Matt Taibbi: Left and Right Have Switched Sides

Not too long ago, the left used to ridicule the right for authoritarian abuses. These days, however, it's the left guilty of those same abuses, writes journalist Matt Taibbi at his website. What's more, the leading press outlets aren't talking about this switch in roles. It's "a story most everyone in media sees but no one is allowed to comment upon: that the political right and left in America have traded villainous cultural pathologies," writes Taibbi. "Things we once despised about the right have been amplified a thousand-fold on the flip." People are losing their jobs over retweets and even mere likes on social media. It used to be that the "average Rush Limbaugh fan" was reviled for relentlessly hounding family members and friends at the dinner table about their politics.

"Now that same inconsolable paranoiac comes at you with left politics, and isn't content with ruining the odd holiday dinner, blind date, or shared cab," writes Taibbi. "He or she does this infuriating interrogating at the office, in school, and in government agencies, in places where you can't fake a headache and quietly leave the table." As a result, we've got a split: these authoritarians on the left, who are opposed by authoritarians on the right (like those who support sending in federal troops against peaceful protesters or who ditch masks as a political statement.) "If you're not a Trump fan and can't reason with the other thing either, what’s left?" Click to read the full column. (More liberals stories.)