This take is a tough one because it has a lot of truth, but someone who's even a little invested in the status quo can find some significant exceptions. It's further complicated by the fact that your Democratic presidents have been worse than Republicans on certain issues.
The specific exceptions I'm thinking of are Clinton's de-escalation with the DPRK (the most recent season of Blowback covers this) and Obama's de-escalation with Cuba and Iran. All significant steps in the right direction that were rolled back hard by the Republican successor.
Oh you're absolutely correct, they're all right wing.
I'm saying that for a U.S. audience, "both sides are the same" is a proven losing argument. There's some Rage Against The Machine music video from a quarter century ago (Jesus Christ) that features Bush II and Gore saying -- verbatim -- the same things. You can go back a generation farther, to left wing protests of the '68 Democratic Convention and MLK's letter from Birmingham jail, and see basically the same argument.
It didn't work any time over the last several decades, so we should try to learn from that. I think one reason it didn't work is that it simplifies too much. Something along the lines of "the two parties are more alike than different," or "at the end of the day they're both imperialist parties," or "Democrats are just five years behind Republicans and have better PR" could get the same point across without making it so easy to say "well come on now, of course they aren't the same."
We (The UK) are much the same, we are just a bit left of you. Many people here will also say “we aren’t right wing, we’re nothing like America”, but we are.
This take is a tough one because it has a lot of truth, but someone who's even a little invested in the status quo can find some significant exceptions. It's further complicated by the fact that your Democratic presidents have been worse than Republicans on certain issues.
The specific exceptions I'm thinking of are Clinton's de-escalation with the DPRK (the most recent season of Blowback covers this) and Obama's de-escalation with Cuba and Iran. All significant steps in the right direction that were rolled back hard by the Republican successor.
I’m not American. To me they all seem right wing. Some Americans like to make out Biden is some Marxist type, but he’s not much different to Trump.
Oh you're absolutely correct, they're all right wing.
I'm saying that for a U.S. audience, "both sides are the same" is a proven losing argument. There's some Rage Against The Machine music video from a quarter century ago (Jesus Christ) that features Bush II and Gore saying -- verbatim -- the same things. You can go back a generation farther, to left wing protests of the '68 Democratic Convention and MLK's letter from Birmingham jail, and see basically the same argument.
It didn't work any time over the last several decades, so we should try to learn from that. I think one reason it didn't work is that it simplifies too much. Something along the lines of "the two parties are more alike than different," or "at the end of the day they're both imperialist parties," or "Democrats are just five years behind Republicans and have better PR" could get the same point across without making it so easy to say "well come on now, of course they aren't the same."
We (The UK) are much the same, we are just a bit left of you. Many people here will also say “we aren’t right wing, we’re nothing like America”, but we are.
Cheers for the quote. Makes a lot of sense.