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Radicals aren’t on the left

To the editor:

A Trump-supporting acquaintance recently asked what I thought really happened at the Capitol last week. Did I think, he wondered, if maybe Antifa was involved? After all, he argued, what would the right stand to gain? What could Trump gain from it?

Honestly, I understand his bafflement; but similarly, what would Antifa gain? After all, Antifa isn’t an entity, it’s a philosophy, a mindset, a belief. Antifa means anti-fascism. Until recently it was America’s default philosophy. Yet he had a point — kinda. What did the insurrectionist pro-Trump terrorists who invaded Congress have to gain? What did Trump?

And yet, they did it, and he urged it.

In a recent debate, former Republican Sen. Kelly Leoffler repeatedly called her opponent, Rafael Warnock, a “radical leftwing Democrat” In a recent condemnation of the president’s demagoguery, Republican Sen. Pat Toomey referred to an “ever-more radicalized left wing Democratic Party.” The idea liberals are radicalized seems to be the boogeyman which so frightens Republicans that they’ve radicalized themselves in response. But here’s the thing.

It’s a lie.

The fact that Joe Biden, the absolute most milquetoast centrist candidate in a field ranging from centrist to center-left Democrats, was selected as the Democratic standard-bearer should be all the evidence anyone needs to recognize the lie. However, beyond that, look at what even the most “radical” in the party wants for the country.

Universal health care is a primary objective of the party’s left wing. That doesn’t mean they want health care for Black people at the exclusion of whites, or for gay people excluding straight ones, or for atheists but not the devout. No, universal means universal – like in every other developed country and some less-fully-developed ones too.

Investment in green tech and a gradual weaning from fossil fuels is another, AKA the Green New Deal. These ideas aren’t radical. It’s not even a manifesto. Built into the proposal is flexibility and a recognition that the shift must be painless, so it includes job training, grants and incentives for individuals who transition. Why do they want this? Because it benefits the economy, the future and the entire world; because the science says it’s necessary.

These and other leftist ideas are meant to benefit everyone, and you’re free to disagree. We won’t hang you for that, or tie you with zip-tie-cuffs or pipe bomb your statehouse. If we were radical, we’d want things like walls to keep people out, cages to imprison otherwise innocent people who frighten us for wanting to share in our largess, a house full of as many weapons as we could (or maybe couldn’t really) afford. If we were radical, we’d hate conservatives and want cops to execute them extrajudicially, while claiming that checks on that abuse is disrespect of law enforcement, while also knowing that if those same police ever blocked our way, we’d crush them on the Capitol steps and beat them with our blue-lives-matter flagpoles.

That’s how you know the left aren’t the radicals. We aren’t the ones doing that.

J. David Core

Toronto

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