Too Many People Are Happy To Drink the Kool-Aid

In our ever-dividing country - and world - people continue to be unwilling, or unable, to acknowledge when they disagree with issues which are pushed by the side they support. They act like leaders in personal conversations, but like sycophantic followers in their actions.

We’ve seen some swing in recent months toward a more sane moderation: Jake Tapper’s book about Biden’s decline, Gavin Newsom’s proclamation against men in women’s sports, and the shift in attitudes about criminally violent illegal immigrants. But these are mostly CYA actions with personal agendas, or not representative of any come-to-Jesus moments for the true believers.

Tapper spilled the beans on the Progressive cover-up of Biden’s health issues while exonerating himself as only being guilty of being late to the game in his recognition of what was obviously going on around him as an insider and “Chief Washington Correspondent” with CNN. He conveniently disregards his own tacit complicity in reporting and buttressing those falsehoods, trying to save face as an independent journalist by being the first to throw his colleagues under the bus.

Newsom is an empty suit who has reversed his own position as he follows the shifting electoral winds. He doesn’t really stand for anything; he only chases voters which have different positions as he now takes his sideshow from liberal California to the national stage.

The growing support of the President’s war on criminal illegal immigrants has come mostly from the independent center, not from any cathartic revelation by the left.

Both sides do this, though the modern left seems especially prone.

There are certainly Republicans out there who give rabid support to anything Trump. It’s not enough that they acknowledge his successes, they feel the need to gloss over or obfuscate his mistakes. Most Republicans, however, have retained their abilities to think independently. They support his general agenda, but think for themselves and question that which demands questioning.

Granting excessive pardons and commutations, sometimes directly connected with campaign contributions? Are we supposed to ignore that just because Biden abused pardons as well?

Picking a fight with Canada, with zero foresight that it would galvanize Canadians and kneecap the Conservative movement there which was in pole position to take over?

Initiating a tariff war with China, just because the trade imbalances should incentivize China to play ball, disregarding the fact that China is a dictatorship with a leader who faces no elections and can (and will) ignore the struggles of his people to play the long game and wait us out?

Assuming Vladimir Putin is a reasonable human being?

Most Republicans are able to cheer the policies they support, while also challenging those they find misguided. Democrats, however…

As a party, they have rallied in unison around patently unpopular ideas. Much like ideas from the far right, these ideas usually emanate from the far left. But unlike the Republican party, which ignores their fringe extremists, the Democratic party embraces theirs and allows them to set policy goals.

Those questions I raised above about Trump, which most Republicans are also asking - did we ever hear similar questions raised by Democrats during the Biden administration? Of course not - yet it is Republicans who they refer to as a cult.

Millions of migrants improperly vetted and crossing freely over the border; drug infested homeless encampments; domestic intifada movements; “defund the police”; laws which handcuff prosecutors and grant parole to cop-killers; calling white people inherently racist; throwing massive funds away chasing the wrong goals in dealing with climate change; tempering Israeli support in order to not lose Muslim votes; the Afghanistan pullout; the blanket pardons of Hunter Biden and others; “equity over equality” and DEI; cancel culture; challenging parental rights; biological men in women’s sports, prisons, and bathrooms; influence peddling for personal and familial gain; hiding classified documents; stifling freedom of speech on social media; hiding and delegitimizing “the laptop”; weaponizing the Justice Department; unequal application of the law by ignoring numerous violent BLM protests while prosecuting Jan. 6 protests; defending the rights of criminal migrants who abused the gift of asylum they were bestowed and rail against the country that let them in - the list goes on and on.

And no condemnations, or even questions, from the left. These are the hills they’re willing to die on, and they wonder out loud why their credibility and popularity have tanked. Are there no Democrats in authority who have any thoughts outside the party consensus? Or have they, as a party, all decided to just drink the Progressive Kool-Aid? They seem to ignore that their extremism only winds up repelling people enough that they overcompensate, and provide leaders like Trump with the power and confidence to take a heavy-handed wrecking ball to everything - even when he goes too far.

We reap what we sow.

Zephareth Ledbetter’s latest book, “A White Man’s Perspectives on Race and Racism - Rational Thoughts on an Irrational World”, is available cheap at smashwords.com/books/view/1184004