The Left Wing Left and The Right’s Wrong
Birds or Nations, One Wingers Can’t Fly
There are problems that only conservatism can resolve and others that demand a liberal approach. Then there are those issues that demand equal parts of each. Having a worldview that’s either leftwing or rightwing is analogous to attempting a cross-country drive by turning the same way at every intersection you encounter — you end up going in circles. A bird with only one working wing soon falls prey to a predator. A nation always leaning left changes too much and gets overwhelmed by the law of unintended consequences. Constant conservatism leads to creeping decay and death by failure to adapt to a constantly changing world.
How does that apply to political parties? Parliamentary systems have issues but are less likely to be hamstrung by partisan bickering. The USA’s two-party system needs two viable parties to avoid the evils of single-party rule. But we humans are wired by evolution to be tribal beasts. With two-party systems like ours, partisan squabbling is inevitable and can lead to political paralysis. Like the kids in the back seat keep repeating, “Are we there yet?”
Maybe so, and here’s why it matters. In a 1960 paper, U.S. cultural anthropologist Elman Rogers Service published “Law of Evolutionary Potential.” He posited that nation-states evolve through stages and that as they become overly adapted to available resources, they become increasingly ossified and unable to accommodate inevitable change, leading to their collapse. I doubt I’m the only one who thinks the USA is becoming less able to withstand the winds of change.
What’s broken enough to need fixing now? Income inequality is now back to the level it hit just before the Great Depression. An economic collapse of that severity is something few Americans would welcome, but our enemies might use it to serve their national interests.
How is income inequality weakening us? Having taken over the U.S. Republic, America’s ruling oligarchs are risking revolution in their insatiable desire to vacuum up all the money Uncle Sam can mint. They’ve bought both parties, letting them stack Congress and the courts with judges determined to impose laissez-faire capitalism on our nation. The Founding Fathers wrote that they established America to “…promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” But Constitution be damned, our billionaires will do their utmost to crush spending on the public good. They do this even though federal spending on the working class soon flows to the corporations the billionaire class owns.
The Right is Wrong
Both parties are beholden to the donor class. That said, the GOP is a wholly-owned subsidiary of corporate America.
We credit Wall Street’s greed and extravagances for creating the Great Depression. In the Gilded Age, America’s wealthiest 0.1% held 25% of all household wealth immediately before the crash. By 1970, that number had plummeted to 10% of all household wealth. The wealthy wanted their money back, and the GOP’s Justice Lewis Powel, plus a team of economic advisers, formulated modern neoliberalism, a plan to accommodate the wealthy’s wishes. Ronald Reagan launched neoliberalism with a long-running series of tax cuts for the rich and lower spending for the common good.
In 2016, Nobel laureate economist Joseph E. Stiglitz wrote: “Snowballing changes to the tax code … over the past 35 years have prioritized tax cuts and subsidies focused on those at the top, placing a greater tax burden on the rest and causing neglect of critical public investments.” That’s why America’s vital infrastructure is rusting and crumbling away.
Since 2016, the carve-outs for the ultra-rich have only grown. Just how much is hard to say because overseas tax shelters make hiding large sums of money ever easier. We can do better than this.
The Left is Loony
Democrats in the 1950s were the party of the commoner. They were pro-union and progressive taxation. But when the Arab Oil Embargo disrupted the U.S. economy during Jimmy Carter’s administration, Republicans sold Jimmy on neoliberalism as the cure for all economic woes. Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and many others spread the new miracle cure in Democratic circles. Third Way Dems turned their back on their working-class base and instead embraced urban professionals. The GOP was quick to appeal to the newly unrepresented blue-collar class.
Clinton switched welfare to workfare, which was of little use to those who needed help because they could not find a job. He also pushed through banking reforms the GOP had not been able to pass, setting the stage for multiple savings and loan and bank collapses.
Third Way Neoliberalism was outlandish enough, but there is more. Perhaps it was due in part to Trump derangement syndrome. Whatever the cause, after George Floyd’s murder, state and city Democrats in the Pacific Northwest and across the U.S. stood silently by while rampaging mobs torched inner cities, looted stores, and even murdered small business owners. Trump won the hearts and minds of law-and-order voters by sending in federal agents to quell the violence.
Then there is the flood of immigration driven by the Climate Crisis. Did Dems still fear that too many voters favored them over the GOP? I don’t know, but for some reason, they lurched from Trump’s xenophobia to what Republican critics very effectively labeled as wide open borders.
I’m a white, elderly male who hates bigotry of any kind. But DEI has been twisted by Dems into apparent prejudice against anyone who isn’t LGBTQA+S, non-white, and perhaps, just perhaps, a white female or two. Biden’s first cabinet picks clearly emphasized DEI more than depth of experience. Republicans are quick to pounce on Democrat’s excesses, and they have done so in spades with the DEI fiasco, demonizing the LGBTQA+S community.
In Closing
I believe in the maxim, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Whenever we “fix” something, we open ourselves to the ravages of the law of unforeseen consequences. But given enough time, everything breaks. Something is breaking daily; when it fails, it’s time to try new ideas.
I’m sure I missed egregious examples of wrongheadedness from both sides, but I wanted to keep this reasonably brief. Please add your pet political peeves in the comments.
Further Reading
- Right Is Wrong: How the Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded the Constitution, and Made Us All Less Safe Audio CD
- Joseph A. Tainter, The Collapse of Complex Societies, Cambridge University Press, 1988–2007
- Franklin Foer, What’s Wrong With the Democrats? “The Atlantic,” July-August 2017
- The Real Progressives
- Economic Murder: How and Why Austerity Kills — Truthdig
I hope you enjoy this essay. If you read & like it, please share it and help more people see it by applauding. Like it a lot? Click & hold Medium’s clapping hands to fast-clap to Medium’s max applause of 50.
If you’re new here and looking to read more great blogs and posts, consider signing up for a Medium membership. It only costs $5 a month, granting you access to everything behind the paywall instead of waiting for the monthly free reads to refresh. Reading as a member ensures that a portion of your pay goes to the writers whose work you enjoy.
To see all of my work on Medium, go to https://jameshollomon.medium.com/.