I have such a soft spot for Gore Vidal.

One of my favourite quotes to drop on a liberal who is in the process of radicalising comes from Vidal:

There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat.

Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt — until recently … and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties.

This was written half a century ago, which I like to remind people of when I drop it on them.

It’s all well and good to quote Lenin or Luxemburg at someone but it’s easy for a lib to dismiss this as commie propaganda. But when you have a respected figure like Gore Vidal laying down the truth in very plain language which is free from Marxist jargon, I think it becomes pretty difficult for them to ignore it.

Is it the be-all and end-all? Of course not. If I had it my way they’d be reading Lenin and Rosa and all of that good stuff. But if someone takes the message from this quote on board then it will achieve far more for the left than anything that Va*sh could ever lay claim to.