For quite some time, ag has regaled us with his grand theory of American politics in which Bernie Sanders supporters and Trump supporters are equally terrible. This grand theory of American politics is little more than the malformed and delusional notion of the "horseshoe theory of politics". Clearly, the extremes are just as bad and are equally terrible. Anyone who posts on this forum should recognize the whiff of cow excrement that wafts over one's nose whenever they read ag's grand theory of American politics but I'll try to unpack why his argument is nonsense.
ag (putative) argument #1: Bernie supporters and Trump supporters are equally bad because they're both opposed to free trade, which is akin to authoritarianism and the work of Lucifer.
Leaving aside whether or not ag's fixation with trade is healthy or justifiable, and I think it's neither because it's perfectly understandable why trade agreements have received hostility from the general public (there are distributional effects and the public is not happy about those effects), this claim is very stupid. It's stupid because it's not in-line with reality: Bernie supporters, for the most part, did not support Sanders because of his position on the TPP or NAFTA. Maybe the core of his "Bernie or Bust" support emanated from the hard left, which stands ready to oppose any trade deal at any cost, but the vast majority of Sanders voters are not economic nationalists. In fact, Sanders supporters were more likely to say that they supported free trade than Kasich supporters.
ag's putative argument #2: Bernie and Trump supporters are equally bad because they're nationalists who hate immigrants.
Does ag abuse drugs? Is he deaf and blind? Only a crack addict, someone afflicted by numerous disabilities or someone who is entirely ignorant of American politics could believe this claim.
So much for the unpacking and critique, then. This begs the question: why bother responding to claims that are so obviously wrong? I'm responding to these claims because they're part and parcel of a wider argument embraced by right-wing "neo-liberals", an argument that states that the rise of the leftist social movements is as damaging and threatening to "liberal values" as the rise of the "far-right". This argument is a frightening one because it is reminiscent of the unwillingness that middle class right-wing liberals displayed in the 1930s to cooperate with their socialist peers; instead, they actively collaborated with fascists, ditching their liberal allegiances and tethering themselves to the banner of fascism.
The idea that democratic socialists stand opposed to human rights of all kinds and the dignity of man (and woman) throughout the globe is, on its face, absurd. Who are the only actors in Europe willing to embrace refugees? The "far-left"; no citations are necessarily, everyone ought to be aware of the efforts of far-left parties in defending migrants and everyone ought to be aware of the work of activists who have tried to shield refugees from racist attacks; these people are heroes and keyboard warriors like ag disdain them because they're insufficiently supportive of his notion of globalization. Who was the only candidate in the Democratic presidential primary who opposed the militarization of the border? Bernie Sanders, the only candidate in the race who stood up for the rights of child migrants from Central America. I could go on and on but you get my point: in a decade defined by the re-emergence of the dark forces of reaction, the only force that has fully championed the cause of immigrants and that has attacked ultra-nationalism is the moral force of socialism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptJf3ju3X1gI do not mind criticism of Bernie Sanders or criticism of his supporters; they warrant such criticism but what I will not allow and what I will not put up with is the notion that his supporters are cruel, heartless and terrible or that they are equivalent to Trump supporters. Hundreds of thousands of Latinos supported Bernie Sanders for a reason and many undocumented immigrants advocated for his candidacy for a reason: because they saw a man who cared for them and their plight. The fact that a Mexican economist who is delusional and far removed from American politics thinks otherwise is, perhaps, unimportant; every society contains its fair-share of lunatics and weirdos who yell at clouds. Alas, Mexico is no different than America in this regard. It has been very infuriating to watch a man use the banner of Mexican citizenship to defame Mexican-Americans, and the millions of other Sanders supporters who are good and decent people, by suggesting that they vote for the White Nationalist Party. This man knows nothing of which he purports to know and should stick to what he knows best: economics. Stop defaming good people, ag. If you must defame, defame fascists, do not defame your compaņeros.
