What Happened To All The Moderate Political Candidates?
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What Happened To All The Moderate Political Candidates?
At various times in the last few years, I have worked side gigs to help with expenses or to provide a little extra spending money for vacations, weekend entertainment, etc. During the pandemic, I began working for DoorDash. At the time it was very profitable as many people did not want to leave their homes.
One Saturday afternoon I was driving down 611 in Warrington, PA (a Philadelphia suburb) to make a delivery when I came across a Black Lives Matter rally, then a few miles later a Trump rally. Both groups were animated and vociferous, but they were peaceful and respectful to the people driving on the road.
As I drove past each group, I beeped my horn and gave a thumbs-up. I didn’t do this because I was 100% in agreement with either group. I did it because they were engaging in the rights this country provides us to peacefully congregate.
However, political parties seem to want extremists from both sides to be representative of each group’s position. They either make a connection to the riots that stemmed from the BLM protests after the death of George Floyd or the subsequent riot on January 6th after Trump’s speech. I have found myself at various points in agreement with both sides of the aisle, while admittedly falling slightly on the side of the right in the last 8-10 years.
I don’t attribute this to anything that’s changed about me since November of 2008 when I submitted the first of two votes for Barack Obama during both his terms. It was the shift the left made by moving away from the center that brought me to vote for Donald Trump twice.
Both political parties have failed to defend the idea of being able to freely express our views in open or public forums. They will go out of their way to protect speech that aligns with their specific platform, but in turn, will work towards de-platforming opposing points or labeling subjective content as “misinformation” or “disinformation”.
I would much rather support the notion of allowing public debate and letting the general public decide what’s feasible and what isn’t. As an aside, I understand not all of this falls within the purview of the first amendment. I think social media sites should be free to moderate their platforms as they see fit. However, I find it immoral when government entities interject themselves into the moderation of these sites to push their narrative(s).
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People will argue that the right has moved towards protecting open debate recently as opposed to the left. While I don’t disagree with this sentiment, I also believe this is the direct result of the position they found themselves in with the mainstream media which has become more “progressive” and continues to push left-wing agendas.
I’m old enough to remember how George W. Bush and the right worked to censor journalists that opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and how he supported stricter censorship measures on broadcast radio and TV.
The fight between the right and the left has made it almost impossible to make progress in areas that regular people like us truly care about. From my perspective, they are not interested in necessarily solving anything.
Politicians lean into certain platforms just to get them to the next term. They support legislation that work like Band-Aids as opposed to supporting initiatives that address issues like racial or gender inequality, police reform, or inflation.
Some of these issues may take more than two, four, or six years to truly solve. But that doesn’t help them get elected for their next term, so they kick the can down the road and continue running on their hamster wheels to get nowhere.
I believe the government’s job is to protect our rights, not determine which political party is right or wrong. Embracing this two-party system has shifted the power from the hundreds of millions of people that vote in this country to the few who control the politicians we vote for through campaign donations and influence. It is meant to drive our attention away from what we have in common to what we disagree on, then use that to promote hate and division.
Our shared goal of wanting to live in a safe, just, and tolerant country should take precedence over this culture war each side wants us to engage in. I’m not saying we shouldn’t be debating banning books, police brutality, or gun control, but we should be able to do so in a way that allows for nuance and the potential to either find common ground or agree to disagree.
I’ll gladly support a political candidate that supports an environment where a Trump and a BLM rally can occur on the same stretch of Route 611 in a small town outside of Philadelphia, to peacefully congregate and voice their concerns.
Or, one that merely just supports where we find common ground.
 | A guest post by
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What Happened To All The Moderate Political Candidates?
Heartfelt synopsis of what many of us believe. Jan Jekielek, of the Epoch Times, recently interviewed Galvin DeBecker, who wrote The Gift of Fear. As he and other historians have referenced, totalitarianism in some form seems to be the norm - humans gravitate towards it. We seem to be descending into a Hobbesian paradigm that is for now covered in kit gloves but surely one that will give way to the dystopia of Alex Huxley's Brave New World mixed with George Orwell's 1984. Republicans are just as guilty - in fact, as you note, they started it with the Iraq War. They also took the weaponization of justice to a new level by going after Clinton. I didn't listen to broadcasts on the infamous 'Blue Dress.' This was not because I had a love of Clinton, but I had a love of the country, and I knew this would open up a Pandora's Box. What we also need to discuss is the influence of entities such as McKinsey. They and their ilk run the chess games and we are the pawns to be sacrificed. Employees working for McKinsey, et al, come from elite universities, which is why there is such disdain for the rest of us. We are the great unwashed.
I enjoyed this and I find myself in agreement with much of it. Just to open up my feedback real quick, I'd like to flashback to the inauguration of President Trump, January 20, 2017. Of those things that Trump spoke on, one part stands out among the rest, "Today, we are returning power back to the People." This is vitally important amd if utmost priority because our Founders designed this nation such that the power resides with the People. In fact, as far as power goes, the individual, the community, the state and the Federal Government is the appropriate order by which power should exist in the Inited States. So really, the individual, community and state are to be more powerful than the federal government. The last thing that our Foubders had ever considered was a top down, centralized power structure for the US. We are an experiment to see if we can find the answer to the question, "can man rule himself?" (and yes, of course, ladies, too. But in the era, obviously, the masculine form represented the whole as does foreign languages do today, ie French, Spanish & Italian). I suggest that we have definitively proven that we can rule ourselves. However, anytime there seems to be an issue, there is one common denominator: federal government.
For the 16 years prior to Trump's administration, Bush x2 and Obana x2, there had been an unending effort to centralize the federal government more and more as time went on. Under Bush, we saw the 2008 collapse which generated numerous offshoots that delved into personal financials; we saw 9/11, which had been planned for many years (we know who was behind it and what they did), which was used to curtail our constitutional rights under the Patriot Act, holding anyone indefinitely, without explanation or speedy trial, and manipulated us into supporting what seemed a rightful response to our assumed enemy which was actually nothing more than an excuse to foment war in the middle east for oil and ultimately the topplingvof Hussain because he refused to join the central bank system of money and neverending war from there. During Obama's 8 years, we saw a massive stimulus, explained away as 'Keynesian economics' that was said to jumpstart the economy with a slogan "shovel ready jobs". But virtually all of that money purchased a few billboards advertising "shovel ready jobs" and the rest expanded government and bureaucracy exponentially. We watched our Healthcare system be toppled such that no one could afford the coverage. Out of pocket costs were so high that most would never see their plans kick in. And those of us who were young just decided to pay the tax penalty as opposed to purchasing a plan. It was far less costly this way. A single trip to the dictionary out of pocket was more affordable. Obviously, there was no way to fund and sustain the ACA as it was structured. I won't delve into other concerns such as "Cash for Clunkers" and Solybdra but thosexwere huge money sucks! Beyond the ACA, the Obama administration literally and systematically dismantled the very cornerstones of this nation from Healthcare, military, banking and credit/financial reforms. It is no stretch to say that we took one hell of a battering for 16 years. And one can only trust that had Hillary been elected in 2016, things would look frightfully different today. But Trump broke the cycle. He stopped any remaining war activity. He arranged for a withdrawal that was blundered. He started no new wars. He ordered a couple of precision strikes on known terrorists who were known to be of a mind to continue war. He reversed the expansion of government . In short, he began the process of returning power back to us, the People. That effort continues.
It is very difficult to go down this rabbithole without getting into the weeds but I'm going to try to as well as wrap up shortly. I'm just going to write as though everything is as it appears. Let's say "the powers that be" - they don't like, nor do they want "clean" politicians. They want people with dirt. People with drama. They want people who, if they are not already compromised, who can be compromised. And I mean through blackmail. Our government is great about compromising politicians such that they can be blackmailed. This is their key to control. A politician may wish to vote one way but if their handler says otherwise, they must obey. This is how our government has been run. No one alive today has lived under the United States the Republic. We gave only lived under the Cirporation of the United States, which was an unconstitutional and treasonous act carried out unbeknownst to the People in 1871. Some interesting info here:
https://www.youhavetheright.com/tour1/
Unfortunately, this setup of the corporation tilted all favor towards government. That I can tell, Trump bankrupted the corporation in 2018 or so, which restored the Republuc of the United States. This also would have disconnected us from London Cuty and the Vatican, finally, once and for all, no longer beholden to the Crown. For real though.
Our financial system and system of money is going to change. No more endless quantitative easing(QE1, QE2...) by the Fed. which was simply printing money out of thin air, giving us inflation. Everything gwill once again be gold backed as it is supposed to be.
One final note, between two parties, one is trying desperately to expose all the corruption in government, trying to expose the real world problem of child trafficking (Republicans) and the other party is clawing desperately, trashing any who dare attempt to expose such corruption and illegalities (democrats). For what that's worth - it's worth knowing. There once was a day when we all would have united on the child sex trafficking problem but not even that can be done today everything has become so politicized. And that isn't just sad, that's absolutely pathetic. But the days will go on. Republicans will continue to shine a light on these crimes. And democrats will continue to bury, hide and trash talk any who dare bring these issues to light. I don't know that there's much more to be said here. I mean, there is a massive amount more that I could say but for the sake of time, perhaps now, a somewhat better understanding of why Trump is being so poorly treated, mischaracterized and endlessly falsely accused. They have to stop him. They need to stop him. They will go to any lengths. Trump is the spearhead of a movement that will inevitably be their undoing.
**I would like to revisit and add thoughts on 'far right' and 'far left'. These are of great interest to me.