The right wing has won by stealing liberal tactics.
This seems to be a global phenomenon. The conservative parties of today are not the conservatives of the 50s and 60s when conservatism was actually a genuine alternative. Parties that even if you disagreed with much of their politics still stood for certain truths, wanted a functioning country. No today's right wing governments are so radicalised that it's now about nothing but power. They will say and do anything to gain power. And what they have done is game the systems and ironically they have taken a page from liberal politics. They have worked long and hard at the grass roots level electing far right candidates to city and council positions the world over. They have stolen liberal campaign language and twisted it to their benefit. They speak to the very base that used to be the stronghold of the left. Labour, and the disenfranchised. Of course what comes out of their mouths are lies but that does not matter because they see it all as a game. And all that matters is winning the game. And in some ways there is a truth to this. Because if you are willing to throw away the concept of the truth, of real values, well then you become a dangerous force because if you are willing to do anything to win, you quite likely will. And at the end of the day it's the person who wins the game who gets to hold the reigns of power. I'm not suggesting liberals should become as despicable as so many conservatives today, but I do think we need to wake up and realise that this is a dirty game and we need to get our hands dirty. It's something that progressives used to be particularly good at actually, labour movements the world over have always by definition been messy grass roots politics. We seem to have lost sight of that and the right has stolen our language.
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