I speak from the position of someone who voted for Trump twice. I was never really what would be properly called a "Trumper" or "MAGA" even, except maybe to those on the hard left who see any opposition of any kind toward leftism as being "MAGA" or "Trumpism" or "Trump-supportive". Like how many Biden voters or Hillary Clinton voters do you really honestly know who actually gave whole support to the ideologies of those? Like most people, I just ended up voting for the lesser of evils. But nevertheless, I did venture more toward right-wing brainwashing. I think a lot of it is dictated by the news we watch. But there is a large responsibility that the left itself needs to take up in creating right-wing brainwashing. There's positive brainwashing and negative brainwashing. And the left contributes to a lot of negative brainwashing.
Pigeonholing is a tactic used frequently in rhetoric where someone puts someone in a position that they would not otherwise hold because of hasty generalizations or strawmanning or even guilt by association. And the left excels in it. I do believe this is how many otherwise conservative people, such as David French, get sucked into making excuses for the left even as the left attacks them. Because if they didn't stray toward the left, they'd end up in my position of being labeled a "MAGA". But that's the thing, these are labels that can be rejected. Labels aren't something that are handed out by people who aren't extemist. Labels are handed out by people who are extremists! I want to make that clear. Understanding that there is pigeonholing by left-wing extremists and anyone who undertakes in pigeonholing is, more often than not, an extremist, is a crucial component of this.
You're not an extremist just because someone says you are an extremist. In fact, you might be normal. I have empathy toward those who see January 6, 2021 as an insurrection. I think that it is an opinion. It doesn't make someone a defender of "MAGA" or a "Trumper" to be able to understand that the usage of the term "insurrection" to define that event is opinionated. What's more concerning is when politicians use the opinionated term as part of their investigation into what happened and so the legal search starts with a conclusion and then finds evidence to support that conclusion. Others, such as myself, see an otherwise organized rally that somehow erupted into a riot. And that's an equally justified opinion unless evidence proves there was an insurrection. When it becomes a matter of good and evil to see such a thing as an insurrection or people who became riotous and politicians start to use that as part of a legal investigation of the issue, that's dangerous. But an extremist, nevertheless, isolates people who see it as either/or into groups of us vs. them and ignores their own responsibility.
So during the Summer of 2020, the President had to hide in a bunker. That is a fact. He had to hide into a bunker because an organized group of people was committing violent acts, vandalizing the streets of Washington, D.C., and riot cops had to be called into to break everything up. Leftists denied this happened and yet video footage showed it happened. When confronted with this, leftists didn't call it out. They actually sought to justify it based on the nation's treatment of racial minorities...in the past. Most people tend to grow up, but extremists tend to grasp onto what happened in the past and act as if everything in the past is the same as today. That's why you get "Hitler" analogies. Obviously, no one's bringing back Hitler. Though due to the fact that Nazism is a variation of socialism and both right and left cling to socialism, it's understandable why so many make these Hitler analogies, on both right and left. The point is, that the Summer riot could also be categorized as an insurrection.
An insurrection, I think, is something that should be defined before the word is thrown out. Generally speaking, insurrection refers to acts that are intentionally undermining the Civil Government. It's impressive to me how many leftists will insist that our government institutionalizes racism and then will somehow care about that government being undermined. That's just cognitive dissonance disorder. Either you care about the institution or you think the institution is inherently racist. The fact that intent is typically emphasized is why I don't think that January 6, 2021 was an insurrection. I'm not saying it may have been, I'm just saying I don't think that happened. The only insurrection I am aware of that happened with certainty was the insurrection in Seattle that occurred in 2020 with "CHAZ".
Going back to my original point, extremism happens on both sides. I don't know what side it is more common with, but the hard rightists typically see the media make comments ad nauseam about right-wing extremism. Then they see on social media video clips of various examples of left-wing extremists and they are hurt and wounded by the fact that there is so much demonization of the right. More than that, but people in the middle, who hold more socially conservative views, see all of this, end up being pigeon-holed along with the more extreme bunch of the right, and end up being categorized as "MAGA", "Trumpers", "Nazis", and "extremists" as well. No one likes being called things they aren't, but it's a part of labeling. Cults typically divide the world into two categories of good guys vs. bad guys. It's easier then to glorify violent acts such as the knifing of Derek Chauvin (leftists recently) and the death of George Floyd (right-wing extremists in the past and today). Or even Kyle Rittenhouse's usage of force against people trying to kill him. Even justified violence should not be glorified. It reminds me of what Elyas says to Perrin Aybara in The Wheel of Time. The moment you start to love that axe is when you need to get rid of it.
The left has engaged in what I would call "negative brainwashing". By creating such a negative picture of the right, that more people on the right have started materializing that in response to the left-wing extremism that is both justified by the media and supported by politicians. Did Nancy Pelosi ever call out those who vandalized a crisis pregnancy center? While opposing right-wing extremism continues to be necessary, it must be remembered that left-wing extremism has media and corporate support. Both should be opposed equally. Those who are of the Kingdom of God know that the enemies attack it from all sides. The warfare is not a material one, but it is an important one. For the left to actually get rid of right-wing extremists, they themselves need to stop thinking like extremists of seeing people as two groups, those for, and those against, their ideological group think. But one thing I give credit to the left on, they at least know that the Kingdom of God is their main enemy.
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