The right is foaming at the mouth over leftist conspiracies that DON'T EXIST.
"The Methods of Moral Panic Journalism
Scare stories on "left-wing illiberalism" display a familiar pattern": [michaelhobbes.substack.com]
Anne Applebaum is the center-right darling whose focus in this article on Leftist 'excesses' exposes the Right's insistence on a moral equivalency between the Democratic Party, on the one hand, and the Republican's FAR-right wing, and it's descent into fascist authoritarianism.
She thinks the idea of "wokeness" is a sign the Democrats are heading toward doctrinaire neo-comminist rigidity, just as the Republicans have already slid into a far-right reactionism beneficial to it's oligarch puppetmasters.
The truth is, the Right has ALWAYS used superficially reasonable arguments to convince the "rabble" to unwittingly vote to preserve the power of the plutocratic elite and, only to the extent that it has "worked," pretended to believe in democracy.
The American Left, on the other hand, has always espoused an enlightened socialism, not a top-down command economy, and always within democratic bounds.
So Applebaum naively clings to a belief in Ayn Rand-style, laissez-faire libertarianism--"virtuous selfishness"--and therefore the brand of conservative utopianism which led us blindly into this crisis.
She refuses to acknowledge, as in this instance, the Republican's attempt to brand the Democrats as rigid extremists is not AT ALL the same as the Dems' denunciation of the THEIR true motivation: to subvert democracy by selling the public lies disguised as applied political theories, such as "supply-side economics."
So if anything, Applebaum is telling us there will be no sober self-criticism by the Republicans. The deluded will remain so, thus giving the autocrats free reign to dismantle democracy, if need be, to accomplish their goals.
Tort reform was, and remains, a darling Con issue because they are about making corporations/lawyers richer. Impose clearly ridiculous laws that have to be fought in courts by lawyers and shield corporations from high punishments. The MSM certainly didn't work very hard to state the injured woman's concerns until her jury punished McD. I am against any sort of Tort cap based on this case.