I sometimes wonder whether, in another time and place, I could favor the conservative party. There's something about the phrase, "conservative temperament," that appeals to me, deeply. I associate it with the Londoner's mantra during The Blitz, "Keep calm and carry on" (while the rubble is bouncing around you). I would have opposed the Vietnam War but I can't imagine myself at a protest chanting, "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?" I'd be at home watching a ballgame or reading a book or walking the dog (or watching TV news and cringing).
But in our country, during my lifetime, for whatever reason, it's mainly the conservative party that practices the paranoid style, from Joe McCarthy in my pre-nativity to Fox News and Donald Trump in my dotage. Communists! Socialists! Ebola! The caravan! Critical race theory! Boys in the girls' bathroom! It would be hard to tell what they were hollering about even if they weren't foaming at the mouth. Wearing a face covering during a pandemic is the end of the world, an unconscionable infringement on their liberty. A lot of it is too bizarre to remember. I can't now recall which deceased South American dictator was manipulating the voting machines. Is it a chip, or some kind of serum, that is included in the vaccines in order to achieve what heinous end?
I can't think of what the left-wing equivalent of all this rot might be. Mail-in voting, early voting, same-day registration? Most votes wins? Please get vaccinated and wear a mask in crowded indoor spaces? A Supreme Court, the composition of which is not the consequence of Mitch McConnell's maneuverings and an actuarial lottery? I know, the BLM protestors, some of them seem pretty touchy about race, it's hard to imagine why considering our country is so pure and just. If one day they invade the Capitol to keep the Congress from certifying a Republican victory, that would be a mark in the other column, but it hasn't happened.
If you don't "fight like hell," Trump told his supporters on Jan. 6, "you won't have a country anymore." Maybe it's an instance of left-wing hyperbole to suggest that "not having a country anymore" would be the consequence of them winning that fight. But it's not like the President of the United States could not submit his election complaints to the appropriate courts. He did, and he lost. It wasn't his lawyers that he was now urging to "fight like hell."
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