Extremists!

Who do you think are extremists? Do you agree with Tories and Republicans?

New UK definition of extremism

The British government has just redefined 'extremist' (see above) and listed a few organisations it thinks fits the bill. Ministers and officials are not to be allowed to have any contact with them. This is, of course, a slippery slope it would be best not to go down. The list includes those it considers Islamist or neo-Nazi, but not other kinds of extreme right wing groups. Like Republicans, they rail against left wing groups' 'wokism' and 'communism' so it would not be surprising to see some of those added to the list, like Just Stop Oil, whose protesting members have already been given severe jail terms.

Over the years, I have watched the Conservative Party become more and more extreme right, as has the Republican Party. This became noticeable to me under Maggie Thatcher, with her 'greed is good' attitude and economic policies that have made inequality in Britain more and more extreme. According to Our World in Data, "during the 1980s, inequality increased substantially in the UK" and since then, "income growth at the very, very top of the income distribution has outstripped the strong growth of incomes across the rest of the distribution". Maggie Thatcher became PM in 1979. Far from supporting workers, the backbone of the country, she declared war on them with the miner's strike, just as Reagan had declared war on air traffic controllers with the PATCO strike - gross ingratitude since they had endorsed him.

It has been shown that the richer people are, the more likely they are to be sociopathic (though not all are - the Patriotic Millionaires, for example). Many politicians have become more and more openly contemptuous of anyone to the left of them, calling people who are simply decent 'woke' or communists. The education minister even literally gave the middle finger to the crowd. They may not be billionaires themselves, but they are bribed by billionaires and have chosen to serve them. They also live in a bubble of like-minded people and discount the views of anyone not in their club, so they will never learn and will always be out of touch with the people.

Like that well known extremist group the Taliban, Republicans are anti science (e.g. COVID vaccines and preventative measures), anti LGBT (don't say gay), anti women's rights (women, even young girls who have been raped and women with lethal ectopic pregnancies, must carry the baby to term), anti church-state separation. They attack any minority they can to divide and conquer. Tories share many of the same traits.

Racism

For years, politicians were more and more careful about what they said, without changing their views. Republican Lee Atwater said (apologies for language):

"You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger” — that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”"

Republicans relaxed COVID precautions as soon as they believed that blacks were more likely to die of COVID than whites, though they spoke in economic terms.

But in recent years in America, Trump has been saying racist things out loud, for example calling Mexicans "Drug dealers, criminals, rapists" and going so far as to incite an insurrection, clearly not caring a jot about America, and this has encouraged others to be openly racist and violent bullies. Trump is now openly seeking his revenge for being voted out of office.

The rot has spread to the UK. Even senior Conservatives have accused home secretary Suella Braverman of ‘racist rhetoric’. A Tory MP racially abused an activist.

The biggest Tory donor who said looking at MP Diane Abbott makes you ‘want to hate all black women’ and that she should be shot, has been readily forgiven after apologising for being rude, and his £10 million donation retained. They are quick to complain when anyone from Labour says anything wrong, though.

Protest

The more extreme a regime, the more authoritarian and dictatorial it becomes. Trump clamped down on protest when he was president (except for protests by his own supporters, and he positively instigated the insurrection) and the Tories are doing the same. They have clamped down on protests (except those they support). They enacted the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act in 2022 and the Public Order Act in 2023.

They don't do the violence themselves; they either stir up others to do it for them, whether for an insurrection or random acts of stochastic terrorism or rioting in the streets due to hatred they have stirred up.

They don't want us to protest their policies at the ballot box, either. Republicans have used a variety of voter suppression tactics over the years and with the Elections Act of 2022 Tories also introduced voter ID, with acceptable ID being selected to make it harder for their opponents to vote.

Religion

In the USA House Speaker Mike Johnson has urged a religious test for politicians, which is clearly against the constitution. An Alabama justice invoked 'the wrath of a holy God' when he ruled against IVF. Republican politicians in right wing states have passed or introduced anti-abortion bills. The conservatives on the Supreme Court followed their religious beliefs (or those of their sponsors) when overturning Roe v. Wade. Republicans have long courted the evangelist vote, but it seems like their first god is Mammon. They speak of America as having been founded as a Christian nation, but it was not so - The Treaty of Tripoli in 1796 states that "As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion..."

Part of their religion is to 'put women back in their place', hence extreme anti-abortion laws proliferating in red states. Sen. Katie Britt's recent rebuttal to president Biden's State of the Union speech was filmed in her kitchen, where Republicans clearly think women belong.

Tories have embraced non-Christian fellow Mammon-worshippers such as Rishi Sunak, so many of them now speak of 'British values' rather than 'Christian values', but it makes little difference, as their values are not those of decent Christians or Brits. They have preached hate and division, particularly when it comes to scapegoating immigrants when, like Republicans, they haven't actually done anything effective to stem the tide.

Tories are Extremist

It is the Tories who are extremist.

They have kept moving to the right, dragging Labour across the centre after themselves, and now label anyone who is moderately left 'extremist'. Somehow, they just do not see what they have become. And there are those for whom they are not extreme enough so those are forming new parties, movements and alliances such as PopCon. Hopefully divided they will fall, but by dragging Labour into what used to be Tory territory, they may win even when they lose.

I was by no means the only one to say on X that I thought that the conservatives should put themselves at the top of the eXtremists list. What do you think?