I lament the hijacking of the conservatives by the alt-right, as I do the liberals by the alt-left.  There seems to be no place anymore for what used to be mainstream liberal and conservative values.

The liberals have drifted to a place of smug moralism, political correctness, and pandering to a nanny state.  The conservatives have drifted to an angry and reactionary place, pandering with red meat to the wolves in its midst.  "Unite the right" meant one thing when Harper and McKay merged their parties.  Now they're code words for something different, and an epithet.

Perhaps this might be a taste of what mainstream Muslims feel when they see radicalized members from their religion performing terrorist acts.  "This is not what we're about!". The metaphor of "politics as religion" is not new.  Eco-zealots have been demonstrating this for years.  History is full of examples of dogmatic extremism at both ends of the continuum.

I lament the loss of the middle and the mid-left/right.