In June 2010 I had an article published in Quadrant magazine; “The Trumping Factor”. I went back to it because I remembered writing about how those on the left and the right divide more or less uniformly and predictably across numbers of seemingly unconnected issues. To wit:
“One of the mysteries of life is that once you have established that someone is an economic socialist or an economic conservative you can then go on to predict with fair degree of accuracy their views across a range of contentious non-economic matters. Of course, you can also proceed by going from one or other non-economic matter and reach the same end.“
Back in 2010, I mentioned, inter alia, that those on the left tend to be critical of their nation’s past, particularly when it comes to colonisation and to the treatment of indigenous people. That they tend to favour apologies and reparations for perceived past injustices; to favour open borders to refugees; to favour a less forceful posture on national defence; and, of course, to favour action, as it were, to heal the planet.
I didn’t try to be exhaustive. But it’s passing strange, is it not, that I made no mention of wokeness, of intersectionality, of transgender rights – to wit, the strange case of 78 gender pronouns or men in frocks beating the pants of women in sports, of hate speech, of CRT and DEI and ESG, of defunding the police, of cancel culture, and no doubt of more things that have blessedly slipped my mind for the moment. However, it isn’t strange at all.
These bizarre developments were still in their gestation stage or less formed than that. Waiting to be sprung on us with a vengeance. They’re the reason that the confirmed leftie Bill Maher thinks his side has gone mad. And I didn’t mention gay marriage, the campaign for which had started but hadn’t gathered real pace in 2010.
My worry is what they’ll think of next to assail our sanity. There isn’t anything left you might say. But that’s what you might have said in 2010. There is no limit to their fevered imaginations allied with their fanatical determination to undo our civilisation. There will be something else to affront our senses. They’re a long way from being finished. Demons are indefatigable.
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