I’ve been musing about the extent to which our two main political parties have not just different but opposite agendas or policy preferences. I asked myself, is it possible that Joe Biden might push for something that Donald Trump pushed for? I came up with one thing only: defeating Covid-19.
In every other area it appears their approaches, and indeed goals, were opposite. Does this seem logical for a society? That two entirely different sets of goals would each appeal to roughly half the population? What a strange situation in which we find ourselves.
You’d expect a nation’s major political parties to have different agendas, different emphases, but agree on the general direction of the country. They’d be arguing about how to get there. That doesn’t seem to be our case currently, or indeed recently.
We’re arguing about the destination, about what kind of country we want to be. The energy in each party is on the fringe ideologically farthest from the other party.
Later ... see what Brendan O’Neill has written at spiked on this subject. He subtitles his column as follows:
The Biden-supporting woke elites pose a graver threat to the American republic than Trump did.
And then he observes:
The street violence swiftly morphed from anger over a police killing into sustained violent expressions of contempt for the ideals and the very founding of the American republic. That is why the rioting and the cultural elite’s apologism for it are important: because they confirmed that there has been a corrosion of belief in the American project across various sections of American society, including at the very top of it.
Patriotism is in trouble, progressives are the reason. The entire O’Neill column is worth your time and effort.
