Transcript for Podcast: "I Feel Snitty," Episode 188: "Extremely Extreme Extremists" is now available!

Podcast: I Feel Snitty

Episode 188: Extremely Extreme Extremists

Premiere Date: 5/13/2022

Length: 9:17 (1,403 words)

Link: https://ifeelsnitty.podbean.com/e/extremely-extreme-extremists/

Transcript: 

Welcome to I Feel Snitty, episode 188, entitled, “Extremely Extreme Extremists.” I’m your host, Craig Rozniecki.

 

Unless you’ve been vacationing on Mars, chances are you’ve heard that Tesla CEO and Martian voted most likely to be a Tesla CEO – Elon Musk, has bought social-media giant, Twitter. Not long after his $44 billion purchase of Donald Trump’s former residence, Musk tweeted a meme which showed him as center-left in 2008; center in 2012; and center-right in 2021, all while the Democratic Party moved progressively left. He followed this up with a post which read:

 

“I strongly supported Obama for president, but today’s Democratic Party has been hijacked by extremists.”

 

I hear this label ubiquitously being tossed around by both parties. Do any of the accusations hold merit? Is Musk right? Is he more off-kilter than a drunken, high-heeled clown on a tight rope? Or does the truth lie somewhere in the middle? Let’s dig a little deeper, shall we?

 

The highly reputable Pew Research Center annually releases polls on where Americans stand ideologically. The most recent such results were released on November 9^th of last year. Here’s how they panned out:

 

For Republicans, 23% labeled themselves as “Faith and Flag Conservatives;” 15% identified as “Committed Conservatives;” 23% called themselves “Populist Right;” 18% said they were “Ambivalent Right;” and 21% claimed that “Three Rights Make a Right.”

 

For Democrats, the numbers are as follows: 12% “Progressive Left,” 23% “Establishment Liberals,” 28% “Democratic Mainstays,” and 16% “Outsider Left.”

 

In other words, Republicans identify as far-right at nearly a 2:1 ratio as Democrats who identify as far-left, at 23% to 12%.

 

There are an estimated 49.3 million registered Democrats in this country, which means there are approximately 5.916 million Democrats who identity as “far-left.” On the other hand, there are 36.4 million registered Republicans, which means there are around 8.372 million who claim to be “far-right.”

 

So, in other words, while there are about 13 million more registered Democrats than Republicans in this country, there are still 2.5 million more who identify as “far-right” than “far-left.”

 

The problem with Musk’s assessment is that he seems to judge the totality of the Democratic Party on Twitter users, who are far from emblematic of the party at large. If you’ve ever spent even 5 minutes on Twitter, you should know, or at least hope that it is not representative of any demographic. Even angry vampires who suffer from a condition medical professionals refer to as “Suck You Long Time” regularly publicly denounce fellow such vampires who engage in ugly, insult-laden rhetoric on the site.

 

There are 69.3 million Twitter users in the United States. With 39.6% of registered voters being Democrats, that equates to 27,442,800 Twitter members who affiliate with the Democratic Party. As 12% of Democrats identify as “far-left,” that means approximately 3,293,136 Twitter users label themselves as “far-left.”

 

Working things out, 3,293,146 “far-left” Twitter members divided by 49,300,000 registered Democrats equals 6.7%. In other words, Elon Musk is judging the Democratic Party on just 6.7% of it. As the cool kids nowadays say, “That’s just math, motherfuckers.”

 

Since I’ve proven Musk to be wrong about his claim mathematically, I’ll now go beyond the numbers.

 

I’ll be 100% honest; that 6.7% “far-left” of the Democratic Party is definitely hurting the party’s image with the public, and that’s for two reasons: 1) The media is more inclined to depict the outrageous than the sensible, and 2) The Republican Party has long been better at negatively branding the Democratic Party than vice versa.

 

For example:

- “Democrats want to defund the police!”

- “Tax-and-spend liberals!”

- “Democrats want to groom our children!”

- “Baby-killers!”

- “Gun-grabbers!”

- “Why are they against voter ID?!?”

- “Gay marriage? What’s next?”

- “The War on Christmas!”

- “Masks and vaccines are totalitarian!”

- “Dems want to punish success!”

 

These are all nonsensical, clickbait-esque scare tactics. More Democrats are in favor of additional funding for police than defunding them. They want to spend money on programs to help a significant majority of people, at the expense of taxing the top 1 or 2%. The party invests in laws which tend to lead to less unprotected sex, and with that, fewer unwanted pregnancies and fewer abortions. They don’t support taking guns from law-abiding citizens, no matter what the NRA may tell you. Some form of voter ID has long been a requirement for voting. What Democrats have attempted to do is expand the acceptable means of identification, so an increasing number of people can have an easier time with the process. Republicans, on the other hand, would prefer that only millionaires with golf club memberships could vote, but I digress. Gay marriage does not lead to bestiality. I have many gay friends, and never has one come up to me and said, “You know what I feel an urge to try now? Fucking armadillos.” The War on Christmas? Yeah, that’s a joke. The only wars around that time of year in this country are at shopping centers. If vaccines are totalitarian, we’ve been living in a dictatorship for 226 years. Oh, how I wish my parents didn’t follow dictator Ronald Reagan’s requirements that I stave off polio with a quick jab in the arm. Lastly, success of the few at the expense of the many is not a winning recipe – especially if you care about the country as a whole. And don’t give me that crap about trickle-down economics. Park yourself underneath a dining room table, just waiting for crumbs to fall your way, and let me know how that goes.

 

Having said all this, the 6.7% on the far-left need to learn how to effectively message. No matter what the initial intent of it was, the slogan “Defund the Police” is fricking stupid. Why make a journey start uphill when it’s not necessary? Just use the term “Police Reform,” and a large majority of the population will have no problem with it, and even ask, “Reform? Like what exactly?” “Defund the Police,” though? Those same aforementioned people will assume the slogan is to be taken literally – that the group actually wants to defund the police. If I want Congress to pass gun reform, I’m not going to start chanting the slogan, “Steal Everyone’s Guns!” Why? Well, first off, it’s inaccurate, and secondly, it’ll prompt large swaths of people to start singing Harvey Danger songs – okay, song: “Paranoia, paranoia. Everybody’s coming to get me.” Approximately 69% of you will now have that song stuck in your heads for the next several hours. You’re welcome.

 

In all seriousness, though, if the Democratic Party finally learned how to effectively message, a good majority of the public would see that they agree with the party’s positions on most issues. For example, most of the public believe in: Gun reform, women’s reproductive rights, marijuana legalization, same-sex marriage, tax increases for the wealthy, equal pay for equal work, minimum wage hikes, paid maternity- and paternity-leave, universal healthcare, voting rights, immigration reform, etc. The Democratic Party is about as extreme as a professor declaring that the earth is round, gravity exists, and Uranus jokes never get old.

 

The modern-day Republican Party, on the other hand, Mr. Musk may want to take a closer look at, for his assessment appears to be bass-ackwards.

 

The GOP.

 

Proposing laws to arrest any woman who has an abortion and/or a doctor who performs one? That’s extreme.

 

Passing bills to legalize firearms for blind people? Yeah, that’s extreme.

 

Attempting to suppress black people’s votes? Once again, extreme.

 

Wanting to build a wall along our Mexican border? Ask Gorbachev about that one. Extreme.

 

Inciting a terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol to overturn a democratically-held election and destroy our republic in the process? If that’s not extreme, I don’t know what is.

 

Science isn’t extreme. Equality isn’t extreme. Medicine isn’t extreme. Reality isn’t extreme. The Democratic Party isn’t extreme. If anyone’s extreme, it’s the GOP. Just ask all of their supporters sitting in jail cells right now, after attacking our Capitol and placing the lives of every single one of our Congressmen and women in danger. Martian Musk has it wrong; it’s not the Democratic Party, but the Republican Party which has been hijacked by extremists, bigly.

 

That’s it for today’s episode. Until next time, you can catch me on Twitter, Amazon, Facebook, Podbean, and Blogger. This has been I Feel Snitty, with Craig Rozniecki. Take care.