by Johnny Vedmore
All your rulers occupy the same place on the political spectrum, whether you like it or not.
The Republican Party set fire to itself under the leadership of George W. Bush and we’re still seeing the result of that destruction. After the grotesque spectacle of 9/11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Republican Party had largely destroyed the trust of their voters, alongside their credibility. The rise of Barack Obama—who was essentially a PR man’s dream—wasn’t a result of his charisma alone, it was mainly due to the total moral and ethical collapse of the Republican Party of the past.
Without Donald Trump, the Republican Party would not have regained the presidency at all and, in 2016, Hilary Clinton would have broken the proverbial glass ceiling. However, instead, Trump offered the Republican Party the thing they desired, a grand political synthesis with an icon of the centre-left. Most of you who are reading this believe that left is left, and right is right, and never the twain shall meet, but you are very wrong. The left does not exist as it did before the 1990s and the right has also now been defeated.
The Democrats under Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were not a left-wing party at all. The Dems had already moved to the political centre ground after Bill Clinton adopted Anthony Giddens’ Third Way politics, so he could beat George H. W. Bush during the 1992 election cycle. The American left hasn’t existed for three decades.
The kind of identity politics which has divided us was also not a strictly left-wing creation, it was a construct of the political centre ground dressed up as the political left. The unions and organisations which gave regular people some control and allowed the voices of the workers to be heard were mostly based on the left. They were publicly purged and gutted by the centre-ground politicians so that they could take and utilise their power.
From the perspective of those on the right, anything which is left of their political position is assumed to be “left-wing”. However, this is an overly simplistic view which is provably erroneous and hasn’t been accurate for many years, at least since Bill Clinton first took power. The left and the right wings of politics aren’t the only political games in town any more. The centre ground has dressed itself up as the political left many years ago and, when they did, they employed the same tactics. Third Way politicians have purged their left wing by using censorship, identity politics and smearing dissenters as racist.
The modern right-wing refers to this malevolent centre-ground political machine as “the left” but they are not the left. The left of yesteryear, the left of the trade unions and community action groups, served a purpose. They were the voices of the workers, of communities, of schools and colleges. They counterbalanced the over-reach of the right wing and vice versa. The political left no longer has any power. It was betrayed and purged by the centre-left and now, those on the left wing have been looking for a new home. Some of those who were pushed out by the Third Way style centrist politics which have ruled the roost include RFK Jr., Tulsi Gabbard and Donald Trump. Even Elon Musk has re-found his political home on this new and welcoming supposed right wing.
It appears as though the old left, homeless and unwanted, have simply found their home on the political right, but that’s also a relatively simplistic take. To compete with the effect of Third Way politics on the prevailing political paradigm, the right wing, as represented by the Republican Party, has been forced to move closer to the centre-ground of politics—the same occurred in the United Kingdom’s Conservative Party after Tony Blair brought Labour under Third Way rule. In response to the centre-left’s successful adoption of Third Way politics, the Republicans have publicly rejected the far-right elements of their political party too, and, in turn, this has allowed those rejected by the left to join what most of us call the political right.
In reality, the political left is dead, the political right is dead, and power now resides in the political centre-ground. This is a perfect example of the synthesis of a binary political paradigm and could signal something much more dangerous, the death throes of a defunct political system.
As those who have gained power step into the White House for Trump’s second term, the Republicans have access to the same tactics and tools as the Democrats had at their disposal, many of which they’ve decried to gain power. The censorship will continue under the new administration but the methods will be slightly different. Even Elon Musk has been signalling the specifics of such censorship.
Elon Musk has supposedly become a champion of free speech since he purchased X but only a small group of Musk supporters have reaped the benefits. I still know of various accounts which were shut down on X because they challenged the prevailing narrative, Graham H Moore being one fine example. But it’s Elon Musk himself who has claimed that his form of censorship is nicer than “the left’s” form of censorship. Because Musk claims he’s not limiting freedom of speech, instead, he claims to be limiting “freedom of reach”.
Ask yourself this: If someone said you had freedom of speech and then they locked you in a sound-proofed, windowless room, where your voice could not be heard, would you call them a hero, or a lying piece of shit? Let me give you a clue to the answer: Those who benefit will use different words than those who don’t.
The preferred brand of identity politics has already been adopted by the party we should probably refer to as the “neo-Republicans”. As with the previous examples of industrially deployed and micromanaged forms of identity politics, the chosen protected class on this occasion will be defended regardless of their actions. I think you can guess which group I’m talking about. Their enemies will become the enemies of the neo-Republican faithful. Their mission will be supported without question, regardless of how many children are being murdered by their actions. The efforts to protest against the protected class will be stifled, suppressed and referred to as “terrorism” or potential “insurrection”. There will be little difference between the tactics of the neo-Democrats and that of the neo-Republicans. They will use the same tools to censor, they will deploy their form of identity politics to divide the population, they will wage war abroad via proxies and, without the solutions which reside on the left and right of politics, austerity will follow.
One day, in the not-so-distant future, the politics of the left and right will rise again. But, for now, the battle for power resides in the political centre-ground. While it does, censorship, identity politics, smears, lawfare and accusations of racism or xenophobia will be used as the main tools for maintaining control. The days of classic Democrat vs classic Republican are far behind us, we now live in a neo-world, where people become the things they hate.
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