Part of the right is determined to be the caricature that the left made of it

For many years, the left has been demonizing the right for the mere fact that it does not subscribe to progressive ideological dogmas.

A reflexion on the growing ideological disarmament of the right and how to avoid it
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According to this crude leftist caricature, the right would be anti-democratic, fascist, racist, and xenophobic simply for not sharing the same opinions as the left on a wide variety of issues. The left doesn't even bother to argue these patently false accusations: this caricature is propaganda and, as such, needs no real basis to justify itself; it's enough that the left finds it convenient to stigmatize those who disagree with its way of thinking.

Over time, these accusations from the left have ended up losing their effectiveness and are increasingly ridiculed for their falseness, for their eagerness to deceive people into portraying their political rivals as bad people. So far, so good. The problem arises when some right-wingers end up embracing this caricature.

This happens largely because by making these false accusations, the left trivializes real problems, causing people to lose fear not only of these false accusations, but also of these problems. Fascism, racism, and xenophobia are despicable, and the fact that the left maliciously uses them to falsely accuse its rivals doesn't mean these concepts are worth defending.

Let's look at an example. Today a guy posted a meme on Twitter demonizing Moroccan babies, with this text: "If you hold a Moroccan baby up to your ear, you can hear police sirens." Sending a message like that against babies because they are of a certain race is clearly racist. Sadly, that despicable message gets more than a thousand likes. When Francisco José Contreras criticized that message, a criticism I share, some responded by openly justifying racism with the most bizarre arguments.

A year ago, I warned here about the growing ideological disarmament of the right, noting that we live in a society that is settling into a permanent intellectual immaturity, in an ideological adolescence in which, in any debate, rational arguments give way to emotional arguments.

This immaturity is not only evident in racist messages like the one mentioned above, but also in the messages against the "boomers" that I talked about here a few weeks ago. These are some things that should provoke reflection on a fact that some overlook: no ideology is immune from falling victim to stupidity when it decides to dispense with reason and opts to embrace emotional arguments to attract followers by appealing to mere passions. If anyone wants to know how these things end, they only have to open a history book.

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Foto: Al Ibrahim.