The legacy of "The Left"

[Bluenorthwest]

40. Here is a fact. The radical fringe started warning you all about Trump decades ago.

What if the 'moderates' had listened to those warnings instead of making a golf date with 'The Donald' and legitimizing him for all of those years? Was it better to sneer at the 'militant homosexuals' than to listen to them?
Same thing with AIDS, the 'moderates' were presiding over the most deadly public health crisis of our times. Over 30,000 Americans had died before the powerful stopped sneering at the activists who were warning them. So far over 650,000 American deaths, still about 100,000 a month in Africa. Bill Clinton does lots of AIDS work in Africa, Bill got confronted and motivated by activists while running in 1992 and it changed him for the better.
1964 DNC saw protests by the Mississippi Freedom Party seeking to have their delegates seated. The 'moderates' and those in power sneered and pushed back. Today we mock the GOP for blinding whiteness but in 1964 DNC was all white and fighting to remain that way.

Some protests might be wrong headed, some might be poorly timed but also, some protests are the very fabric and thread that weaves our democracy together. So I tend to give activists a grain of salt and look at those sneering at them with a great deal of skepticism because that sneer is the same sneer from '64 and '68 and '88 and '92. I'd rather be wrong in a protest than be sneering at the future.