I have often claimed that it is easier to convert the average Republican voter to socialism than it is trying to work with most "progressives" and liberals. Liberals like to imagine themselves to be playing a lead role in some exciting drama, on some mystical "path" toward having the correct political sentiments, getting a little more radical with "baby steps" and becoming "more aware." This narrative is the only way that a "leftist" sense of politics can be reconciled with the self-actualization doctrine. The important thing is not what is happening politically in objective reality, but rather how I am changing - isn't it exciting! - and how I feel about things and how I am living my life differently.

Many liberals can talk for hours about their own personal transformation in excruciating detail, yet are weak and sketchy on - and easily become bored or distracted by - politics that are not directly useful to their personal journey. At the same time, they think that politics is something that you "do" as a sort of spare time hobby activity, that you "work into" your life as you can, kept separate and discrete from your "real life." This enables the reconciliation of two contradictory things - fancying yourself to be a rebel, to be a radical and to be somehow in opposition to "bad" things, while at the same time obviating any necessity for looking very closely or seriously at your own deep complicity - your commitment to and investment in working and apologizing for the ruling class, and therefore being allowed to enjoy certain perks and benefits and social status as a result.

There is a paradox in this, in that the further along this imaginary path we go, the more of these baby steps we take, the more violent and irrational the hostility we find to socialism. You are an everyday liberal, not very politically active, and you think "those Dems are too conservative" for one reason or another and so you gravitate to DU or a similar offline group. "Underground" sounds so romantic and serious. "Boy are we getting radical now," you think. "And I am learning so much!" Self-actualization again. Now for those who still feel restricted, they will be encouraged to go even further - gasp!! - and join a splinter group (getting even MORE radical!! Aren't we too kewl!) like PI online or like the Greens offline.

But with each step, you move into a more and more restrictive atmosphere, and one that is less and less powerful, and more and more irrelevant to the general public. The groups are not more radical, they are more doctrinaire. They are more of whatever it was that was wrong with liberalism to begin with. They are distilled liberalism, fanatical liberalism, religious liberalism. They are dead ends.

On the supposedly extremely radical PI, you cannot make the argument that a former Republican makes in the letter below without vicious hostility being leveled against you. Were it discovered that you were once a Republican, that would be used as a pretext to discredit you and perhaps assassinate your character and run you off, as we all saw happen.

I maintain that we have far more potential allies among Republican voters, and that they are far more approachable, than most liberals and progressives, The more "radical" a progressive or liberal fancies themselves to be, the harder a nut they are to ever crack.

A former right-winger's advice on how to destroy a key pillar of right-wing ideology

As many of you know I am a former right-winger who converted to a leftist about seven years ago. Many people wonder how I could make a shift from a person who wanted to privatize everything, to a person who takes leftist stances on pretty everything without stopping in the middle somewhere first. The truth is though that there was never a place for me in the middle of the spectrum, my right-wing ideology was built on false premises and once I figured out the right-wing lie there was nowhere to go but to where the truth is.

Basically right-wing ideology at least from an economic sense rests on one overriding value, trust in the corporation. Right-wingers believe that corporations can run things better than the government can. That is essentially what their entire economic platform is built on. They refuse to provide universal health care because they believe that corporations will take care of them. They hate taxes because they would much rather pay corporations for services than they would the government. They believe the corporations are trust-worthy entities that only have the people's best interests at heart, because they believe that if a corporation violates a person's trust the market will punish them. Unfortunately however, the facts show a very different scenario in which corporations profit from screwing people over.

Once a right-winger realizes that the corporations are not working in their best interests though, well then that key pillar of right-wing ideology begins to crumble. For me when I lost trust in the corporations, I was unable to hold on to my right-wing beliefs any more because trust in corporations is really the founding principle of right-wing economic ideology. Once that foundation corrodes, there is nothing left of the ideology. Everything collapses, and there is no place to move but to the left.

This is why it is so important to go after the corporations, because corporations are not as separate from the government as some would like to believe. The Republicans like to emphasize their "pro-business" talking point but we need to start calling bullshit whenever we hear the Republicans talk about business. The truth is they are not talking about business, they are talking corporations. The word business is far too broad, it puts the Mom and Pop corner shop on the same level as Exxon or Wal-Mart. This makes it difficult for people to recognize that not all business interests are the same. Those of us on the left are not fighting business. We have nothing against the Mom and Pop corner shops, in fact we would like to see more of them. What we are fighting is big corporations who destroy those corner shops and put the country's wealth into the hands of a small number of people.

We need to emphasize that the right-wing is not pro-business, they are pro-corporate and there is a big difference. We need to expose the abuses of corporations, because once we can expose those abuses and the people realize they are being screwed over we have basically destroyed the entire foundation of right-wing economic thought.

I converted, and there are plenty of others out there who can convert as well. But as long as there is a trust in corporations it is going to be very difficult to move people to our side. The corporation is the foundation of the Republican Party and the DLC. If I can turn from a right-winger to a progressive without stopping in the middle, I have a hard time believing there are not others out there like me. We don't need to move to the "center" to win people over, we need to chip away at the foundations of the right-wing ideology. Once they lose trust in the corporations ability to handle health care for example, they are likely not going to be running to the DLC for the "third way". They are likely instead to realize that universal health care has been very effective elsewhere, and move to the left.

None of us who live in the middle class or below benefit from corporate power, we may think we do but we don't. Once people realize that the Republican Party is done for.

That might work for some people, but the confounding of the left's economics with the myriad "issues" promoted by the liberals has made for much confusion and apathy. The sort of thing I often hear in these parts is, "Yeah, I know the corporations are screwing us but there ain't nothing you can do about that and besides I don't like queers/feminists/environmentalist/yankees/whatever." They rightfully associate liberals with the corporations(just look at the TV) but the confusion of politics with religion, life style and preference makes for a muddle. People are fearful of the future and economically insecure and there's always a bit of populism of sorts in the message of the Klan and their ilk though that populism is presented as cultural. The depth of this confusion is probably greater here in the South because of history, but it is a selective history, The War of Northern Aggression is remembered too well but the benefits of the New Deal are forgotten by all but folks over 70.

The writer above is clear-headed and inspiring but I'd bet he isn't a blue collar southerner. Funny, I've had two conversations lately where middle-aged white men have said to me without prompting that things have gotten too far, that civil war or revolution is past due. Exactly who the targets of their antipathy might be is up for grabs, if socialists cannot clearly and forcefully present the economic case then someone else will capture that frustration, reminds me of Germany.

The liberal to left faux path is doubly absurd around here which is why the liberals hate this region so, it's reactionary populism which is waiting in the wings for a vaccum to expand into. All the more reason to get to work.