The rapid radicalization of america’s left
what once was a difference of opinion, is now a socialist’s paradise
Contributing Writer
jt youngAuthor & Businessman in American Politics
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There has been a rapid radicalization of America’s traditional Left.
It has happened so quickly that many may be unaware of it. It has happened so completely that many may have forgotten that the traditional Left once had moderate positions.
We can only fully comprehend the radicalization that has transpired by broadly scanning the American Left’s positions.
then vs. now
Not long ago, the environmental movement told us the only acceptable car purchase was a Tesla.
Now, environmental extremists burn and vandalize them. Similarly, environmentalism used to mean not polluting. Now, it means zero emissions is the only righteous standard—despite the unrealism of total dependency on renewable energy, recently evidenced by the Iberian Peninsula blackout.
Regarding hostilities between Israel and Palestine, the Left’s standard once was a two-state solution, despite the Palestinians’ inability to forge a functioning state or accept living peacefully with Israel.
Now, the radical Left chants “from the River to the Sea,” leaving no place for Israel, and supports Hamas terrorism, whose mission it is to eradicate Israelis and their nation.
When it comes to abortion, America’s Left sanctified the Supreme Court’s flimsy constitutional logic of Roe v. Wade, a ruling even Ruth Bader Ginsburg found dubious.
Now, the radical Left demands unlimited abortion nationally, something Roe v. Wade never offered.
The traditional Left’s position on race echoed Martin Luther King’s call for a colorblind society and equal opportunities for all. Instead of a colorblind society, today’s radical Left offers America a color-bound one under DEI’s racially determined outcomes.
America’s traditional Left brought us sanctuary cities, believing anyone who reached them was entitled to stay. The radical Left believe America’s borders should be thrown open and illegal immigrants welcomed in.
For the traditional Left, anything involving sex or sexual orientation was private: activities between consenting adults were their business and not the State’s.
The radical Left’s transgender agenda has reversed this: the state must recognize and enforce whatever people declare themselves to be—even when this negatively affects females competing against biological males in sports.
The traditional Left historically sought to find racial disparity in policing—even where it did not exist.
But the rallying cry of today’s radical Left is “Defund the Police” and to abolish policing altogether.
In their favorite form of communication, protest, the traditional Left encouraged rallies, but also the nonviolence of Martin Luther King.
The radical Left today not only embraces violence; they seemingly believe violence’s absence invalidates their cause.
from traditional to radical
Viewing these examples, and ample others, consider how fast and complete the change on the Left has been from traditional to radical.
Ask how often the radical Left’s position prevails within the traditional Left—either directly through embrace or indirectly with silence’s acquiescence.
The radicalization of America’s Left also permeates politics. The Democrat Party has moved far more “left” than it was historically.
According to 2023 Gallup polling, in just a generation, liberals’ percentage (and tied with conservatives) within the Democrat Party has gone from 25% (1995) to 54% (2023).
With Democrats’ general leftward drift has come radicalization: According to a 2020 Newsweek poll, 76% of Democrats said they would choose a socialist as President.
If three-quarters of one of America’s two major political parties have such positive views of socialists, there can be no doubt such acceptance is even higher in America’s Leftist radical causes.
The convergence of Leftist radicalization and socialism should not surprise. Some leaders within America’s radical causes have professed socialist roots. BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors claimed so. Undoubtedly, socialist affinities run more broadly too.
socialist means to an end
To advance their ends, America’s radical causes support socialist means thoroughly, even if not necessarily the cause itself (though many they would).
They want a centralized state to implement their goals, a massive redistribution of resources, like the Green New Deal, a monopoly on permissible public communication, such as censorship during COVID-19, violence to enforce their will, demonization of opponents, via cancel culture, a worldview that perceives conflict as society’s motive force, and therefore conflict as a permissible response, and enforced outcomes in society, as seen through DEI policies.
The various ideologies driving radical Left causes are often simply bastardizations of Marxist class conflict. Beyond single-issue voters, these radicals see the world through their cause and all else is secondary.
Undoubtedly, some would argue that America’s Left has always been inherently radical.
However, it is vital to resist this impression—not simply because the past, even the recent past, refutes it, but because we must understand how this radicalization of America’s traditional Left has occurred.
radicals only know how to hijack any agenda
The radical Left are now vanguards of the traditional Left.
Once pariahs, the radical Left are increasingly prophets, foretelling where the traditional Left will be. The radical Left demands, the traditional Left demurs, then de facto follows.
In turn, the traditional Left controls the Democrat Party. Like nesting dolls they reside, one inside the other, the lesser leveraging the larger.
The result is that America’s radical Left have attained unimagined access to political power.
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