The Rise of the Right Wing on Medium
Will it really rise?
I joined Medium in April 2019. I thought this would be a good forum to help promote my alternative system of democratic governance. I saw higher quality writing, a more civil tone, and higher intellect than other political forums I had participated in. I was hopeful.
From my first and later impressions, it seemed Medium was a left-leaning internet forum. Conservative articles and responses were not common. It almost seemed the token conservative voice on my feed was a deliberate placement by Medium to balance out the political debate.
My hypothesis is that conservative thinking is less able to defend itself against logic and rational thinking. Hence, conservatives have stayed away from the fairly high intellect I have found on Medium.
It seems there has been more right-wing traffic on Medium this summer. I am seeing more right-leaning articles on my feed — and more right-leaning comments. Is this a deliberate attempt by Medium to recruit writers from the right? Or are these writers are being encouraged by outside forces to post their “let’s sow some doubt of the left” articles on Medium. Or maybe the Medium algorithms have just been “protecting” me this past two years? Who knows?
I had a little Medium encounter with an advocate of the “Stop-The-Steal” campaign. I posted something like this to his article:
If the Stop the Steal legal team scored 0 out of 60 in their court cases, there can only be three possible reasons:
1. There was not sufficient fraud to turn the results of the election.
2. There was sufficient fraud to turn the results of the election, but the legal team was too incompetent to present any of these cases to win. In this case, the blame should be cast to the people who hired that legal team.
3. The American court system has been stacked with Democrats. In this case, the legal team should have appealed all 60 cases to the Supreme Court, which has been stacked by Republicans.
The original writer did not respond to my comment. This sort of proves my hypothesis that conservatives really can’t defend their position well.
And I had another recent encounter with another stop-the-steal guy. This fellow tried to use math to explain the voter fraud. His position was that Mr. Biden’s 81m voters was much larger than the historical Democrat turnout, so the only reason that turnout increased from 65m voters to 81m votes must be fraud.
I told him that 104m Americans did not vote in 2016. It is very possible that Mr. Trump annoyed 16m of them enough to cast a ballot against him in 2020.
Well, I did get a response from this fellow. Instead of challenging my math in any meaningful way, he responded with a 25-point list as to why Mr. Trump was the best president ever. It seemed like a ready-made list to post when logic has failed.
I do have a bit of an argumentative streak in me, so giving someone the last word is sometimes hard for me to do. But I also have limited time and many other things to do. A good response to him would take an hour. But I spent that hour.
Below is his 25-point list and my comments. I have edited some of these comments since my initial response.
1. Executive order enacted Jan. 1, 2021 requiring hospitals to provide medical prices to patients upfront so they can shop around.
I don’t have enough background knowledge on this issue to comment in a wise way.
2. Reversing the ascent of the Islamic extremist terrorist group ISIS.
ISIS was already imploding on itself before Mr. Trump took office.
3. “Most Favored Nation” executive order so that the U.S. (through Medicare) would pay no more for a drug than what’s offered to foreign countries, saving the U.S. an estimated “$85 billion in savings over seven years and $30 billion in out-of-pocket costs.”
I believe Mr. Obama tried something similar but was stymied by the Republicans.
4. Moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to the capital of Jerusalem.
Moot point, other than to get support from Jewish voters who usually vote Democrat and will likely stay that way. Not much political upside that I can see.
5. Building more than 450 miles of new and replacement border wall.
Mostly repairs to existing walls as other commentators have noted. Rio Grande and a few deserts are still the biggest obstacles.
6. Leading U.S. to a level of energy independence (exporting more oil than importing for the first time in 70 years), allowing international policy decisions to be made with less regard to how an oil nation we once relied on would respond.
Mr. Trump did not cause this. It took about 15 to 20 years for the petroleum industry to apply the technology to develop oil shales to make this self sufficiency. Mr. Trump only showed up to the party at the right time and had nothing to do with planning that party.
7. No new wars.
That one kind of surprised a lot of people, including myself.
8. Drastic reduction in regulations, opening the door for entrepreneurs and businesses to succeed, expand, and hire more people. According to the Trump administration, they promised to eliminate two regulations for every new one, but actually wound up eliminating 8 old regulations for every 1 new regulation adopted, equating into an extra $3,100 a year for the average American household.
All countries have regulations that have become obsolete. Often the bureaucracy has the wisdom to ignore bad regulations, even if they are still on the books. I suspect that some of these regulations were already pruned by the bureaucracy and no longer interfering with business. I suspect some of these regulations were more to cater to the bottom line of big business. Regardless, many more regulations happen at the state level, not federal. Kind of a moot point.
9. Expanding Republican reach among African Americans and other constituents who traditionally lean Democrat.
I don’t believe this claim.
10. Cutting taxes in an initiative that benefitted every tax bracket.
Yeah, giving a $30,000 worker a $500 tax break will really make the working poor’s life a lot better. Most of the tax break went to the rich and corporations.
11. Doubled the child tax credit.
I don’t have enough background information to comment.
12. Operation Warp Speed: accelerated development of coronavirus vaccines.
No president would have hindered development of the vaccine. There enough profit motive from pharmaceutical industry to work on this project without any presidential encouragement. Suggesting that only Mr. Trump could have got this project off the ground is naïve. Given Mr. Trump’s record of blaming Democrats and Chinese and coming up with quack cures and outright COVID denials, it’s kind of hard to see how he helped the vaccine along. Any leadership to fight COVID came from CDC and the state governments.
13. Eliminated the Obamacare penalty.
I don’t have enough background information to comment.
14. A series of trade agreements and changes seen as beneficial to Americans, including replacing NAFTA with USMCA.
According to most Canadian trade experts, the deal was the same. Changing the name of the deal was mostly bluster to give the impression something was done to give USA an advantage. Many voters fell for the bluster.
15. Instead of 2-for-1, we eliminated 8 old regulations for every 1 new regulation adopted.
You mentioned this already.
16. Provided the average American household an extra $3,100 every year.
You mentioned this already. But average? Maybe $2000 each for 20 middle class families and $30,000 for one millionaire family. That’s the kind average that makes sense, right? BTW, the working poor don’t pay that much tax in the first place. They would be lucky to find $500 in this average.
17. Started the Space Force.
Spy satellites were around long before Mr. Trump. For a president trying to drain the swamp, he just added another layer of bureaucracy with quarter-million-dollar management salaries and high-rent offices.
18. Instituted “Right to Try,” allowing terminally ill patients to use potentially lifesaving, unproven treatments.
I don’t have enough background information to comment.
19. Prioritized and made permanent funding for historically black colleges.
I don’t have enough background information to comment.
20. Brokered peace deals or normalization agreements between Israel and five Muslim and Arab-Muslim countries.
American politicians have been brokering such deals for years. Such deals usually have some US graft behind them. They have a tendency to fall apart a few years later.
21. Banned the teaching of “Critical Race Theory” in the federal government.
CRT is misunderstood by the right wing. Pointless to comment until a definition is agreed on.
22. Withdrew from Iran nuclear deal.
I can’t comment. I don’t understand this issue well enough to know whether it was good or bad. Sometimes we plebes just don’t have enough information on foreign affairs to know enough.
23. Withdrew from the Paris Climate Accord.
BIG MISTAKE in my opinion: USA lost international status to be influential later. If some American voters chose to base their vote on this matter, that is their right. But withdraw or stay is a matter of opinion, not an obvious path that only the foolish can’t see.
24. Instituted a Buy American policy within federal agencies.
And that violates the free trade agreement. If the Canadian government did the same, the USA would take Canada to WTO court. I suspect this is more smoke and mirrors than actual practice.
25. Achieved a $400 billion increase in contributions by NATO allies by 2024 with the number of members meeting their minimum obligations doubling.
Somehow all those NATO countries just found $400b to spend on their military when Mr. Trump snapped his fingers. I suspect a lot of creative accounting went into showing that $400b increase. Everyone knows that except Mr. Trump and his supporters. Real NATO military spending really did not increase by much.
Dave Supplemental #1 to the 25-point List
I am from Alberta and have 12 years experience in the petroleum industry. Although I advocate for a transition from a petroleum to a hydrogen economy, there still is a 50-year period to effect this transition. I would like to see Alberta get good use of its oil resources in that time. I would like to see one of the three major pipeline projects, from Alberta to a major market, to be constructed. We should not rely on our current 50-year old machines to last another 50 years.
Let’s talk about Keystone. When Mr. Trump tried to move Keystone forward, he got stopped by one judge. He could have read the judge’s verdict to determine the reasons for the denial. He could have addressed those reasons and offered a better plan. He could have appealed — all the way to the Supreme Court. He could have concocted some legislation that could have circumvented that judicial decision. But he did nothing except blame the Democrats. Keystone is dead, and all the blame should go to Mr. Trump.
If there were a realty TV show about how to get things done in a political sense and the host gave Mr. Trump the Keystone project to show his political mettle, Mr. Trump would be fired.
Dave Supplemental #2 to the 25-Point List
The Republicans could have given John Kasich the presidential nominee in 2016. Mr. Kasich has great political experience. He doesn’t have any moral baggage to hinder his policy development. He is articulate and understands the issues. He can explain conservative perspectives quite well. And he would have easily beaten Ms. Clinton in 2016. But the Republicans chose Mr. Trump instead.
Mr. Kasich would have been a very capable president. He would have accomplished much more than this 25-point list, much of which is a moot point.
Conclusion:
For some reason, I had to throw those two supplemental sections in my rebuttal. Maybe I needed to get something off my chest.
The original writer did not respond my lengthy comment, again helping to prove that many conservatives cannot logically defend their positions.
To get better use of my time investment, I have turned this response into an article for Politically Speaking. Hopefully I can refrain from taking these fellows on again; I’ve got so many other things to do.
Thank you for reading.
