[hotpotamus]

Would you then classify Epstein as on the right? Certainly he had some power, but I’d classify him more as a toady of people like my ultimate boss for a time, Leon Black, the president of Apollo Private Equity. My own experience with these people would call them extremely right wing - I suspect that if they could abolish all government and install themselves as permanent monarchs, they would see it as a reasonable start. I wonder how you would classify such people and what you imagine the agenda of the right wing to be.

Are Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell on the right? I would think their success in re-shaping our federal judiciary where laws are actually made. I have not heard of these institutions like follow the sciencism or anything like that, although I will trust your characterization of them as being of the left, I haven’t noticed any influence on my local laws, but as a resident of Southern Texas, I have certainly noticed the right wing influence on local laws, most notably the medical procedures that the women around me are legally allowed to undergo.

I suspect that your example would more be seen as an investigation into ABC (and likely used as an avatar for the “mainstream media”) by the people carrying it out.

Nymag actually had an interesting article on Project Veritas recently that you may want to peruse. Apparently they were after Joe Biden’s daughter’s diary but it caused them some issues. That said, it sounded like they already had some problems brewing before then.

[fidgewidge]

Don't know much if anything about Epstein so couldn't try to classify his politics.

"I suspect that if they could abolish all government and install themselves as permanent monarchs, they would see it as a reasonable start"

We are likely talking at cross purposes then because that's the exact opposite of what I consider right wing. Abolishing democracy and becoming dictator for life is something associated with hard left revolutionaries. Stalin, Mao, North Korea that sort of thing. To me right wing means pro market, pro capitalist, pro democracy, small government, it's all about decentralization of power. Libertarian stuff. If they'd really want to abolish government and take over they'd be the pastiche of WEF-attending elitist globalists, surely.

"Are Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell on the right?"

Maybe? I don't think Trump had politics clearly aligned with any party. He used to be a Democrat and sort of took over the GOP from the outside didn't he. Plenty of never trumpers who were also Republicans. Don't know anything about McConnell, not from the USA, that's too detailed for my knowledge.

Flicking through their results pages, there's one investigation they did into poor conditions in border detention centers. Isn't that normally a topic for the left in the US? I thought the US right normally just want more border enforcement and don't care much about how illegal immigrants are treated.

[Jon_Lowtek]

>> Abolishing democracy and becoming dictator for life is something associated with hard left revolutionaries. Stalin, Mao, North Korea that sort of thing.

Left + Right in modern discussion are non-descriptive words and as such tend to vary widely in definition. The classic definition comes from european parliaments. In previous centuries, when monarchy was far stronger and the established power, in those lands where a parliament or senate existed, those who wanted to abolish monarchy and establish democracy sat left. The monarchists who wanted to keep or strengthen the established power of the king sat right. Keep slavery on the right, establish universal suffrage left. Liberalism demanding basic human rights was a far left concept for a very long time, and authoritarianism a far right concept. But it is not all about progressives and conservatives.

To understand "Left+Right" ask the question: if we seat these people next to each other on thanksgiving (or in parliament) how likely is physical violence.

In the early 20th century in Germany, in the Weimar Republic to be precise, monarchy has been abolished and democacy established. The monarchists were still sitting at the right in parliament, and they wanted to abolish democracy and establish a kingdom. At the far right sat the fascists. The monarchists and fascists both were nationalistic, authoritarian and somewhat accepting of capitalism.

At the far left sat the communists, who were about international communist revolution and abolishing capitalism. The communists themselves were split in liberal communists and authoritarian communists. The later took power in Russia and later Stalin became their dictator, and the european communists faced a dumb choice between "international communism" and "liberal-democratic communism". The Stalinists sat far left and the those favoring liberal democratic communism sat between them and those favoring democratic capitalism with social benefits within the current nation. Then the far right abolished democracy in Germany and established a dictatorship.

In early 20th century "liberalism and democracy" became a center opinion, because both the far left and the far right were pushing for an authoritarian dictatorship, with the "moderate left" and "moderate right" typically agreeing with their extremists on other things while being more liberal-democratic.

But those times are long gone in europa and have never the USA has a bit of a problem with this eurocentric view anyway, because they haven't had a party sitting anywhere in parliament being in favor of abolishing their facade of a liberal democratic republic hiding corporate rule in centuries. At the moment many far right groups are trying to claim liberalism as their concept, as a "conservative" thing pointing out that progressive political streams like environmentalism have authoritzarian tendencies as they strongly regulate the economy. But in truth the parliamentarian right wing is not about conserving your right to destroy the environment, they care far more about conserving the established power of large corporations.