One thing John Hinderaker has “never figured out is why, if the Republicans represent only an ‘extremist fringe,’” as claims a certain Mr. A. Arnold Gore, Jr., in a fundraising letter for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), “there is such a grave danger that they will win a majority of the votes in this year’s presidential election.
Does seem some folks on the left are beholden to the notion of the Republican Party as run by a cabal of extremists. And wonder if their prejudiced read on the GOP compromises its ability to reach out to people dissatisfied with the Democrats.
And compromising that ability is certainly part of the reason folks like Mr. Gore call the GOP extreme.
Dan, I have an easy answer for you. To a liberal, being liberal is being a Communist. A liberal believes they are moderate, moderates are conservatives, and Conservatives are fire breathing killers, racists, sexists, ageists, and every other ism on the planet.
Or, as the old saying goes: “Conservatives believe liberals are misguided. Liberals believe conservatives are evil.”
The Liberals love to make-out the GOP as dangers to the Republic and the Constitution, yet;
– Who passed the 1918 Sedition Act? Democrats.
-Who issued Exec. Order 602 confiscating private gold at 60-cents-on-the-dollar in 1933? Democrats.
– Who passed the 1940 Smith Act? Democrats.
– Who issued Exec. Oder 9066 interning AND dispossessing American Citizens in 1942? Democrats.
– Who opened the legally-protected US Census records for the names AND addresses of American Citizens for surveillance and possible internal-deportation? Democrats.
Read this article BEFORE you fill-out that “confidential” US Census form next-time. There is no confidentiality from your own Guv’mint!
“They” don’t even need a court-order to open your bank-records and credit-card statements anymore…
I am consistently amused by assertions that moderate Republicans are an endangered species when every Republican presidential candidate since 1988 has been from the party’s moderate wing.
Blue Dog Democrats are disappearing at an alarming rate, and the Democrat President is the most radical left-winger in a American history; yet no one mourns the extinction of moderate Democrats.
This is not confined to the U.S. the radical left in many parts refer to conservatives as extremists. In El Salvador any national legislator of the FMLN will always call conservatives ¨extremistas.¨ I think they think it makes the left and their agenda look centrist. Imagin Nancy Pelosi, Barabara Boxer, or a citizen like Michael Moore, publicly saying, ¨I´m a radical leftist.¨ That´ll be either a cold day in hell or an eight point earthquake..
Also, it’s easier to dismiss your opponents as “extreme” than it is to debate their ideas… for progressives.
We have to remember that part of the game is the battle over the vocabulary, coming up with the right word to make things sound plausible to most of the people. Which is better, “marriage equality” of “same-sex marriage”? “Fetus” or “unborn child”? And “right-wing extremist” or “left-wing extremist”? To be honest, I’ve never heard anyone being called a “left-wing extremist,” but they want to be called “progressives” since in 1988, George H. W. Bush used the word “liberal” so often and so effectively that no one to this day wants to be branded as a “liberal.”
“Conservatives believe liberals are misguided. Liberals believe conservatives are evil.”
Liberals are steadily persuading me to reevaluate that benign view of liberals.
Proud to be an extremist. Insert Goldwater quote: it depends on *what* you are being an extremist for. “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
It doesn’t help that when you scratch one, you usually find a radical leftist underneath. Just one who can’t (or won’t) admit it. Stupak, and the DLC types (including the Clintons), supported Obamacare.
ILC
I concur on both. Clinton joined the Blue Dogs while Governor of Arkansas because it painted him as a moderate for his future run for the WH. Once elected he swerved to the extreme left and Hillary showed her colors with Hillarycare. Then he moved to the middle after Newt and his Contract With America took over the Congress. Hillary as Secretary of State is a gun grabber. Even thogh the U.N didn´t obtain a consensus in the Small Arms Treaty, another one is in the works for next month. (If we could only have John Bolton back as UN Ambassador) In spite of Bill´s friendship with the Bushes he is critical of Republicans and I heard he will be the keynote speaker at the Dems Convention. He needs to support Obama to cement Hillary´s campaign in 2016.