When it comes to politics, the tips are not made of the same meat as the rest of the wing. The demographics of the supporters show that it’s some sort of white meat, but it’s not clear just what sort, hence the mystery.
In the traditional right/left spectrum in America, the people who lean to one side or the other are called conservatives and liberals, respectively. But some people don’t just lean, they fall over, and this makes them qualitatively different.
Despite being on opposite extremes in one sense, these radicals are united by a shared political style: populism. But they often hide behind misleading terminology that allows them to deflect criticism, generally by sounding like they’re not extremists. This rant is mostly about calling them what they are instead of allowing them to maintain their disguise.
The correct term for the extreme right—whether it’s the hard right, far right, or the trendy alt right—is not conservative. The literally correct term is fascist. Of course, this word has long applied to the lunatic fringe: the neo-Nazis, neo-Confederates, Birchers, and many libertarians.
Back then, these people were taken for granted by the mainstream Republicans—after all, it’s not like they could vote for the other party—and pointedly excluded from public events because they are embarrassing nuts.
The Republicans would still feed them red meat in the form of dog whistles and tacit support for bigotry. But they maintained plausible deniability by pretending that their actions were in the service of high-minded, bland-sounding, abstract principles such as small government or individual responsibility or states’ rights.
Conveniently, the social programs they attacked so as to harm minorities were the very same ones that the oligarchy hated. In this way, poor and middle-class white people were tricked into supporting policies that helped only the rich. It was a con, and it worked.
That con is no longer necessary. Where it once would have been hyperbole to call the Republicans, as a whole, fascists, things have changed. There are still conservatives in the party, particularly among the voters, but the people in charge are overt fascists.
Trump, Miller, Bannon: not one of these is a conservative in any sense. They are not defined by their caution about radical changes or their adherence to tradition. They’re just goose-stepping fascist scum.
Now, particularly outside of America, but increasingly even inside, fascists are often referred to as nationalists and populists. Trump even bragged about his nationalism. This is accurate, but doesn’t tell the full story. The source of confusion is that both of these terms also fit the other side: the left-wing extremists.
In America, the far left refers to itself as progressive, which is misleading in many ways. The biggest problem is that the term is sometimes used by actual liberals, due to the history of Reagan turning the l-word into a slur. Since the rise of St. Bernard, socialism has also been embraced as a label, but it’s not necessarily socialism in any Marxist sense, except when it is.
It’s also misleading in that it omits their populism, which is what distinguishes them from liberals, even more so than their extremism. Whereas liberals are equally focused on social and economic justice, left-pops give lip service to the former but care only about the latter. They are also nationalists, although more isolationist than expansionist.
Populism is a style of politics that entails both rhetorical and policy commitments, and is overlaid on top of political extremism on both ends. The rhetoric defines supporters as the only legitimate representation of “the people”; the ones who actually matter. Invariably, these special people are primarily white and male and otherwise non-minority.
Populism demands radicalism, activism, and ideological purity, and has no respect for experience, objectivity, or competence. There is no room for progress, only immediate, revolutionary change, and it doesn’t matter that revolutions always kill people. Populism denigrates the competent people as “the Establishment” and insists that, due to a willingness to compromise to get things done, they are inherently corrupt. This is ironic, as populism is, in practice, strongly associated with corruption.
While the populist right deserves to be called fascist, there is no equally handy term for the populist left. As I’ve written elsewhere, socialism is inherently ambiguous, and it since become a boogie man used by the Republican fascists as a cudgel against all Democrats, even the liberal base. But there is clearly a constellation of left-populist associations, which include such things as the Justice Democrats, Our Revolution, the Democratic Socialists of America, the Young Turks, and Bernie Sanders, and they need a name.
Aside from the generic left-populist, the best term I’ve found is based on their parallel with the Tea Party Movement, which is the right-populist faction that took over the RNC. Taking over the DNC is the stated goal of the left-pops, which is why some of us call them the Herbal Tea Party.
But you don’t have to love or use that term, unless you want to. You do have to distinguish between conservatives and fascists, and between liberals and leftists. That’s because extremism is an entirely different beast, no matter which extreme.
Nice summary. I tend to rely on “right-wing extremists” and “left-wing extremists” to reinforce the parallel dangers between the two. Their goals may be different, but their tactics and methods are very similar, and that makes them both a danger to a democratic, pluralistic society.
Craig, the big risk is that they overcome their differences to focus on their common enemy.
(I have https://medium.com/@CRA1G/justice-the-democrats-unifying-plank-42b8a862e6f4 in an open tab.)
But what you call “left-wing extremist”, I call “centrist” (e.g., from a Scandinavian point of view). Let’s move the Overton window a bit?
Peter, that’s false in a few ways. Briefly:
1. Their views are not centrist, even in Nordic nations. They have actual, working systems for such things as universal healthcare. The left-populists have pipe dreams that aren’t even mathematically possible, much less practical.
2. What defines the left-populists isn’t how far they are to the left, but how crazy they are. They’re often not so left-wing on issues where they align with wypipo interests, like guns.
3. The Overton window is defined by edges, not distribution. Fascism is now within the Overton window, but the left hasn’t moved to the right. The window is just bigger.
Bernie is extreme left? Maybe it would help if you define your terms a bit more precisely (and if Bernie is extreme left, some examples of the extremism … as far as I can tell, he hasn’t called for an up-against-the-wall-with-them style of revolution).
PeterL: My perception is that Bernie is a liberal populist overall, but center-right on certain issues (e.g., guns and racial politics). I don’t find his big-plank issues to be extremist, really — he’s not advocating nationalizing banks or hospitals, let alone ending capitalism. Free-for-all education and healthcare are actually fairly mainstream ideas among the left here in the US…we just are terrible at getting enough politicians elected to make those things happen. IMO, the biggest problem the US has is the religious extremism that makes a lot of people more open to fascist ideas, especially when “wrapped in the flag and carrying a Bible.”
Uh, Craig, he HAS advocated for nationalizing banks and utilities.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/14/politics/kfile-bernie-nationalization/index.html
But, yes, he’s only left-wing selectively. His populism sometimes aligns him with white-specific issues, such as opposition to gun control.
I’m not interested in candidates’ positions from 40 years ago…they’re irrelevant.
Perhaps they’d be irrelevant if he walked those positions back at some point, or if he didn’t like playing ambiguity games between social democracy and democratic socialism.
As it stands, it’s an example of a truly extreme view that he has publicly advocated for. We now have to decide whether he’s changed his mind or just decided to keep his mouth shut.
Peter:
In fact, Bernie has called for nationalization through confiscation. That’s extreme.
And, as I tried to explain before, it’s not that he’s so far to the left (although he is, selectively), it’s that he’s extreme about them.
For example, universal healthcare is not extreme, but making all private health insurance illegal overnight is.
Excellent post. Well said. I agree.
So, making all private healthcare illegal over a period of years is OK? And your complaint about the “radical left” is mainly that they’re impatient?
As for nationalizing banks (but no permanently), this seems to have been a better solution than the more “centrist” approach that the US gov’t took: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_banking_rescue
Peter, no, it’s still dumb. I favor pitting the public and (highly-regulated) private options against each other and letting the market — meaning the people — decide.
If Medicare wins out, so be it. If it fails, so be it. Most likely, there’ll be an equilibrium, with private insurance continuing to compete directly as well as offer supplements for premium care.
The competition will keep all parties honest. We know how bad under-regulated private insurance is, but we also know that, as in the case of VA hospitals, being public is no guarantee of quality.
Nobody has an absolute right for their business model to be sustained, but then again, making a business illegal is a radical move that isn’t justified in this case, and has downsides beyond the jobs destroyed.
To remind you, nationalization of banks and utilities is about STEALING these assets from the current owners. That’s about as radical as you can get.
The experiment of medicare vs private has been done in Canada, and medicare won. If the experiment is tried in the US, I’m pretty sure the private companies will game the system (via their lobbyists) to help themselves (e.g., dumping the expensive cases on the public system).
The VA example is only for a small portion of the population and the voters don’t care about it. If everything is public, the voters will care
Peter, I did say *regulated* private insurance. Among these regulations are ones which prevent cherry-picking/dumping. While concern about cheating is reasonable, assuming that it will succeed is not.
Besides, according to you own example, I’m right. In Canada, over a quarter of healthcare is paid for by private insurance, mostly to supplement public insurance. In fact, three quarters of Canadians have private insurance, usually through an employer. Sounds familiar? To me, it sure sounds like the ACA with the Public Option.
Canada even tried to make private insurance illegal, but that did not withstand legal challenges.
I rest my case.
As far as I know, private insurance in Canada is for things not covered by public insurance and for supplements, such as private rooms in hospitals.
e.g.: https://www.surehealth.ca/pages/bc-health-coverage.html
But the stuff that will cost you real $$$s is covered by public coverage.
There is no such thing as Canadian health insurance; it’s run by the provinces, although the differences are fairly minor. And the legal challenge against disallowing private insurance was in Quebec.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Canada#Private_sector
BTW, when you say “competition” in healthcare, what do you mean? As far as I can tell, there’s next to no competition in the US; in Canada there’s competition in everything except price (which is nearly impossible to figure out in the US anyway).
And what do you think about Sweden’s nationalization of the banks? Was that too radical?
Peter:
I’m not sure how the details you add about Canada are relevant.
Competition means you can get insurance from one source or another, so if the one you have now has poor coverage or high fees or other defects, you can shop around for a better one. You’re not stuck with it, the way you would be if there were no alternatives.
Without competition, nothing stops future governments from diluting public healthcare coverage. If you don’t like it, you’re hosed. With competition, there’s pressure on all parties to provide value. Imagine if the VA hospitals had to compete against private alternatives; perhaps fewer veterans would die while waiting for treatment.
The Swedish example is completely irrelevant to what BS wants.
Public health insurance has competition; it’s called “elections”.
Anyway, my original question was: what’s so radical about single-payer health insurance? So far, you don’t seem to have given an answer. And it’s not clear to me that the jobs that would be “destroyed” (to use your words) are beneficial; they just add 15% administrative costs to the system compared to other countries, and enrich the insurance companies’ CEOs.
Given that most other countries can provide better healthcare at lower cost than the US, I hardly think that things like single payer are “radical” by any reasonable definition of the word. So, I’m still puzzled by what you mean by “radical left”, unless you mean “impatient progressives”. (Leaving out the obvious lunatic fringe, such as Maoists, Stalinists, etc.)
Elections are precisely the problem. All it takes is one win for the right-wingers and our insurance goes away.
What’s radical about single-payer insurance is that it’s removing all private insurance, and for no purpose. What we actually want is universal healthcare, and that can be achieved by adding the Public Option to the ACA, not putting all private health insurance companies out of business overnight.
As for pricing, there’s no evidence that it would be lower under single-payer. The way to lower costs is by regulating, and that’s an option we have regardless.
Pay attention: this entire rant is about the radical left and radical right.
So far, elections haven’t removed health insurance in any country that I’m aware of, even when the right-wingers have taken control. (Although both Canada’s and the UK’s healthcare systems are yet to recover from years of “conservative” austerity.)
I agree that a Public Option added to the ACA (plus removal of the crazy complications of the ACA) is a reasonable way to go. (That’s essentially what happened in Canada, but starting with a much less complex ACA.)
But I’m still struggling to understand your definition of “radical left”; it seems that your definition of “radical” is mainstream in many places.
Under Trump, the ACA has taken a beating, but it has yet to be removed.
The radical left is the populist left that this post is about.
So, your comment on “radical” is not about the specific policy proposals but in the beliefs that they’re the One True Solution?
Peter:
Mostly. Sometimes it’s their simplistic adherence to a single, extreme alternative, such as replacing all health insurance with Medicare. Generally, what makes them radical is that they place zero value on what currently exists, even when it serves important needs despite being imperfect. They have no fear of making things worse; they’ve demonized the status quo to the point that they literally cannot imagine the disaster that a radical change is capable of causing.
Deli:
Then you would label groups like the Cato Institute, Federalist Society, The Heritage Foundation, Americans for Tax Reform, etc. as “radicals”? They seem to have simplistic adherence to single narrow beliefs.