The point of what Republicans always called 'originalism' was never to hew to the original vision of constitution, the point was to update the repression of the past for the conditions of the present, just as the right-wing authoritarians of the 20th century tried to do. One historian I used to be in touch with called it 'reactionary modernism', take the opportunities for class warfare of the 20th century, and clear the way to assure the conservative lower-middle-class that they will stay middle class - even (especially) if it means creating a prison-like state for both the lower class and the liberal upper-middle class. This is the world we live in now, and the sooner we realize what's going on, the sooner we can fight against it.
The point I've been trying to make here.... forever.... is not that 'both sides' do this, or that the American far left (left...) is morally equivalent to the American far right; but there's no way to convince the larger public that the two sides are not morally equivalent. You may know it, but they don't, precisely because your ideas are new, and the new ideas that are true take literally a lifetime to be accepted by a wider public. The point is that the progressive insistence on dragging the Democrats into democratic socialism and intersectionality is stripping our political institutions of the ability to fight against the far right. There's no point in insisting on social democracy and all the values associated with it if the end result is that everybody and everything you value is either exiled, in prison, or dead.
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