The Final Strech

Read this piece published by The Roaring Economist below or at https://theroaringeconomist.io/collections/vx78ytet0ihe2pc3bu4f30c8ht9pi2

As we come into the final stretch of this crazy political cycle, my YouTube feed increasingly plagues me with all kinds of election commentary. I recently watched a YouTube video where an interviewer asked random civilians who they were voting for. Nine out of ten were quick to respond. But then the interviewer asked them, “Why?” and suddenly, they weren’t so quick. When they finally did respond, it was just some regurgitated soundbite.

So, I took a second to write out what I would say:

The new left embodies a system of hypocrisy. They no longer support democratic ideals, and their policies no longer serve the majority of the middle class. Instead, they cater to the extreme fringes that intimidate moderates into silence. The left’s political machine now bends the knee to these extremes out of fear and maintains its power through transactional relationships with corporate conglomerates and media outlets.

Donald Trump’s MAGA movement is no longer the Republican Party; it’s the MAGA Party. It was born out of an unconscious distaste for the gradual escalation of what used to be a more moderate Democratic Party. This new conservative institution is more like a religious ideology, created from a "death anxiety" over what were once common traditional values.

In sum, neither party has stuck to its promises. They’ve sacrificed the principles that attracted their base in favor of whatever might "beat the other side." I urge you to look past the headlines and understand that the institutions we used to trust have taken advantage of our loyalty, using us as pawns for their own Machiavellian power games. Blue is no longer blue, red is no longer red, and purple is painted as being dead. But in reality—not on TV or Twitter—purple is as strong as ever. The healthiness of bipartisan disagreement has been eradicated and turned into a cancer. Yet, this shift has made Americans more moderate than ever.

If we can sit past the instant vitriol triggers for more than two minutes, we can move beyond the hatred that lures us into these new "political" parties, like a cartoon character floating toward a pie on a windowsill. We’ll start to see them for what they truly are—bullshit.