Anyone who follows the current political climate will understand the title of this article, it's becoming more and more apparent that discourse in the world is taking a back seat to violence in something those of us that follow history know inevitably leads to conflict on a large scale.
So why is discourse dying in the political world? it's a very simple answer, action vs reaction and indoctrination vs education.
Let me preface this by saying i'm squarely planted on the right wing, but it doesn't mean i'm completely partisan, being completely partisan in any ideology is usually a downfall, however the objectivist in me is able to define clear lines being drawn in the sand regardless of my political affiliations.
So what is driving the zealousness of political extremism? well like i said above, action vs reaction, and in the bluntest way of saying it, the left wing is driving this.
The left wing has some how become both a reactionary and progressive force at the same time, this type of cognitive dissonance leads to many of the often insane things we see in the modern political world the tipping point of which was the election of President Trump, the left has gone completely insane with fear mongering, rhetoric and political violence, the reasoning for them of course is that they're literally fighting for their lives against Trump however reality begs to differ.
I'm from Australia so iv'e got to watch this from the outside and spending a lot of time on the internet iv'e managed to follow the election and the American government very carefully and as a conservative i would among the first of deposing, violently or otherwise, a government that is actively subverting the country or it's people.
But this is where the problem starts, is that there isn't any subversion or governmental implemented oppression, it's literally just a different ideology that is in place of the lefts ideology, but 8 years of being told that everything they stand for is the ONLY political ideology that a smart, caring, rational person would have creates this fear in their minds even when it has no basis in reality.
Remember there are a lot of gay people in America who legitimately fear for their lives because of trump, even though he is probably the most pro gay candidate on either side the country has ever seen, or at least has no interest of interfering with gay Americans rights, as true conservatism should do, but the media and the left wing in general has drummed up this fear out of no where and literally scared people against a different ideology.
So the real question is, how do we solve this? The right wing becomes more extreme in their reactions to the left every day, and in turn the left becomes even extremer, this is a domino effect that eventually ends in violence and death and often times civil war, so how do we deflate the tensions between both sides?
As bi-partisans of either side it's our role to force the conversation, to try to root out identity politics from either side and bring the discussion back to facts and rationality, i mean the time line we live in is truly crazy, when a self described Fascist can hold a peace rally against war, and the "Anti-Fascist" crowd shows up and starts a riot because of it, or a conservative speaker can literally spark a full scale riot just by saying she may be talking somewhere in public.
Both sides are to blame for this, while yes one side is more guilty than the other, in the grand scheme it doesn't really matter, unless both sides commit to pushing extremism out of their ideology, that will be all that's left of the two major political ideologies of the west, and drawing lines in the sand and having an "Us vs Them" mentality has failed in nearly every instance of history.
Unless people begin scaling back their beliefs for the good of their countries we're going to see history repeat itself as it has done since ancient Rome, where competing ideas taken to their extremist point will ultimately end with the downfall of a civilization.