re: #47 SanFranciscoZionist

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the early twentieth century socialists and the labor movement as a political force. They were very, very radical and they mostly got their collective asses handed to them in on just about every issue. But in doing so they really dragged American discourse to the left. I think the same thing can be said for the hippie and environmental movements of the second half of the twentieth, as those movements have collapsed I think American political thinking has trended rightwards. A conservative in 2010 sounds a lot more like a conservative in 1910 than a conservative in 1970.

I think what really scares me about the tea party is not that they’re going to accomplish anything, but that they will redefine what right and left mean in American politics. As someone who is generally on the left fringe already that really worries me.