CommentsTHE VIEW FROM HERE - Few have heard about The Great American Walk Away (GAWA) aka The Power of One, because it is part of Future-History or exists only in an alternate universe.
GAWA refers to when, if ever, American voters quit being stooges for political parties who don’t give a tinker’s damn about anything other than pitting one American against another American so that the politicos gain power and wealth.
Extremism Is Good Business
Both political parties have the same great business plan. Have Americans endlessly fight with each other, while the politicos take all the power and money. BTW, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is worth $120 million; Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell is worth $35 Million. Congresspersons buy and sell stock on the basis of insider information, Jan 13, 2022 Fox Business, Congress Need to Stop Letting Members Engage in Insider Trading which is a crime for the rest of us. Ask Martha Stewart who came close to insider trading but did not actually do it.
Both parties nurture their extremes, even though the extremes are inhabited by lunatics. A crucial part of both the Dems’ and the GOP’s strategy is to have an irrationally hostile extreme fringe which polices their own party with attacks and which enrages the other political party. The parties have settled on certain issues as guaranteed money makers: Abortion, Gun Control, Minorities, Voter Fraud.
While most Americans are in broad agreement on major issues, both parties promote absurdly extreme positions to make certain there is no cooperation. When people are emotionally agitated by hate and fear, they write campaign checks. April 8, 2021, CityWatch, Hate Money Stalks America For example, if Joe Biden had worked with the GOP to fashion a Voting Rights Bill which included some guarantees against voter fraud, it was possible that a bill would have been passed. If a joint Voting Rights bill had included election safeguards, Joe Biden could not have compared anyone who did not support it to Sheriff Bull Connor and his police dogs attacking civil rights demonstrators. Nor, could the GOP scream about elections being stolen if the bill had included safeguards. Neither party wanted a Voting Rights bill; both wanted polarization.
Extremism Demands Purity Which Makes Compromise Unholy
Both parties know that compromise will provoke retaliation from their own extreme, which they then use as an excuse to veto compromise. Don’t be fooled into thinking that either party is upset when its extremist element starts its ranting and raving. The Sturm und Drang keeps the passions high and the campaign coffers overflowing with cash. Emotionalism is seductive. Listen.
The Role of Rational People in the Political Parties
Rational people are the rube, the mark, the sucker. The extremes call the shots because they are the most vocal, the most passionate, and the most hostile. The extremes need no analysis; they just attack. They become the mob whom the Founding Fathers feared would ruin the Republic. Even if the moderates in their own party roll their eyes and say, “here we go again,” there is nothing they can do. How many Dems object to Nancy Pelosi’s Identity Politics’ attempt to implement The Great Replacement Theory (GRT)? It is verboten to admit to her idiotic policy of trying to replace Whites when the minorities become the majority of the voters. To speak out against the extremist is to be cancelled. Let’s face it, one can only be cancelled by their own side. Does anyone think that Tucker Carlson can culture cancel Joe Biden or Rachel Maddow can culture cancel Kevin McCarthy? Who was culture canceled by their own side? Rep. Liz Cheney by the GOP. Dems culture cancelled Al Franken.
The Center Has Made Itself Irrelevant
About 85% of Americans are somewhere in the center. Far less than 1% of Americans are White Supremacists, and most GOP still adhere to the Declaration that each person has inalienable rights and agree that Martin Luther King was correct when he said to judge a person by character and not by skin color, race, religion etc.
Less than 15% of Dems fall for the Woker extreme ideology that Whites are Evil, but far more Dems are intimidated by the prevalent Woker cancel culture. When the President himself is openly woker, the rank and file know that prudence recommends silence. Payton Gendron becomes the stand-in for the GOP. May 17, 2022 CNN, Biden Gives Emotional Speech after Buffalo Shooting: 'White supremacy is a poison'.
We Don’t Need Them; They Need Us
Here’s the thing the centers of the two parties do not yet realize. We centrist do not need them; they need us. There are not enough Alt Right to win a significant representation nor enough Alt Left to win control unless we in the center vote for them. Both parties tend to nominate the more extreme of their party during primaries. They count on their own mainstreams’ fear and loathing of The Other to prevent them from crossing party lines during the general election. It has been working rather well to polarize and destroy America.
After the Great American Walk Away, the extremes of neither party will be able cancel their moderates because, just like Elvis, their centrists will have left the building. As long as reasonable voters remain in the party, however, the extremes will run roughshod over open-minded people of good will. After one re-registers as Unaffiliated (Independent in some areas), the tables will have been turned.
The Power of One
Rather than be submerged in a mass where the extreme fringe calls the shots, by quitting, each one of us moves to a position where the parties have to come and solicit our vote. Each one of us has the power to fight extremism by simply re-registering as Unaffiliated (Independent). On the downside, we’ll get twice as much junk mail.
(Richard Lee Abrams has been an attorney, a Realtor and community relations consultant as well as a CityWatch contributor. You may email him at [email protected])