Mainstream right wing policies – “lower taxes, reduced public services, less government regulation” – equals economic deprivation and political powerlessness for most people. That’s intolerable without the “racism, sexism, nationalism, border walls, xenophobia, dehumanization of groups, etc.” to sugar the pill. As Harry says there’s little meaningful difference between the right and the far right. 90% of the stuff Trump’s doing was already being done by previous governments, Democrat and Republican. The main difference is he’s capering and showing it all off all the time while most of his predecessors at least had the good grace keep it covered up until they needed the dog whistle, and to look solemn and regretful while they blew it.I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that the rise of the far right a bad thing, a very bad thing.
For the most part, the far right movement has little to do with what conservatives traditionally espouse — e.g., lower taxes, reduced public services, less government regulation — and a helluva lot more to do with truly nasty things — racism, sexism, nationalism, border walls, xenophobia, dehumanization of groups, etc.
It's truly disturbing and I wish those on the sensible right spoke out against it more often.
Joe
Is the reason that the sensible right speak out so little, because the sensible right is so vanishingly small?It's truly disturbing and I wish those on the sensible right spoke out against it more often.
Joe
For the most part, the far right movement has little to do with what conservatives traditionally espouse — e.g., lower taxes, reduced public services, less government regulation — and a helluva lot more to do with truly nasty things — racism, sexism, nationalism, border walls, xenophobia, dehumanization of groups, etc.
But capering has consequences. It intensifies scapegoating and hastens the descent into barbarism. I agree with the general point about the unacknowledged and unmourned deaths caused by right wing policies but this is worse.Mainstream right wing policies – “lower taxes, reduced public services, less government regulation” – equals economic deprivation and political powerlessness for most people. That’s intolerable without the “racism, sexism, nationalism, border walls, xenophobia, dehumanization of groups, etc.” to sugar the pill. As Harry says there’s little meaningful difference between the right and the far right. 90% of the stuff Trump’s doing was already being done by previous governments, Democrat and Republican. The main difference is he’s capering and showing it all off all the time while most of his predecessors at least had the good grace keep it covered up until they needed the dog whistle, and to look solemn and regretful while they blew it.
Mike, I'm using "far-right" as a catch-all. I try not to use the terms you mention because they tend to obscure what's really going on and make these pernicious attitudes and actions sound kinda cool. For the same reason I refuse to refer to far-right movements as "populist" - it sanitises them.What about three alt-right or new-right. They seem much more dangerous to me as less obvious and much more credible.
Yes, it is worse, I'm not trivialising it. But it's absolutely not an aberration. Here's something horrible, detailing routine abuse of migrant children from 2009-2014:But capering has consequences. It intensifies scapegoating and hastens the descent into barbarism. I agree with the general point about the unacknowledged and unmourned deaths caused by right wing policies but this is worse.
Examples of the documented abuses include allegations that CBP officials:
The report also shows evidence of CBP holding migrant children in excess of the 72-hour maximum period permitted by law, as well as officials’ efforts to deport children without due process and via coercion.
- Punched a child’s head three times
- Kicked a child in the ribs
- Used a stun gun on a boy, causing him to fall to the ground, shaking, with his eyes rolling back in his head
- Ran over a 17-year-old with a patrol vehicle and then punched him several times
- Verbally abused detained children, calling them dogs and “other ugly things”
- Denied detained children permission to stand or move freely for days and threatened children who stood up with transfer to solitary confinement in a small, freezing room
- Denied a pregnant minor medical attention when she reported pain, which preceded a stillbirth
- Subjected a 16-year-old girl to a search in which they “forcefully spread her legs and touched her private parts so hard that she screamed”
- Left a 4-pound premature baby and her minor mother in an overcrowded and dirty cell full of sick people, against medical advice
- Threw out a child’s birth certificate and threatened him with sexual abuse by an adult male detainee.
“It’s terrifying to think that the horrible abuses described in these documents can continue and perhaps worsen under the Trump administration,” said Astrid Dominguez, director of the ACLU Border Rights Center. “It’s unacceptable that there are no mechanisms in place to shed light on CBP’s abuses and ensure accountability.”
The report provides an overview of key trends that converged to create a crisis of migrant child abuse in CBP custody, the largest federal law enforcement agency in the United States. The documents obtained from the government show no evidence that any of the abuses detailed therein were ever meaningfully investigated, much less that the officials responsible were held accountable.