I want to draw attention to the elephant in the room.
Leading up to the election, and perhaps even more prominently now, we’ve been seeing droves of people on the internet displaying a series of traits in common.
- Claiming to be leftists
- Dedicating most of their posting to dismantling any power possessed by the left
- Encouraging leftists not to vote or to vote for third party candidates
- Highlighting issues with the Democratic party as being disqualifying while ignoring the objectively worse positions held by the Republican party
- Attacking anyone who promotes defending leftist political power by claiming they are centrists and that the attacker is “to the left of them”
- Using US foreign policy as a moral cudgel to disempower any attempt at legitimate engagement with the US political system
- Seemingly doing nothing to actually mount resistance against authoritarianism
When you look at an aerial view of these behaviors in conjunction with one another, what they’re accomplishing is pretty plain to see, in my opinion. It’s a way of utilizing the moral scrupulousness of the left to cut our teeth out politically. We get so caught up in giving these arguments the benefit of the doubt and of making sure people who claim to be leftists have a platform that we’re missing ideological parasites in our midst.
This is not a good-faith discourse. This is not friendly disagreement. This is, largely, not even internal disagreement. It is infiltration, and it’s extremely effective.
Before attacking this argument as lacking proof, just do a little thought experiment with me. If there is a vector that allows authoritarians to dismantle all progress made by the left, to demotivate us and to detract from our ability to form coalitions and build solidarity, do you really think they wouldn’t take advantage of it?
By refusing to ever question those who do nothing with their time in our spaces but try to drive a wedge between us, to take away our power and make us feel helpless and hopeless, we’re giving them exactly that vector. I am telling you, they are using it.
We need to stop letting them. We need to see it for what it is, get the word out, and remember, as the political left, how to use the tools that we have to change society. It starts with us between one another. It starts with what we do in the spaces that we inhabit. They know this, and it’s why they’re targeting us here.
Stop being an easy target. Stop feeding the cuckoo.
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Happy International Worker’s Day. Every single leader of emancipatory movements in the history of labor rights would disagree with you, having fought and been very vocal against the different flavors of oppression in order to get the liberal concessions that you seem to cherish today. Hopefully if you participate, you might find some leftists celebrating in the crowd. Please don’t get too angry at them for not defending genociders, I’m sure a lot of them ended up voting for Kamala anyway, but at least they got the confirmation that even opposing genocide is too great a hurdle for them.
I’m tired but I guess I’ll still address some of the traits you identified:
Claiming to be leftists
I’m a leftist
Dedicating most of their posting to dismantling any power possessed by the left
Okay that doesn’t sound like leftist behavior, you’re totally right. I just hope you don’t mean that “power possessed by the left” is the democratic party, but sure, that broadly sounds like liberals or feds.
Encouraging leftists not to vote or to vote for third party candidates
There’s a point to which you can push liberal concessions for damage control or for actually gaining some more concessions. I think criticizing voting is healthy since it’s still playing the capitalist’s game and a liberal “democracy” with almost no wiggle room anymore, but considering how little effort it takes to vote I’ll always advocate to both play their game and also assume that nothing will come out of it without actual pressure.
I’ve mostly seen people advocate for withholding their vote in the favor of some concession (please don’t do genocide), I’ve never seen someone say “don’t vote and also don’t do anything else”, but I’m sure they exist, you find all kinds of confused people online.
Highlighting issues with the Democratic party as being disqualifying while ignoring the objectively worse positions held by the Republican party
Is genocide disqualifying for a political party or not? I’m asking you, specifically, if you think that a party that commits (funds, arms, protects, justifies, excuses, does constant propaganda for) a genocide in the face of their own atrocities, while actively silencing the voices within their own ranks that speak out, is worth defending? Again, I think the idea was to hopefully change the democratic party to the radical position of “anti genocide”. That failure is on them, not the people who threatened not to vote for them.
Not highlighting that issue is frankly criminal.
Attacking anyone who promotes defending leftist political power by claiming they are centrists and that the attacker is “to the left of them”
Yeah that’s leftism, that’s always been leftism, but again I hope to god you don’t mean that “leftist political power” here represents the democratic party, so I’m gonna assume you mean more broadly what they call “purity politics” and constant division in the left. I think it’s fair to criticize people to the right of you, I’m to the right of anarchists and I welcome their criticism, even when I don’t agree with it. If I spent my time shitting on them I think they would be completely legitimate in calling me out for someone with ulterior motives, or a reactionary shithead.
Using US foreign policy as a moral cudgel to disempower any attempt at legitimate engagement with the US political system
I want you to examine your own sentence just for a second. To disempower an attempt at legitimate engagement with the political system. Opposing genocide isn’t used as a moral cudgel against whatever 10 steps removed version of power this is (and I’m not criticizing the way you put it, quite the opposite), it’s used AGAINST GENOCIDE.
People are out in the streets and criticizing liberal complicity because we talk about GENOCIDE not some vague questionable US foreign policy.
Seemingly doing nothing to actually mount resistance against authoritarianism
So that’s the democratic party, right? That’s why I’m confused because leftists are out in the street, even the most liberal ones with their “fight oligarchy” campaign, while the democrats are still out defending genocide, doing filibusters without a cause, and generally trailing so far behind the average population that it’s mind numbing. So I don’t know what you mean when you say “leftists”, because you seem to refer to two groups at the same time.
Anyway, voting goes both way, you can’t pretend to vote in a vacuum for the lesser evil without recognizing that you empower them and their genocidal endeavors.
And I’ll be a little more incisive: If you criticize a leftist of not caring about minorities (which I’ve seen a lot and is deeply ironic considering who did and didn’t vote for the dems) you open yourself to be criticized for having proudly voted and called on everyone else to vote for a party that does genocide, and having attacked the ones that tried to actually make a difference in shifting their position or using that moment to show what their true colors are.
This post is beyond delusional. It’s like the meme about everything I don’t like is woke. The liberal version basically being everything I don’t like is a Russian/MAGA bot. Is it really that hard to believe that left leaning people don’t agree with the Democratic Party platform? You’re deeper in your bubble than you realize my friend.
Oh look, someone who’s generalizing op then tries to discredit them! Way to prove their point
They didn’t make any type of platform or political argument to even debate against. Basically saying that everyone who dislikes democrats is secretly a republican. That’s all I’m calling them on. Total nonsense.
Misdirection, nice! That’s cuz this is not about platforms or any political argument, dr Troll
You’re goofy man. I don’t even know what your point is. OP said something. I said I disagreed with it. Epic troll by me I guess.
Go to a politics or platforms community if you’re looking for a politic argument or stuff about platforms
I’m not an american (but anti-electoral nonetheless), and I do get the critique and think it is perfectly valid if one views things through liberal framework - vote for the lesser evil, minimize suffering, not voting is letting the bad candidate on getting the upper hand, etc.
However, this isn’t an objective position but an ideological one, as it operates within lesser-evilism, coalitionism within capitalist institutions and having a definition of “the left” that generalizes them to essentially having to be “pro-democracy somewhat progressive liberals”, and any deviation makes them into a troll or a right winger or something like that.
What is important to realize is that most leftists aren’t liberals - in fact, many leftists, particularly Marxists, view elections as:
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A way to legitimize the class rule that leads into passivity among the working class who are being ruled over, essentially recognizing that this “tool that we are given” is just an illusion and leads to neutralization of worker power,
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Enabling of ‘capitalist-tribalism’ in the form of “which capitalist manager do you support” which is seen in US through party loyalty and basically disarming the working class from realizing their own interests.
Essentially, their goal isn’t to just “vote for the lesser evil” or “achieve the maximum good through the means we’re given” but to abolish the system entirely, and electorialism/voting is counter-productive in that regard due to legitimizing effect that it has that I mentioned previously. This does go against the “liberal left” and their goals, and being on the same political wing does not automatically mean there’s an alliance or shared goals, nor does it mean that two positions aren’t going to have antagonistic goals.
Besides, why blame the left for the electoral failure who abstained from voting? Why not blame MAGA for voting in an enemy that goes against your interests (as in, people who have actually voted)?
EDIT: Reading some of the comments over here, and what the fuck. Automatically labeling people as bots or trolls for daring to commit the crime of ‘wrongthink’ is definitely dehumanizing and the most toxic I’ve seen beehaw be. It’s fine to disagree, it’s fine to choose not to engage, but making a post calling a certain somewhat niche political position out, having people such as myself try and explain that this position is more complicated, then going full on “nah I’m right, you’re wrong, everyone who disagrees is now blocked and also not human or Russian/Chinese agents” is genuinely loser behavior to put it bluntly, especially on a “Chat” community where discussion is expected.
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Let’s just get a few facts out of the way:
- Genocide is the worst crime humanity is capable of
- The US has a direct hand in multiple genocides
- Record levels of homelessness in the richest nation on earth is unacceptable
- Death from preventable illnesses in the richest nation on earth is unacceptable
- Highest infant mortality in the western world in the richest nation on earth is unacceptable
- Democrats are not interested in changing the status quo
- Republicans want a return to chattel slavery
- Neither party is willing to help us, nor will they ever allow us to vote third party by adding ranked choice or anything like that
- Therefore, our best bet to break the cycle is to collectively vote for, say, the green party
You think leftists are unrealistic for being disgusted with Democrats? The genocide was live streamed to the world. Did you not see any of it? Did it not move you?
By the way, the Democratic party is not left-wing. It is right-wing. Please educate yourself.
Also, are we hopeless? Fuck no. Boycotts have been making progress. Noncompliance has accomplished a lot. Unionizing, if you can swing it, can accomplish a lot. Meshtastic can offer resiliant communications if Trump declares a national emergency. Democrats want you to panic. Leftists want you to organize.
I was with you but then you said vote green?
If you’re going to vote, vote against the Republican party. If you want change from status quo, the ballot box isn’t where it will happen
In my case, I’m in a deep blue state. Otherwise I would grit my teeth and vote for the “lesser” evil. But we really do need a new party.
I suppose it must make the world a lot simpler if you assume the US Democratic and Republican parties represent the full range of beliefs that exist in the world, and anyone who doesn’t neatly fit into those categories is simply lying.
Take that, you strawman! And that!
“I disagree with both the Republicans and the Democrats.”
“Impossible! You must be a secret Republican here to turn people against the Democrats”
“It kinda seems like you’re assuming has to be either a Democrat or a Republican”
“Strawman! I never said those exact words!”
I have to say it’s pretty ironic to accuse someone else of strawmanning while simultaneously rejecting every single thing they say about their own position and arbitrarily assigning them a completely different position that contradicts everything they say in a way that makes it easier to dismiss what they say.
“I disagree with both the Republicans and the Democrats.”
And if the people OP is criticizing were saying that, then what you were saying wouldn’t be a strawman.
But, they aren’t, and he is drawing a very explicit picture of the behavior they’re displaying which is very distinct (although I guess you could say that people who disagree with both R and D are part of a superset of which OP’s described people are a tiny little specific subset with specific behaviors… although in practice they very rarely say anything about “both the Republicans”. It’s mostly heaping scorn on the Democrats exclusively and sometimes taking time out to say that the Republicans are better or equivalent on some issue on which they objectively are not).
And that’s what makes what you are saying a strawman.
Weird that you’re taking all this time to call out people who focus their criticism on the Democrats, yet your post is completely silent on Ghenghis Khan. I can only conclude that you support rampant killing and pillaging since you don’t spend as much time calling them out as you do calling us out, since apparently that’s how you think logic works.
Alternatively, we can acknowledge the simple fact that it’s not necessary to make arguments about why Ghenghis Khan was bad if nobody is defending him around here, and by the same logic it isn’t necessary to argue about why the Republicans are bad when nobody is defending them around here.
The few times that I’ve seen a Trump supporter wander into Lemmy (and inevitably gotten ratio’d hard), I have attacked and criticized them. I can show my receipts if you like.
It’s mostly heaping scorn on the Democrats exclusively and sometimes taking time out to say that the Republicans are better or equivalent on some issue on which they objectively are not).
You can’t present receipts of me doing that. Maybe somebody at some point has made such a claim, but it’s generally a bullshit strawman.
yet your post is completely silent on Ghenghis Khan
If Ghengis Khan had been running for president of the United States last year, and I had been running around Lemmy yammering and biting my nails about what a problem Kamala Harris was, then fuck yes that would be weird. I think people should have called me out for it. Yes. That’s my point.
That is, in fact, exactly the reason why I think it’s stupid that these people were biting their nails so hard. Especially since the sum total of what they accomplished is to help put Ghengis in charge.
Sorry for interrupting your circlejerk, I guess. Apparently we’re supposed to spend a bunch of time talking about things that already have near-universal agreement here. I don’t find that particularly interesting or worthwhile.
I’m not saying that everyone should have spent all their time on Lemmy agreeing with each other that Ghengis was bad. I’m saying that spending all our time leading up to that election talking about what a problem Kamala Harris was, and how we shouldn’t vote for her, would be weird and suspicious in precisely 100% the exact same fashion as what people were actually doing. Thank you for making my point for me, in fact, that’s a really good analogy to explain it.
