Why the Rise in Right Wing Violence?

By Dom Nozzi

I had a conversation with someone about the protest at the Federal Capitol building in DC in January 2021. He said that the event was a “shock to the system of democracy by the action of ‘insurgents,’ and we need to take a close look at why and how the event happened, to prevent it from happening again.”

He asked how I felt about it.

I told him that I believe the media, as it always does, created mass hysteria way beyond what was justified for the protest in DC. Millions of Americans, as a result, now falsely believe that the US government nearly collapsed or was nearly taken over by “American Nazis.”

There was never even the smallest chance that there was any threat to the Federal government due to that protest. Had it been Black Lives Matter or Antifa activists, the media would have either praised it or ignored it. Neither CNN, MSNBC, NYT, or the Washington Post would have told us it was an “insurrection” if those groups had done something similar. For example, I did not even know until a few weeks ago that Black Lives Matter activists engaged in violent protests in DC several months ago.

Once again, an extreme double standard.

“Shock to the system of democracy”? “Insurgents”? Hearing my friend use these terms, I had to wonder which news source he was quoting? CNN? MSNBC? NYT? Washington Post?

Why do I think the protest happened? How do we prevent it from happening again?

I am certain that no Democrat will have even the faintest clue about knowing why it happened or how to prevent right-wing radicalism. Why will the Democratic Party members have no clue? Because one of the reasons membership in Proud Boys, white supremacy groups, Nazi groups, alt-right groups, etc. is exploding (and why Trump won in 2016 and nearly won again in November) is that the wokesters and Social Justice Warriors and Antifa and many in the Democratic Party have spent several years unfairly vilifying or punishing or imprisoning or convicting or ruining white males.

What is the inevitable result of this disgusting Ends-Justify-the-Means game?

A game where zombie activists employ cruel, blatantly unfair “identity politics” tactics – tactics that throw away merit or competence in favor of giving preference to black people simply because of their skin color or women simply because of their gender? A game where demands are issued to punish all white males, regardless of their guilt or innocence?

I will tell you.

This form of group guilt – practiced by the Soviets when they targeted the wealthy as Enemies of the People – inevitably and understandably results in extreme resentment. Who would not be resentful if they worked hard for much of their life and developed superior skills, only to see themselves passed over by less competent people in the name of a useless concept such as “diversity”?

We should not be surprised, then, to see a rise in violence by resentful white males who have started joining right-wing groups, and started voting for people like Trump and those like him.

A leading cause of the ruinous group guilt totalitarianism by zombies on the political left is adopting the “Cultural Marxism” ideology. Cultural Marxism is the idea that revolutionary progress requires that we split society into two groups: The Oppressed, and The Oppressors. The former group (largely blacks, women, low-income people, and sexual minorities) must be rewarded and promoted regardless of merit. The latter group (largely or exclusively white males) must be punished and disparaged regardless of guilt.

Similarly, “identity politics” lead society to punish or reward based not on merit but on whether you have the “correct” skin color or gender, or are “correctly” low income. We must thank Democrats and such opinion leaders as university professors for being the cause of a big jump in popularity in far right groups who push for and have adopted unfair policies to create “diversity” and affirmative action.

In his “I Have a Dream” speech, Martin Luther King stated that “I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” Today, Cultural Marxists have adopted the reverse of King’s inspirational and highly equitable statement, because they push the idea that we should judge people based on the color of their skin (or their gender or sexual orientation or income level). We should — these Cultural Marxists insist — discriminate based on skin color and gender and income and sexual orientation. We should, in other words, let the glorious ends justify unfair means. We should believe that two wrongs make a right.

“Race hustlers” are people who project themselves into the media spotlight as spokespersons whenever there is an alleged racial incident that involves their race. They expliot a racial situation to serve their own interests, rather than sincerely dedicating themselves to advances of the racial group.  Race hustlers promote a form of Cultural Marxism by advocating that America oppresses black people due to “systemic racism,” even though there is no meaningful evidence of such a thing in American society. Indeed, a strong case can be made today that there is quite a bit of reverse discrimination (which again breeds resentment for white males).

Race hustler activists have mostly abandoned the idea of having blacks focus – as individuals — on improving quality of their character, as called for by King and Booker T. Washington. How is character improved? By promoting education rather than disparaging it. By promoting a healthy and assimilating culture rather than pushing separatism (or “redneck” culture, as Thomas Sowell has put it – a concept I will describe later in this book).

These character improvements are known to be effective ways to achieve a successful adult life.

Instead, the race hustler activists largely call for political agitation and confrontation, along the lines of Malcom X, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and W.E.B. Du Bois.

In sum, how do we reduce the membership in these far right groups? Or reduce violence from the right? Or reduce the number of people who engage in “protest” voting for people like Trump?

Very simple: Bring back fairness. Bring back preference based on merit. Eliminate “diversity” efforts. Eliminate affirmative action. Get rid of Identity Politics. Stop hiring or promoting or electing or selecting people simply because they have black skin or female gender or politically correct sexual orientation.

What did new president Joe Biden do in his first few weeks as president in 2020? He appointed a large number of blacks and women and sexual minorities to top Federal posts. Only the naïve or partisan can believe that these appointments were more based on competence rather than identity.

Will fairness and merit return our society to where it was before our society lurched into Cultural Marxism? No, because each of these unfair, ends-justify-the-means tactics are powerful vote-getting tools for the Democratic Party.

Coincidentally, I just picked up a book at the library today. The author – Jason Riley — is a black man and his book is titled: “Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed.”

I am proud to learn, on occasion, that some consider my views “extreme.” We live in an age with a very large population of wokesters and Social Justice Warriors and Black Lives Matter activists and Antifa zombies.

Those are the real “extremists.”

Since when is it “extremist” to insist on fairness and merit? It seems to me that the “extremists” are the cult-like, tribal left-wing fundamentalists who are today assigning all people to one of two groups: Oppressors and the Oppressed.

Like in the Soviet Union, that can only lead to a big rise in violence, divisiveness, purging, and misery.

But it will be done “heroically.”

Biden Will Continue to Pursue His Right-Wing Agenda as President

By Dom Nozzi

I’ve long agreed with Jimmy Dore and Joe Rogan: Biden is far worse than Trump.

This much is certain: Biden has a long track record of being right of center politically — including being extremely militaristic. Biden and apologist Dems will surely be pointing to the failure of the Senate to flip to a Dem majority, and the Dems losing seats in the House as the excuse as to why he is not pushing or adopting progressive policies.

The reality, for those of us paying attention, is that Biden will continue his several-decade legacy of pushing a right-wing agenda because he and his donors are on the political right.

The COVID-19 Pandemic, the Unreliability of Media, and Corruption by Tribal Politics

By Dom Nozzi

Can we get reliable information about the pandemic of 2020?

My worry is that the mainstream media is so corrupt (so single-mindedly focused on terrifying us and outraging us to maximize their revenue), that we are now living in a world where it is extremely difficult to know what information is trustworthy or whether there is a general consensus or not on issues such as this.

The media has very little incentive to report news — even if accurate — that reduces terror or outrage. The reporting on the pandemic would be far different if there was no profit motive on the part of the media.

This issue has been significantly politicized. We need to make it much less political. Mostly because we are far less able to differentiate truth from fiction when the issue becomes politicized.

One thing I’ve learned over the years is that it is possible to have TOO MUCH safety (or to go too far regarding safety measures). For example, I believe it has now been clearly demonstrated that over-protecting from germs (Americans tend to be extreme germaphobes — particularly compared to the past) makes our immune system weaker because our bodies have not needed to build immunity to things that they formerly did build immunity to. Along this same vein of thought, I’ve heard that an important reason why there is a big increase in nut allergies these days is that our society has gone overboard on protecting against such allergies. This example was pointed out by Jonathan Haidt in The Coddling of the American Mind.

I stopped paying attention to the mainstream media in 1980, after I realized how sensationalistic, manipulative, and unreliable it was. For the past 45 years, I have maintained and occasionally add to or subract from on a small list of relatively reliable news sources that have proven out to me to be reliable and factual. As of today, the following is my list of relatively unreliable and reliable sources of news. Regarding unreliable sources, there are too many to list. But here I list the biggest, most important offenders. They are corrupt, unreliable, inaccurate, biased, fear- and outrage-mongering, and manipulative:

1. MSNBC
2. CNN
3. The Washington Post
4. The New York Times
5. Fox News

The following are the only sources today that I consider to be reliable and accurate:

1. Jimmy Dore.
2. The Hill with Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti.
3. Noam Chomsky.
4. Glenn Greenwald.
5. Chris Hedges.
6. Dylan Ratigan.
7. Aron Mate.
8. Abby Martin.
9. Matt Taibbi.
10. Joe Rogan.
11. Max Blumenthal
12. Christo Aivalis
13. Mike Figueredo (The Humanist Report)
14. Chris Hahn (The Aggressive Progressive)
15. Tim Pool (Host of Timcast podcast)

One of my Facebook friends responded to the above by saying he has listened to and read a variety of news sources he rejected the use of the term “main stream media.” He claimed he was “not seeing evidence of media trying to scare us — responsible journalists are out reporting on the stories where they exist in a chaotic and frightening time.”

To which I responded by asking this politically liberal friend if he thought Fox News was reliable and accurate? Are they not trying to scare us? Are they objective?

He responded by saying “God No!”

I then replied by saying the following. Half of the nation believes Fox News is corrupt, biased, subjective, inaccurate and manipulative of our emotions. The other half of the US population believes CNN and MSNBC are corrupt, biased, subjective, inaccurate and manipulative of our emotions. Curiously and coincidentally, the position people hold about Fox vs CNN/MSNBC is almost entirely correlated with the political beliefs held by that person. Is that surprising at all? Or is it, as I believe, telling?

I firmly believe all major US media sources are corrupt, biased, subjective, inaccurate and manipulative of our emotions, be it Fox or CNN or MSNBC. As for “rejecting the term ‘mainstream media,'” is the following from Wikipedia not meaningful or important? Is there no relationship between where the majority of the millions in advertising dollars comes from and what (and how) the recipient media source reports (or does not report) as the news? Does it not matter if a media source controls, say, 40% of the market?

From Wiki: “In 1984, fifty independent media companies owned the majority of media interests within the United States. As of 2020, 90% of the United States’s media is controlled by four media conglomerates: Comcast (via NBCUniversal), Disney, ViacomCBS (controlled by National Amusements), and AT&T (via WarnerMedia).”

Is it a coincidence that the Washington Post — which gets massive military contractor dollars — was full-throated in support of the Iraq War?

By the way, I am now convinced that the US media conglomerates are almost indistinguishable from the infamous Soviet Pravda, and that the only way the American people will get reliable media information in the future is if media revenue is severed from private profit and instead gets its funding from the public sector. An unbiased, reliable media is such an essential foundation of a healthy democracy (as our Founding Fathers knew very clearly) that it is known as the Fourth Estate.

I’ve read a lot of books about the media. Two of the best, by far, have been Dollarocracy: How the Money & Media Election Complex is Destroying America by Nichols and McChesney, and Manufacturing Consent, by Noam Chomsky.

We must not forget certain things: It is a terrible, unworkable idea to remain in societal lockdown and dedicating too much of our hospital resources to COVID-19 until there is zero chance of infection. Doing that has at least three awful, unintended consequences. First, there can and will be a lot of death and suffering by those who do not have the infection but die or suffer due to insufficient hospital care (care now likely over-allocated to the virus). In addition, those who lived through the Great Depression in the 30s can inform us that there was a lot of death and suffering associated with that economic collapse — a collapse that many are warning will seem mild compared to what we may see happening due to societal lockdown today. Furthermore, we have learned in recent decades that over-emphasis on safety will weaken our immune system and weaken our overall resilience to future challenges, and that by itself will increase future societal suffering. Finally, humans are a social species. Being separated from socializing with others is extremely detrimental to our mental and physical health.

Do not misunderstand my overall message here. This is NOT a call for our abandoning ALL safety measures we are taking on the virus. But it IS a suggestion that we consider a point made by the author: Perhaps public health would be much better served if we put most of our safety emphasis on the most vulnerable demographic groups (older people with a compromised health status) rather than spreading ourselves too thin by dedicating too much of our hospital and other safety efforts toward all demographic groups.

In sum, I have grave concerns that the counterproductive American penchant to strive for zero risk will, ironically, lead to more death and suffering than had we been less extreme, and focused most of our efforts at protecting the most vulnerable rather than diluting our efforts by striving to protect our entire society.

It IS possible to be too safe — particularly when, as many have said, “all of the data about what is going on is not in.” Don’t forget that we do not have a mainstream media we can rely on for accurate information. All we can rely on with the mainstream media is that we will be maximally scared out of our wits by them.

And for those who think about the pandemic in political ways, fear is an emotion that nearly always benefits the political Right far more than it does the political Left. Importantly, this is because the fear emotion tends to shut down our ability to think rationally, and motivates society to engage in many actions that the political Right strongly supports (wars, citizen surveillance, strong-arm police tactics, being suspicious of our fellow citizens, cutting important social and environmental programs, etc.). The political Right has successfully used fear as a weapon throughout history. Because the mainstream media has learned that inducing fear and outrage in their reporting brings them a windfall in profits, our society is being pushed toward paralyzing, extreme political partisanship, and pushing our society further and further to the political Right. For these reasons, it seems to me that those on the political Left are cutting their own throats by joining in on the RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!! Bandwagon. It can — and likely will — lead to a political bonanza for the political Right in November. Tragic how many on the political Left are oblivious to that these days.

Again, fear has been primarily used by the political Right in history to get citizens to agree to fight wars of aggression, adopt Brave New World citizen snooping by government, cut social and environmental programs, and militarize local police.

All too often, many of those on the political Left who should know better make the mistake of ALSO using fear. We see a lot of that these days: It is now being used quite a bit by lot of Democratic governors in these days of COVID-19 pandemic. I believe, again, that it is a counterproductive mistake for Dem governors to do that, for they mostly end up achieving the negative objectives I mention above. We have seen this blunder by Dems a great many times since Trump was elected. Dems are pedaling fear about Russia and China, for example.

Democrats are increasingly and counterproductively using fear as a political weapon, and each time they do, they are making a mistake — assuming they are actually trying to achieve politically progressive goals. I am more convinced each day that Democrats are moving more and more to the political Right, and their promiscuous use of fear, censorship, acceptance of massive donations from nefarious sources, and red-baiting are clear signs of that.

Because of all of this, I no longer believe Dems represent the political Left, but I am referring to Dems because it has long been a convention in America to equate Dems with the political Left.

I believe there are now four US political factions: (1) The Big Business and Pro War Party (mostly the Repubs), (2) the Big Business and Pro War Party that supports sexual minorities (mostly the Dems), (3) the non-“woke,” non-Social Justice Warrior progressives, and (4) the “woke,” Social Justice, and Post-Modernist Cultural Marxists — often incorrectly called “progressives” — who are using Fascist and racist tactics by breaking up society into antagonistic “oppressor” and “oppressed” groups.

It now seems clear to me that many Dems are now becoming hostile, shaming, safety extremists. Why? Because many Dems have now recognized that a cheap, easy way to engage in political virtue signaling is to show how your views are the opposite of Trump. When Trump began messaging in a way that seemed as if he was too lax about virus safety (opening up the economy, etc.), the Democratic “tribal” message was to respond vigorously and regularly about how Dems are virtuous because they care about the value of human life. We virtuously stand against and in opposition toTrump, in other words.

I believe it has now reached a point where Dems are trying to out-safety others: “Shame on you for not wearing a mask 24/7.” Or “I’m safer than you.” The past five or so years of 24/7 mainstream media attacks on Trump have made him one of the most despised, hated, evil, men who has ever existed (so much so that even many on the educated political Left are now eager to vote for a demented, corporate-corrupted, pathologically lying rapist – Joe Biden – to get rid of Trump). Because of this extreme vilification of Trump, ANYTHING he proposes MUST be wrong. If Trump opposed cancer, a great many Dems would surely be strong supporters of cancer.

A similar “tribal” knee-jerk, unthinking dynamic is seen in many Republicans on the topic of climage change. When Dem leader Al Gore strongly messaged that our world faces a massive humanity-caused climate change crisis, the Repub “tribal” message, unthinkingly, became “climate change is a hoax.”

Virtuously proclaiming their allegiance to extreme safety measures — to assure others that you are admirably not agreeing with Trump, when he downplays the dangers of the pandemic and strives to open up the national economy soon — creates two enormous “messaging” problems for Dems in future national voting. First, it bolsters the claims of Trump and many Repubs that a great many Dems are fragile “snowflakes” who are spineless, and too easily offended.

Second, it continues to promote the suicidal perception of the Democratic Party since the 2016 election that it is Trump who cares about the poor and working class, and that the Dems callously disregard the economic suffering of the poor (with tens of millions of Americans now unemployed for months and unable to pay for housing or groceries, this is particularly acute). “It is the snowflake Dems who want to continue the extremist lockdown of our economy!”

Hillary Clinton likely lost the 2016 election primarily because she and the Democratic Party were seen to be unconcerned about the American working class, whereas Trump at least paid lip service to their concerns. The result was that many Blue Collar votes were cast for Trump.

The aggressive, angry, unyielding stance of many Dems on the pandemic and the economy are sure to shift many of those same voters to Trump again.

Double Standards and Hypocrites: Democrats Have Become Republicans

By Dom Nozzi

July 8, 2019

• Democrats attack and “red bait” Trump for being “Soft” or a “traitor” on the Russian menace. For my entire life, it was the Republicans who attacked Democrats for being “traitors” or “soft” on the Soviet Russian menace and red baiting Democrats.
• Democrats attack Trump for deporting illegal immigrants and not having a more open border to allow for immigration. For my entire life, it was Republicans and major corporations who fought to allow more immigration because immigrants would lower wages of American workers (which would enrich CEOs of major corporations). For that reason, American unions, for my entire life, have fought to reduce immigration.
• Democrats attack Trump for weakening the US military by proposing to spend less on Pentagon ship building, and were silent when Democrat Obama adopted the biggest Pentagon budget in US (and world) history. For my entire life, it was Republicans who criticized Democrats for being weak on the military.
• Democrats attack Trump for not attacking Syria, and were silent when the Obama administration started seven wars and ramped up many others (far more than Trump). For my entire life, it has been Republicans who most often call for America to start wars.
• Democrat Obama and other prominent Democrats receive massive campaign funding from Big Pharma, Military contractors, and Wall Street. For my entire life, it has been Republicans who got campaign funding from such nefarious sources.
• Democrats openly support and adopt union-crushing International Free Trade agreements such as NAFTA and TPP. For my entire life, it has been Republicans who pushed for such union-breaking agreements.
• When Democrat Obama was president, nearly all Dems BLASTED Repubs for ridiculing Obama, accusing him of being a liar, laughing at him, obstructing EVERYTHING he proposed, opposing ALL of his appointments, joking that he should be assassinated, never giving him credit for ANYTHING, and stating that “Obama is not my president.” Today, a day does not go by where Dems are now joking about Trump’s appearance, calling for his assassination, calling him names (he is a moron! He is an asshole!), blaming Trump for everything imaginable, and lampooning him in cartoons.
• Under Democrat Bill Clinton in the 90s, Dems showed they could build more prisons than Repubs, have more crimes be eligible for the death penalty (from 3 to 60), fund 100,000 more cops, and create a huge increase in the number of mandatory minimum crimes. Dem Bill Clinton also significantly increased the penalty for crack cocaine vs powdered cocaine (100-to-1). Bill Clinton escalated the drug war far more than the Repubs could ever imagine, leading to the largest increase in prisoners ever. For my entire life, it was the Republicans who were the loudest advocates of being “tough on crime.”
• Republicans used to be the most regressive when it came to taxation. But then Democrat Bill Clinton successfully passed a capital gains tax cut that was one of the most regressive tax cuts in history.
• Republicans were formerly the party most responsible for eliminating regulations that protected us from socially undesirable actions by the powerful. But then Dem Bill Clinton’s deregulation of the investment banking industry played an enormous role in creating the crash of 2008. He repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, which had separated commercial from investment banking since 1933, and directly led to the 2008 crash and the need to bail out the too-big-to-fail banks.
• Republicans have long attacked Dems for supporting the public nature of Social Security. They proposed such things as investing social security dollars in the stock market. But then Democrat Bill Clinton, while in office, nearly succeeded in privatizing social security (another Repub dream) had the Lewisky scandal not led to his impeachment.
• I remember when it was Republicans who far outspent Democrats in presidential races. In the 2016 election, Dem Hillary Clinton outspent Repub Donald Trump two to one.
• Republicans have long lead the charge to engage in invasive surveillance of US citizens. But it was Democrat Obama who established, by far, the most extreme and comprehensive surveillance of US citizens in history through the NSA and other agencies.
• For a long time, it was the Republicans who were vocal opponents of what they called “The Welfare State.” But it was Dem Bill Clinton’s gutting of welfare that led to a huge increase in poverty. Some have called Clinton’s action “one of the most regressive social programs promulgated in the 20th Century.”
• Democrats attack right-wing speakers at American universities because such speakers engage in “hate speech.” For my entire life, it was Republicans who fought against freedom of speech. The Free Speech movement in the 60s, for example, was led by activists on the Left. Republicans have a long, disgraceful history of calling people un-American! Or treasonous traitors! Over and over, Repubs were seen attempting to prevent people from protesting (often by claiming that the protest would “incite violence”), attempting to censor comments they do not like, and associating the actions of a lone protester with the behavior or beliefs of an entire protest movement. But in response to the violence at the Univ of Virginia protest in August 2017, a great many Dems are screaming to prevent future protests by extreme right wing groups (and wanting to prevent people from boycotting Israel), calling right wing protesters un-American. Or treasonous traitors. Such Dems are demanding censorship of right wing speakers at universities, stopping speeches because they will “incite violence,” and linking a lone protester (who drove his car into a group of counterprotesters) with the agenda of the right wing protesters. In American history, progressives have rightly objected when protests have been prohibited due to fear of “inciting violence.” Feminists, gays, blacks, and atheists have been stopped from protesting discrimination in the past for this reason. Labor rights activists have been stopped because their protests against unfair labor practices would “incite violence.” Peace demonstrators protesting a war have been told they are not allowed to protest because it would “incite violence.” Even Jane Jacobs, the great American urbanist, was charged with “inciting a riot” when she protested the Lower Manhattan Expressway that Robert Moses tried to ram through New York City in the 1960s. Since when is it acceptable to be able to pick and choose which protests or speeches are okay and which should be prohibited? To be able to engage in such a double standard? Does not true support for free speech demand that we tolerate speech that we hate, and not just speech that we agree with? “If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other, it is the principle of free thought — not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought we hate.”  — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. “There’s no fine line between ‘free speech’ and ‘hate speech’: Free speech is hate speech; it’s for the speech you hate – and for all your speech that the other guy hates. If you don’t have free speech, then you can’t have an honest discussion.”  — Mark Steyn. “Hateful, blasphemous, prejudiced, vulgar, rude, or ignorant remarks are the music of a free society, and the relentless patter of idiots is how we know we’re in one. When all the words in our public conversation are fair, good, and true, it’s time to make a run for the fence.” ― Daniel M. Gilbert. “[First Amendment protection] must be accorded to the ideas we hate or sooner or later they will be denied to the ideas we cherish.” – Justice Hugo Black. “One way that speech restrictions often grow is through what I call ‘censorship envy.’ Say one group wins a ban on speech that it finds offensive. It’s human nature for other groups to then ask: What about speech that offends us — harsh criticism of Israel, or of certain religious belief systems, or of abortion, or of America?… Oddly, many of these [speech] restrictions come from political groups that see themselves as outsiders fighting the powerful. If that’s really so, how can they give the government extra censorship powers that can so easily be used against future ‘progressives’ like them?” — Eugene Volokh.
• Journalist Amy Goodman, in February 2017, noted that Democrat Elizabeth Warren has said she’s not so clear she’s going to be working with Donald Trump. “I mean, very interesting, [said Amy], when Dem Barack Obama came in, Republican Mitch McConnell made it very clear they won’t work with Obama at all.”

Elected Officials are More Right Wing than Voters. Has anyone noticed?

By Dom Nozzi

November 11, 2016

Has anyone noticed that a “neo-con” is someone who is more right wing than a regular conservative and a “neo-liberal” is also more right wing than a regular liberal?

Has anyone noticed that often in US elections for president, in major parties there is a slightly right-of-center candidate and a very right-of-center candidate, but there is never a slightly left-of-center candidate and a very left-of-center candidate?

Has anyone noticed Democratic presidential nominees have grown incrementally more and more right–of-center from George McGovern in the early 70s up to Hillary Clinton in 2016?

Has anyone noticed that opinion polls often show that Americans are much more left-of-center than candidates and elected officials?

Does anyone but me think this is an indication of something wrong with our political system?

The Silver Lining in Donald Trump’s Election

By Dom Nozzi

November 9, 2016

The silver lining for progressives in the cloud of the election results: (1) Trump’s right wing agenda will be vigorously opposed (assuming Democrats are actually an opposition party and not right wing themselves).

By contrast, Hillary Clinton’s right wing agenda — including her extreme militarism — would have had almost no opposition. A right wing agenda would be easily adopted with Hillary pushing such policies.

In addition, in two years and in four years, Democrats will be nominating (and winning with) much more progressive candidates.

Had Hillary Clinton won, the lesson for the Democratic National Committee would have been to continue the successful strategy of nominating DINOs (Democrats In Name Only) in bed with Wall Street, and who are aggressive militarists.

Fear by the Political Left

By Dom Nozzi

November 6, 2016

One of the things that most strongly disappoints me in this election season is how aggressively many on the left have shamelessly adopted a very ugly, counterproductive tactic:

FEAR.

Fear has been mostly used by reactionaries for the past several decades because it shuts down thinking. It enables even intelligent, good-hearted people to be buffaloed into supporting awful, evil, terrible things.

Fear COMMUNISTS! Fear DRUGS! Fear IMMIGRANTS! Fear BLACK PEOPLE! Fear TERRORISTS! Each of those fear campaigns has stopped brains from thinking, and created enough of a political consensus to cause much that is terrible in our world.

Today, many Democrats shamelessly leverage this right-wing, anti-intellectual, manipulative tactic when they scream FEAR TRUMP!!!

It is creating reactionary mob mentality and is very toxic for our future.

“We Should Organize and Hold Hillary Clinton’s Feet to the Fire AFTER the Election”

By Dom Nozzi

October 27, 2016

The left needs to learn from history. Too often, when the left was urged to vote for Obama and other Democratic presidential candidates who were centrists or a bit right of center, we have been told to “organize and oppose after the ‘moderate’ Democrat is elected.”

What happened after we were told this about Obama and he was elected? The left opposition to war and Wall Street corruption (etc.) disappeared. There has been almost zero opposition to Obama on his aggressive, interventionist, warmongering ways from the left.

When a Democrat is elected president, they always get a pass from Democrats on the right wing things they do. I am certain the anti-war left would not organize to oppose Hillary Clinton on her militarism if she were elected president. In some ways, this makes her much more dangerous than Trump, since both the Democrats and Republicans will support her militarism.

Electing Hillary Clinton as president would continue to silence the anti-war left and the anti-Wall Street left, who have been shamefully silent under Obama.

Fear is a losing strategy for the left. I am unwilling to perpetuate that by voting out of fear of the opponent. I am unwilling to vote for a “kinder, gentler” Republican (Hillary Clinton).

The left needs to be honest about Hillary Clinton’s right wing flaws now. The left needs to criticize her now. In my opinion, it is naive, given history, to expect the opposition from the left to be there after she was hypothetically elected.

Don’t hold your breath on the left holding her accountable after she is hypothetically elected.

It won’t.

We will not be able to reform the 2-party system by continuing to vote for a major party candidate. It is a recipe for moving Democratic candidates further and further to the right. Hillary Clinton, for example, is by far the most right wing Dem presidential candidate in my lifetime (if not ever). Lesson for the Democratic National Committee if Hillary was elected: Keep nominating right wingers for president, since Hillary Clinton shows it is a successful strategy.

 

An Example of Bleeding Heart Liberalism

By Dom Nozzi

June 2005

Another example of bleeding heart liberalism, but this time at the national level.

Nationally, who has opposed congestion pricing, perhaps the most effective, equitable way to have motorists pay their own way instead of being subsidized by free roads? In places like California and Minnesota, when congestion pricing has been proposed, it has been conservatives such as Milton Friedman and the Reason Foundation who have pushed it.

The political left has been the major political obstacle, with their bleeding heart concern that road pricing would be affordable only to the rich, would hurt the poor, and would thereby create “Lexus Lanes.”

In the US, fortunately, environmentalists are finally getting on board with road pricing.

Why is the left finally getting on board?

Desperation.

The congestion has gotten so bad, so unaffordable to correct in conventional ways, and so seemingly intractable that even the bleeding hearts are being forced to acknowledge that road pricing is one of the very few effective tools we have.

Of course, if Gainesville FL ever found the courage and the wisdom to actually think about this idea, I am certain that we’d face severe obstacles from our resident bleeding hearts.

 

Why I Don’t Plan to Vote for Obama for Re-election

By Dom Nozzi

December 30, 2010

I am a political progressive. But I have no desire to vote for Barrack Obama in 2012.

Why?

1. Obama has unconditionally supported (with arms and money) the Israeli government, regardless of how vicious, inhumane and counterproductive that government has been toward the Palestinian “unpeople.” He has refused to express disapproval of Israel deciding to resume building settlements in disputed areas, despite how this effectively sinks agreement efforts with the Palestinians, and despite the significant US leverage (by, say, cutting off at least a portion of the billions of dollars the US hands to the Israelis each year). According to Chomsky, Obama continues the 35 years of rejecting the international consensus for a two-state settlement.
2. Obama has ramped up the drug war by, for example, building more US military bases in South American “drug war” nations, and strongly condemning California proposals to ratchet down the marijuana drug war.
3. Obama has ramped up the torture of “terrorists” held in prisons.
4. Obama adopted the largest military budget in US history. He maintains over 700 US military bases worldwide. The US now spends eight times more on the military than the next closest rival: China. About 40 percent of total military expenditures are by the US.
5. Obama ramped up the hopeless, endless, counterproductive war of aggression (including drone warfare) against Afghanistan and undeclared wars in nearby nations such as Pakistan. A recent RAND study estimates that US military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq will increase terrorism against the US and its allies by approximately seven times over the status quo. Obama has poured several billion (trillion?) dollars into these wars, despite a crushing US debt/deficit problem, and a severe economic recession.
6. Obama has poured billions of dollars into widening highways.
7. Obama has shown no support for increasing the federal gas tax, an utterly essential task in this day and age. It is disgraceful how low the gas tax has remained for a number of decades.