars.
What is missing in all this is that there are personality types, and political leaning is something that's not really right or wrong, it's just your way of seeing things, and there's a kind of dialectic based on something, hopefully reason, but less and less so because the right doesn't feel like it can truly win a rational discussion, even though they can and do. I really believe in the dialectic of right and left, but I find that because I'm left personality and psychology, that I find the right very very threatening, hypocritical, regressive, tribalistic, and just really poorly run--the conservatives feel the same way about the left, and we can't even really talk to each other any more, nobody wants to talk any more, or persuade or reason, it's just who can wrestle power and do as much as they can.
There's no sense that the pendulum will swing back the other way. All the republicans that were created during the great depression and FDR. All the left wing people that are created by Reagan, Bushes. Clinton was more of a Republican than Nixon was. The right was practically socialist in today's terms, and yet the government has become a money sucking sprawling monster. People fight about how the money is spent and conservatives don't want it spent on progressive ideas and values of multiculturalism and inclusion and empathy, they want might makes right accumulation of wealth, doing great things, discipline and virtue.
Both sides over reach and both sides disappoint it's base, and both sides are trying to get their way forever and not do the dialectical dance. We just seem to be getting angrier and angrier at the other side, or walk away and say we're not interested in politics because we can't get our way.
I saw an article for conservatives that Sorros pays for fact checkers. They say Trump wouldn't allow for Chian balloons over America. But there were 3. So maybe facts could help them get past their ideological venting and tune more into reality.
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