I’ve been told I can’t be taken seriously until I acknowledge that the left has been hijacked by radicals. So, here goes…”

Alright. Let’s check the evidence. When people say “the radical left took over,” they usually mean the progressive wing — AOC-types, big ideas, big rhetoric.

So let’s look at outcomes.

They wanted Medicare for All, court packing, a wealth tax, abolition of private insurance, Green New Deal–scale change, national rent control.

They got:

a bipartisan infrastructure bill negotiated down to the bone,

modest climate policy routed through markets,

limited drug price negotiation,

and student loan relief partly undone by the courts.

That’s it.

No Medicare for All.

No court packing.

No wealth tax.

In fact, the people most furious during the Biden years weren’t Republicans — they were progressives, loudly complaining they were being ignored.

That’s usually your first clue the party hasn’t been hijacked.

So why am I told I “can’t be taken seriously” unless I accept this story anyway?

Because right-wing media has repeated it for so long it’s hardened into a premise, not an argument. The left is radical. Everyone knows this. Move on.

Once that happens, policy stops mattering.

Now try the same test on the right.

What the far right wanted was power: loyalty tests, punishment for dissent, criminal investigations of enemies, mass deportations, aggressive ICE raids, law enforcement as a weapon.

And they’re getting it.

ICE raids aren’t rhetoric anymore.

Mass deportation isn’t a chant — it’s an operational goal.

Institutions are pressured. Independence is treated as defiance.

Foreign adventurism is back on the menu — enthusiastically.

That’s the difference.

One side has a loud flank that tweets and fumes when it’s ignored.

The other has a loud flank that’s setting norms and bending institutions.

One side asks for sweeping change and gets incremental policy.

The other asks for norm-breaking and gets… norm-breaking.

A loud fringe is annoying.

A governing fringe is dangerous.

Calling these two things the same is ridiculous.

If you can’t tell the difference between activists being ignored and institutions being bent, you’re not being fair-minded.

You’re just refusing to look.

And pretending not to see it is its own kind of extremism.