Well, it has finally happened. What used to be liberal ideas have jumped ship and landed on the Right side of the political spectrum. While Left and Right are loaded names that lack universal definition in different political milieus and which change along the time track of history, we can say, at least in the early 21st century in America, the political Left has had the tag liberal while the political Right has been deemed conservative. While both sides still wave their respective flags, this dichotomy has now flipped. Conservative is the new liberal.

Labels are useless in understanding ideas, policies, or people. Terms like Left or right, conservative or liberal, Nazis or Marxists, and racism have been used as weapons with such inaccuracy, generality, and repetition as to render them nearly meaningless. However, the shifting sands of American politics and society do require some reference points.

Concerns for protecting civil liberties and suspicion of government intrusion and overreach once defined the Left side of the aisle. In the 1960s Age of Aquarius free thinking, free speech, and watching out for "the Man" were prerequisites to obtaining one’s liberal credentials. Big government was the enemy, especially the intelligence branch and the war machine. Looking out for the working class was important. Make love not war was the theme. Free speech and civil rights were causes worth fighting for. Credentials for liberalism were only issued by the Left.

Corporations, wealth, and power were once considered the stock in trade of the right. Conservative fat cats loved big business, big banks, and big military. Intel agency spying and war were the acceptable cost of doing business.

Now the Left controls Silicon Valley where the biggest businesses live. Banks and corporations push leftist DEI and ESG programs and the military has gone full-on rainbow. The Left spun up a forever war in Ukraine and wants to do the same in the Middle East. The Left loves intel and censorship, hates Christianity, and never met a war it didn’t like.

I read three of the most famous speeches made by President John F. Kennedy in the 60s. He was the pinnacle of the liberal Democrat Left when he was president. His speeches would never be made anywhere near the Democrat Party today. If you heard them from a conservative MAGA politician at CPAC they would receive thunderous applause. His nephew, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has now disavowed the Democrat Party and thrown in with Trump.

It is common to hear staunch liberals talk about still being liberal while the supposed liberal Democrat party has moved away from liberalism and thus from them. Some of the more prominent are Dave Rubin, Tulsi Gabbard, Robert Kennedy, Jr., Naomi Wolf, and even Bill Maher. None of these liberals would ever call themselves Republicans, but they can’t support current Dem thoughts and deeds in good conscience.

Liberalism is not dead. Liberalism has moved into the Right side of American politics. Ask any of the former Democrats who have abandoned the Left how they could do so, and you’ll hear nearly identical stories. It started when they expressed an idea that deviated from the party line and found themselves under an unrelenting assault from the Borg on the Left trying to invalidate them back into line. Trying to explain their positions only made it worse. Friends disavowed and shamed them publicly and privately, but they refused to grovel. They began testing other liberal ideas and ran into the same buzz saw.

Then they discovered an amazing thing. When they talked to a few of what they had assumed were knuckle-dragging troglodytes on the Right, they were met with tolerance and open communication. They didn’t find agreement on all things, but dialogue and difference were allowed. I’m still a liberal Democrat, they asserted. That’s okay, it’s about the free exchange of ideas, not labels, was the response. They found inclusion and decency, and yes, treatment as equals.

With a newfound hope for the unity of man they had always held as a liberal ideal, they went back to their Democrat friends to tell them what they had discovered. The troglodytes don’t eat babies, they don’t want to enslave all people of color, they don’t want to kill gays. They aren’t troglodytes at all. They are liberal, just like us.

In between simply screeching, the Left called them liars, white supremacists, homophobic racists bent on destruction. They were banished from all supposedly liberal circles, no longer welcome, no longer allowed to speak. Everything that had been said about the right, everything they themselves had said about the Right was now being said about them. All the hate and intolerance, the racism and condescension were not coming from the Right. They were distinct and dedicated features of the Left.

A well-spoken example is Dr. Bret Weinstein, a former college science professor and lifelong liberal Democrat who found himself run off campus when he stood up for free speech principles. Although still a self-professed staunch liberal on the Left side of the political spectrum, he considers the current Democrat party to be dangerously totalitarian for advocating war, discrimination, and censorship. He likens the Democrat party to a family dog who has contracted rabies, gone mad, and must be put down. He is working on a project to save the Republic.

Many liberals found themselves alone in the no man’s land of independent thought. The liberal coat they had assumed those on the Left wore no longer fit. The Left had discarded liberalism somewhere along the way, but kept the liberal label and had sewn it into a straitjacket. The rage and hate and intolerance being spewed by the Left at the Right is all that remains -- the Democrats are the party of rage and hate and intolerance. Listen to Biden, Merrick Garland, or Mayorkas talk about the Right half of the country. Dozens of leftists in Congress freely use epithets like racists, domestic terrorists, and white supremacists when speaking of the right. Read the hate-filled words of the trial judges to the J6 protesters.

This is all so easy to see. Watch “The View,” Morning Joe, Joy Reid, or any roundtables on CNN or MSNBC. It is Orwell’s "Two Minutes Hate," but running 24/7. Listen to a Robert De Niro or Rob Reiner rage against Trump or MAGA. Lewis Carroll’s Queen of Hearts has nothing on them. What once was the party of freedom and laid-back tolerance is now the stormtroop of totalitarian destruction.

You can of course find hate-filled rants on the Right as well. But listen carefully to what each side is objecting to and what they are advocating. Only one side demands uniformity, silence, and compliance and advocates using the full force of government to get it. Only one side wants the freedom of free speech, free thought, and the free exchange of ideas.

Tolerance and decency have a new address. Live and let live has moved to a new part of town. There is no denying that conservative is the new Liberal.

Ed Thompson is a podcaster, columnist and author of educational and fiction books with over 25 years experience as a tutor and teacher. Learn More

Image: AT via Magic Studio