Ideology and the Coronavirus

Posted by George Weber on March 25, 2020

A Moderate Conservative’s and Moderate Liberal’s Call to Action

Ideological thinking is bad enough when things are running relatively smoothly in the short run. After all, issues like climate change, the debt, and our disappearing middle class take years to reach the point of being a crisis. Unfortunately, right now we have a real crisis on-going. And how our leaders respond and how quickly they respond to the health and economic aspects of the coronavirus will determine how well we make it through this. In this case, it will determine the number of people who die.

The people running our country need to base their decisions on science, which is best determined by experts in the fields that apply. This is the way leaders make decisions when ideology does not come into play. On the other hand, people who base their decisions on ideology, especially extreme ideology, deny or ignore what the experts are saying. Then they make up their own theories and try to convince others that they are right. This is because extreme ideological beliefs are so powerful.     

The coronavirus is getting worse by the day with an exponential increase in the number of people infected. Meanwhile, we are lagging on testing for the virus, we are short on personal protective equipment and hospital beds, and we are lax on social distancing. Because of extreme ideology, many of these problems are not being addressed in a manner that will avert major problems in the coming days and weeks. It is starting to look more and more like we are going to end up worse off in our country than in other countries that are battling the same virus.

And this is where non-ideological moderates or centrists come into play. It is getting very old to keep hearing the right-wing left-wing finger pointing and all the lies prevalent in our government. We need to demand a voice be given to moderates and Independents who don’t agree enough with either one of our two political parties to want to join them. I am one of these people.

If you are a moderate conservative or moderate liberal you need to stand up for the fact that you are one. The people who now claim to be conservatives and liberals more often than not are either far-right or far-left. The terms conservative and liberal don’t mean what they used to mean any more. Be proud to be a moderate, stand up and reach out to others who are the same. And join the fight to start our own political party. Volunteer and support the Alliance Party (https://www.theallianceparty.com/). Remember that no matter who wins the presidential election this November, nothing will continue to get done because of gridlock. The same two political parties have run our country since the 1850’s and now is the time to change this.