Noam Chomsky: The Majority of Today’s Elected Democrats Are Moderate Republicans (Videos)

By Alexandra Rosenmann / AlterNetThis piece originally ran on AlterNet.

The majority of Democrats have shifted to the right so far that the two-party system is almost unrecognizable, according to Noam Chomsky.

“There used to be a quip that the United States was a one-party state with a business party that had two factions: the Democrats and Republicans—and that used to be pretty accurate, but it’s not anymore. The U.S. is still a two-party state, but there’s only one faction, and it’s not Democrats, it’s moderate Republicans. Today’s Democrats have shifted to the right,” Chomsky told RT America’s Anissa Naouai.

And apparently, so have the Republicans.

According to Chomsky, “[Political scientist] Norman Ornstein simply describes the Republican Party today as a ‘radical insurgency that doesn’t care about fact, doesn’t care about argument, doesn’t want to participate in politics, and is simply off the spectrum.'”

Is it any wonder, given Chomsky’s statements two years ago, that Donald Trump is the Republican nominee? But if there’s any doubt in how much the Republican Party has changed, just listen to the 1996 Republican nominee Bob Dole advocate for the food stamp program. Can you imagine our current Republican nominee saying anything similar today today?

What about when George W. Bush condemned the 9/11 attacks by announcing “Islam is peace”?

Even Obama admitted he would be a moderate Republican if this were the 1980s.