Where Have All the Left Wings Gone?
American and European media are alarmed about right-wing extremists but not left-wing ones.
Chickens sold at the supermarket come with both right and left wings. Passenger jets also come with right and left wings. But judging by the way that news is covered in America and Europe, there are mostly right wings in politics but few left wings.
More often than not, those who are right of center are characterized pejoratively as right-wingers, right-wing extremists, and reactionaries. At the same time, those who are left of center are characterized euphemistically as moderates, progressives, liberals, democratic socialists, or greens. They are rarely characterized as left-wingers, left-wing extremists, or revolutionaries.
Currently, for example, reporters, news anchors, and commentators are hyperventilating about elections in France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and the U.S. being won by politicians and parties on the right, all of whom are being labeled with the aforementioned pejoratives.
Election coverage by the BBC and by DW News out of Berlin used the pejoratives so much that they made it seem as if the Reichstag was draped in swastikas, and as if the sound of hobnailed jackboots could be heard on the Champs de Elysee.
Even the Wall Street Journal follows the media herd in using the pejoratives. The same for Clay and Buck, the two guys who replaced Rush Limbaugh on talk radio. By going along with the pejoratives used by the left to describe conservatives, they are shooting themselves in the foot, or, as the pejoratives imply, a jack-booted foot.
Maybe leftists are correct in their claim that conservatives aren’t very bright.
The tendency to give leftists a pass was seen in the recent coverage of Claudia Sheinbaum winning the presidency of Mexico. Most of the coverage in the mockingbird media was ecstatic and overlooked her left-wing history. Also overlooked was the high probability that she is going to perpetuate the legacy of the Spanish Empire of a corrupt one-party state and a two-class society of aristocrats at the top and peasants below.
For the record, I don’t have a rooster in the semantic cockfight between the left and right. My belief is that both sides have extremist elements, have authoritarian tendencies, want to use government force to remake the world into their image, and have leaders who engage in demagoguery.
In that sense, the left-right distinction is outdated. After all, it goes back to how the French Assembly sat centuries ago, with the pro-monarchists on one side and the anti-monarchists on the other. A better alternative would be a ten-point scale of government power, with a zero representing anarchism (no government), a ten representing dictatorship, and a four representing just enough government to protect life, liberty and property while aiding those who are truly incapable of supporting themselves. It’s debatable where U.S. and European parties and governments rank on this scale, but almost all of them rank much higher than a four.
The election winners in Europe who are being castigated with such pejoratives as “right-wing extremists” don’t want to replace democracy with authoritarianism. As with like-minded politicians in the U.S., they want to stop unlimited immigration, they want immigrants to assimilate, they want affordable energy, and they want an economy that benefits working stiffs and not just elites.
Whether one agrees or disagrees with their goals, it’s over the top to call them right-wing extremists. Saying that about them while overlooking left-wing extremism is just as shortsighted as boarding an airplane with only one wing.
