How to tell Who’s Right Wing
To tell who’s Right Wing and who’s not, you have to face the fact that politics is negative. Most people vote because they want to solve a problem or avoid a catastrophe — not because of lofty ideals. You can tell if a person is Right Wing by whom they bash and how often — more than by whom they praise.
Politics is also competitive. To win, candidates have to defeat their rivals.
Democrats haven’t dealt with these conditions well and it’s led to their being weak on messaging.
Parties don’t create messaging well. The GOP doesn’t create their messaging. Right Wing media do. However, Dems don’t have their own media — contrary to false accusations of liberal bias in mainstream media made by Right Wingers.
Dems lack the type of vast media and infrastructure network Republicans have had for decades. If you want Dems to have that, see the essay below, which contains the list of people I write to, to ask for help for Dems. Please feel free to join me.
One aspect of messaging that most Dem leaders haven’t realized is that politics is negative, so messaging needs to be negative — at least in the sense of advertising your party’s ability to keep the bad things from happening that people are afraid will happen.
Because Dems don’t realize that, it’s left partly up to chance whether Dems get elected. GW Bush did so much damage that people were angry at Republicans . Without the Democrats having to themselves be “negative”, those angry people voted for Obama. Hope and change were attractive — but a lot of voters cared more about pushing Republicans out of power.
Biden is a positive guy — Mr. Bipartisan Unity Kitchen Table Issues. That may have been attractive to some of his voters. But many of us think that the main forcing elevating Biden to the presidency was that he is caring and reasonable — not at all like Trump.
In 2020, some voters wanted to dump Trump. But they didn’t want to dump other Republicans. And why should they? Democrats didn’t say much negative about Republicans and did say some positive things. Mainstream media, which cover “both sides” and claim to be neutral, didn’t say much negative about Republicans either. Partly as a result of Dems and mainstream media avoiding negative truths about the GOP, the GOP gained House seats in 2020 and they still control almost half the Senate. A lot of voters who voted for Biden, voted for Republicans straight down the rest of their ballot.
Have you ever want to know if a Never Trumper is still a Right Winger? Negativity is the key. Look at whether they gave up their Republican habit of bashing Democrats constantly — or not. How much time do they spend destructively criticizing Democrats vs. Republicans? If they destructively criticize Democrats more than Republicans, they’re Right Wing in their effects.
They may not think of themselves as Right Wing any more, but their effect on the nation is still Right Wing. Bashing Democrats discourages people from voting for them. That helps MAGA.
It makes a difference whether criticism is constructive. I criticize Democrats, sometimes, but I offer solutions and contact them and ask them for what I want . I also contact donors or organizations that can help Dems. I encourage others to do the same.
By destructive criticism, I mean criticism that proposes no solutions and/or gives the impression that Dems are irredeemably flawed, greedy, corrupt etc. — that they are bad and can not change. For example, one can call Dems narcissists or claim they don’t care whether the Dem party as a whole wins, or claim they only care about corporate donors — not voters. Another way is to be destructive is to “prove” Dems’ elitism or corruption in silly ways, such as critiquing Kamala Harris’s cookware or Nancy Pelosi’s ice cream brand.
Do you ever want to know if a mainstream media writer or TV host is Right Wing? How much time do they spend destructively criticizing Democrats vs. Republicans? If they destructively criticize Democrats more, they’re Right Wing.
If they spend equal time on each, they’re still Right Wing. Why? It’s because a large percentage of Republican politicians — and NOT a large percentage of Dems — are insurrectionists, Big Lie promoters, thoroughly corrupt people and/or constant liars. Most criticisms of Republicans are deserved. This is not true of Democrats.
It’s still Right Wing if journalists criticize Dems for small errors--but criticize them just as often as Republicans. This makes the small errors look like huge flaws. We went through this when mainstream media obsessed on Hillary’s emails incessantly in the leadup to the 2016 election.
The same method can be used to determine if a new political party is Right Wing or not. For example, the Forward Party bashes each of the two major parties somewhat equally. That means they’re still Right Wing — for the same reasons I cited above.
The Forward Party also lies about Democrats, claiming they are as extreme as the Republican party — apparently so that the Forward Party can falsely claim to be holding the middle ground between political extremes — by refusing to acknowledge that the Democratic party is already occupying that position.
Below is a quote from this Washington Post article by Paul Waldman. It’s a statement from Forward Party leaders, lying about Democratic leaders’ positions — painting them as more extreme than they are. To Waldman’s credit, he notes that in the article.
On guns, for instance, most Americans don’t agree with calls from the far left to confiscate all guns and repeal the Second Amendment, but they’re also rightfully worried by the far right’s insistence on eliminating gun laws. On climate change, most Americans don’t agree with calls from the far left to completely upend our economy and way of life, but they also reject the far right’s denial that there is even a problem. On abortion, most Americans don’t agree with the far left’s extreme views on late-term abortions, but they also are alarmed by the far right’s quest to make a woman’s choice a criminal offense.
A lot of pundits on social media or elsewhere claim to be centrists. Do you want to know if they’re really centrists or are Right Wing? How much time do they spend destructively criticizing Democrats vs. Republicans? If they spend more time doing that to Democrats, they’re Right Wing.
If they spend equal time on each, they’re still Right Wing — for the same reasons I cited above.
Someone may say they are a Democrat or a liberal. However, if they spend their time bashing Democrats destructively and/or telling lies about Democrats, they’re helping MAGA. They’re still Right Wing in their effects.
Don’t expect all Right Wingers to admit they’re Right Wing though. A lot of the people doing this are not very naive about what they’re doing. They want to believe they’re helping the nation, even though they’re hurting it.
Also, some people are paid well to claim to be Democrats or liberals, while discouraging people from voting Democrat. These people know they’re conning the public. It’s hard to con people if you admit you’re doing it. Conning is about deceiving people. Right Wing con artists are tearing apart the Dem party from the inside — actually tearing it apart by pretending to be on the inside of it.
Propagandists deny responsibility when they do this sort of thing. They’ll say “Democrats had intra-party conflicts long before we ever came on the scene.” That’s true — just as it’s true that racism existed in the U.S. before racist TV, radio, newspapers and social media threw gasoline on that fire.
Propagandists often aim to increase their audience’s vices. In fact propagandists study vices, weakness, schisms and conflicts within a target group — in order to determine how to make them flare up and destroy the group and/or their nation.
Propagandists cater to a group’s vices so much that people begin to think their vices are virtues — and to display them proudly and publicly.
The Mueller Report noted that Russians infiltrated Bernie Sanders’ social media during the run-up to the 2016 election, to Divide & Conquer Democrats. Russians and Right Wingers are likely still doing this — and also impersonating centrists and other factions within the Dem party, to Divide and Conquer Dems.
Right Wing groups hire people to bash Democrats on social media and in other venues. Many of these writers and speakers lie, distort the truth, fear/hate/grievance monger and demonize Democrats and other chosen scapegoat groups. Right Wingers likely pay some Substack bloggers big bucks to do that. When the writer uses Substack, their subscribers are anonymous to the general public.
Here’s an article about how some of this works — about the marketing of Right Wing ideas.
About Jordan Peterson, Logic and the Marketing of Right Wing Ideas
That’s it. That’s your simple way to tell if anyone is Right Wing or not — in the sense of creating Right Wing effects — even if they won’t admit it to others — or even if they won’t admit it to themselves. They’re either helping MAGA or they’re not.
Please feel free to share this method and/or this article with anyone you think could benefit from knowing about it.
I’ll catch you good folks later.
