The one on the Left is on the Right, and the one on the Right is on the Left

If you live long enough, you witness some major societal, cultural, and political upheavals that would have seemed impossible when you were younger. In fact, everything can seem to have flipped upside down and inside out.  

I’m almost 63 now, and I remember when, in the 1960s and 70s, the Left used to be vehemently opposed to war, big corporations, the “Establishment,” and racism and sexism, and proudly and vocally supportive of individual freedom and free speech and the blue-collar working class. Left-wingers protested against the Vietnam war, chanting “give peace a chance.” They shouted that Americans should always question authority and never trust anyone over age 30. They marched for civil rights, repeating Martin Luther King’s moral imperative about judging people by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. Their fought for women’s liberation so that both genders would be assured of equal opportunities. They strongly supported free speech and encouraged independent, critical thinking in the classroom. Some of the folks on the Left were the unconventional long-haired hippies, others made up the FDR/JFK blue-collar voting base of the Democrat party. Yeah, I remember when “liberals” really were liberal.

But now, Left-wingers are the biggest warmongers of all, seething with irrational hatred for Russia (which they used to like when it was the communist Soviet Union) and pouring obscene amounts of weapons and money into Ukraine, prolonging the killing and destruction there and risking global nuclear war. They also seem just fine with recent and current American chaos-spreading military interventions in other countries, including Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Niger, and Yemen, as well as provocative U.S. actions regarding Taiwan, China, and Korea.

The Left has become a huge ally of and cheerleader for giant corporations, such as Big Tech, Big Pharma, the Wall Street financial ogres, the corporate media behemoths, and, of course, the formerly hated military-industrial complex. And these big corporations, which were characterized years ago as bastions of Right-wing conservatism, are now all solidly promoters of the Left’s authoritarian ESG agenda.

Yes, the Left clearly now is the Establishment, dominating all large U.S. public and private institutions. The Left is also firmly in charge of most international institutions, from the World Economic Forum to the World Health Organization.

The Left today is pathologically obsessed with skin color, constantly promoting policies and narratives that divide people by race and stoke racial hatred, tension, and violence. The Left is now actively working against women’s rights by promoting a transgender ideology that essentially erases women and the female gender from existence.

The Left, in its fervent authoritarian quest to advance Establishment doctrine on all manner of topics, is constantly fighting to suppress freedom of speech and thought, to censor and punish those who have opposing views, and to push strict indoctrination in schools. And to protect the Establishment from any chance of the truth getting out, Leftists have killed investigative journalism.

The Left can no longer be bothered with the real-world concerns of blue-collar working-class people, because it is too concerned with carrying out the fantasy “woke” agenda of its Elite constituents, regarding such issues as climate, energy, immigration, and crime. This agenda is actually harmful to the working class in terms of jobs, income, well-being, and social consequences. Leftists do not care, as they mock the concerns of the dirty “deplorables.” And this is, of course, why there are increasing numbers of middle-class and poor people, including blacks and Hispanics, voting against the Left.

All this modern-day evidence reveals that “liberals” have actually turned into the most illiberal, intolerant people around!

In other words, the Left now stands for all of the nasty things that the Right used to be accused of decades ago!

In recent years, the Right has generally become more likely than the Left to speak out against U.S.-promoted war (such as in Ukraine), against big corporations (such as Big Tech, Big Pharma, ESG agendas), and against other large Establishment institutions (such as the WEF, Wall Street, corporate media, academic elites). The Right is much more likely than the Left to question and distrust authority figures. The Right is far less obsessed with skin colors and gender identities and more focused on people as individuals. The Right more strongly opposes censorship and suppression of free expression and alternative views. The Right more clearly stands for the real-life concerns of working people on economic and social matters, and the Right is more likely than the Left to promote policies that are helpful to poor, law-abiding Americans.

In fact, many “conservatives” today are more liberal than so-called liberals!

I believe that this trend has been ongoing for the past couple decades, but it has accelerated and become much more obvious in the past couple years. Evidence can be seen in the fallout from and reaction to a number of recent events, including the 2020 election steal and the January 6 protests, the ubiquitous social media censorship, the COVID pandemic and the mask and vaccine mandates, the war in Ukraine and the anti-Russia hysteria, the spread of corporate ESG and other woke nonsense, the BLM and Antifa riots, the trans insanity, the climate change scam and the “green” attack on energy, and many other events of societal pathology.

In terms of war, Trump was probably the most anti-war president since the major beginning of U.S. imperialist adventures in the late 1800s. By contrast, Biden has been the most reckless warmonger to ever occupy the White House.

Even in terms of personal appearance, the Right and Left have flipped. Based on my observations, people on the Left these days are more likely to maintain that conventional clean-cut polished corporate look, while folks on the Right are more likely to have long shaggy hair, old clothes, and an unconventional noncorporate look.

Needless to say, there are still plenty of political figures on the Right who are pushing the old warmongering, corporatist, authoritarian agenda (think of Lindsey Graham). That said, the Left doesn’t have anyone even close to Tucker Carlson’s stature who is prominently and forcefully speaking out on a daily basis against those things. Online, I’ve noticed that some regular people in the Left’s traditional base bitterly resent the fact that prominent conservatives are speaking out more strongly against U.S. involvement in the Ukraine war than anyone on their side. They ask things like “How can MTG be more against the war than AOC?”

Well, that surely tells you something!

This all reminds me of a funny Johnny Cash song from 1966 titled “The One on the Right is on the Left.” Written by the great singer, songwriter, and producer “Cowboy” Jack Clement, who worked with Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Waylon Jennings, and lots of other performers, the song was meant as a humorous criticism of singers and musicians who worry more about politics than their music.

You can click on the link above to hear it, but here are the lyrics:

There once was a musical troupe
A pickin' singin' folk group
They sang the mountain ballads
And the folk songs of our land

They were long on musical ability
Folks thought they would go far
But political incompatibility
Led to their downfall

Well, the one on the right was on the left
And the one in the middle was on the right
And the one on the left was in the middle
And the guy in the rear was a Methodist

This musical aggregation
Toured the entire nation
Singing traditional ballads
And the folk songs of our land

They performed with great virtuosity
And soon they were the rage
But political animosity
Prevailed upon the stage

Well, the one on the right was on the left
And the one in the middle was on the right
And the one on the left was in the middle
And the guy in the rear burned his driver's license

Well the curtain had ascended
A hush fell on the crowd
As thousands there were gathered
To hear the folk songs of our land

But they took their politics seriously
And that night at the concert hall
As the audience watched deliriously
They had a free-for-all

Well, the one on the right was on the bottom
And the one in the middle was on the top
And the one on the left got a broken arm
And the guy on his rear said, "Oh dear"

Now this should be a lesson
If you plan to start a folk group
Don't go mixin' politics
With the folk songs of our land

Just work on harmony and diction
Play your banjo well
And if you have political convictions
Keep 'em to yourself

Now, the one on the left works in a bank
And the one in the middle drives a truck
The one on the right's an all-night deejay
And the guy in the rear got drafted

Yeah, the Left-winger is working for the bank, while the Right-winger is spinning rock-n-roll records. That certainly sounds pretty accurate for today!

That old song not only suggests the flipping of Left and Right that we have today, but it also points to the constant political preaching that we hear these days from singers, actors, and other celebrities. Perhaps Big John and Cowboy Jack were prophets.

And if today’s warmongers, both on the Left and the Right, keep pushing the foreign adventures and profiteering of the U.S. military-industrial complex, the song’s last line about getting drafted might happen again too.

 
Johnny Cash album by is licensed under