“Radical does not equate to marxist.”
It does equate to leftist. Colloquially if not by dictionary definition.
Sons of Liberty would be radical relative to John Adams, for instance. Then again, Adams ended up being a federalist, whereas firebrand Sam Adams was anti-central government. Leftists/radicals are always in favor of central government, and always use the masses to get there. Sam, contrarywise, aroused the masses to fight for decentralized government. Reactionaries usually rely on traditional authorities to forestall the expansion of the state, but Hamilton, the champion of industrial interest, was a merchantilist. Go figure.
Our revolution is tough to figure out. Partly becuase it wasn’t much of a revolution. Kept most things intact. Gave brith to a mostrous Leviathan, via the Constitution, but that took a long time to ripen. For the most part, and this goes for Sam as well as John and Hamilton as well as Paine, the war was about preserving prerogatives: that is, *privilege*. The Americans wanted their birthrights specifically as Englishmen, though they talked a lot of high-falutin’ Whiggish talk about God-given rights.
I often get confused teasing these things out. You know, not long ago, liberals claimed Jefferson as their own. Against the industrial revolution and entrenched power, for “the little guy”. Now libertarians own him. Go figure.
>>It does equate to leftist. Colloquially if not by dictionary definition
That’s because our nation has been right of center since the beginning. Even during the Great Depression, the Congress and SCOTUS opposed FDR’s marxism.
So, by definition, radicals in the US have always been leftists.
But, now that the government is essentially devoted to marxism, and a significant percentage of the population has marxist leanings, the Right is suddenly thrust into a situation where they are opposed to the government (big or small). If the Right chooses to fight as politcal insurgents (i.e. radicals), then they might get noticed and be able to drive policy and public opinion enough to head off disaster.
If the Right chooses to accept “reality” as determined by the Left and the media, then we will spend a long time in the wilderness waiting for the suffering to become so great that all the people will join our cause. That’s reactionary, and while it will work eventually, it will cost this nation and all of humanity dearly.
John Adams was a member of the Sons of Liberty.
At most you could say that he was not as radical as his cousin Sam.