Skull by By Pastorius

I’m sick of people claiming that there’s some sort of moral parity between left and right. It’s bullshit.

The American conservative movement has become profoundly unethical in the past decade. Where once the Republican Party was one of principles, honor, patriotic duty, and faith, it has now sunk into lying, cheating, greed, and false patriotism. Those of us on the left have watched in increasing horror as our once-worthy opponents have evaporated, replaced by self-serving liars whose only goal is to get what they want, ethics be damned.

Yet I keep hearing, “Yeah, the Right’s full of lies, but the Libs are just as bad!” Or, “I hate all politicians, they’re all crooks!” And this one, “Trump’s marchers break the law, but so do BLM and Antifa!”

Bullshit. Pure and unadulterated. Mental laziness. Or worse, vacuous nihilism. Can I say it again? Bullshit.

If you believe the ethics of the left and right are equivalent, you either haven’t been paying attention, or you’re willfully ignorant. Because the only other excuse is that you’re as ethically bankrupt as the lying, cheating, greedy, self-serving Republicans who have been running this country for the past four years. The right wing of American politics has fallen into an ethical sewer far, far deeper than anything liberals have ever done.

And I’m sick of hearing otherwise.

Sure, liberals are not perfect. Just about anyone, including me, can find plenty of examples of illegal, immoral, unpatriotic, and just plain stupid behavior from liberals. But liberals are in the minor leagues compared to what has now become the mainstream of conservative ethics.

At the root of today’s conservatives ethics is a simple, hard, cold problem: The truth no longer matters. Their country no longer matters. Democratic principles no longer matter; they’re only to be used when convenient and brushed aside when they’re in the way. Ethical boundaries are burst through as though they were made of rice paper. Lies are uttered knowingly and repeatedly, without embarrassment. And lying has no consequences, because the the conservative movement has become completely inured to the cognitive dissonance that lies create in ethical people.

All they care about is getting their way. All that matters is victory. The ends justify the means. The winner writes history. God is on their side, and God says it’s OK.

Even worse is how conservative politicians treat their voters: with contempt. Only arrogant, condescending politicians can treat their constituency with such disrespect. Because these conservative leaders believe their voting base is full of stupid, ignorant people. Liberal politicians could never get away with treating their supporters with the cynical contempt that the Republicans must feel toward their base. A liberal would be thrown out in an instant telling even a tiny fraction of the lies that seem to be the norm in Republican campaigns. Yet the Republicans do it gleefully, repeatedly, and successfully.

When I started writing this essay, I planned to include examples, maybe a catalog of some of the Republican lies that have galled me during this campaign season: edited videos of Biden that obviously reverse what he said; showing “Antifa” riots that were actually videos from Europe; claiming that Democrats are socialists; virtually everything Trump said about the pandemic; … the list is staggeringly long. But I don’t need to. First of all, if you got past the first paragraph of this essay, you’re probably a liberal and have your own very long list. And second, it’s not the specific lies that are important.

What is important? Stop pretending there’s an equivalence between left and right. There isn’t.

The liberal movement in America is still the usual mix of society: good people, indifferent people, and a few liars, cheats, and even violent members. But the conservative movement has become morally and ethically corrupt at its core. It has been taken over by liars, fascists, billionaires who believe money entitles them to power, and politicians who only care about their own careers. It is a sad shadow of its former self, a skeleton that still holds the shape and size of conservatism and a jawbone that clacks conservative principles, but the flesh and blood are gone. The warmth has drained out, and with it, all sense of right and wrong.

So stop saying that the left and right are equally bad. They’re not.

And when others say it, call it what it is: bullshit. Thanks.