>>2275217Another point. The trade war has also exposed the moral relativism and reactionarism of American conservatives. Now, I'm no moralist by any stretch, but it is important to note that the country has crossed a Rubicon along those lines.
This is not a new phenomenon. The country has backslid into this way of thinking since the Cold War and the rise of the PRC, USSR, DPRK and Cuba - there was the Red Scare, Cointelpro, etc. The erosion of the country's institutions, however, was not due to socially liberal movements, but rather the institutions' reaction to them. It began with Tricky Dick Nixon, notorious for the Watergate scandal. He privatized the healthcare of the country, colluding with Kaiser to bring about the advent of healthcare industry. This clearly malthusian effort denied coverage to the worst off in America. This was followed by the Reagan admin's oversight of the at-large privatization of basic services, the botched oversight of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and the creation of the book of dirty tricks conservatives use today. Following the eight years of Reagan, no real leftist worth their salt would ever have a chance of winning a seat in government without addressing law & order, taxes, etc.
This has ultimately culminated in where the country is today. A nonexistent middle class, a nonexistent social safety net, and an oligarch class sitting above even the top one-percent with the government at their fingertips. And now the people are getting louder with their responses (see vidrel). Say what you want about Luigi, his act is the first domino to fall in creating a revolution in this country. It may not be overtly leftist, it may not even be victorious, but it will most certainly be violent.
"But I thought the left was supposed to be tolerant," they say. "I never harmed anyone," they say. This is their trick. They don't have to be held to any moral or ethical standards, only their enemies do. They can claim all they want that they don't harm people directly, but their control over people's lives and the policies they push do. They will have their day of reckoning, because when corruption is normal, everything is legal. No matter how many times they claim innocence, they will never be good people.