Online left-wing infighting seems to me to be about applying labels to people because they argue or have argued one thing on a particular topic, and then use it to discredit an unrelated argument topic or paint their overall character. I know there are pot-stirring trolls and compulsive contrarians, but I do witness users I personally judge to have genuine convictions do this amongst each other.
Within US politics, CA Gov. Newsom is an illustrative example (plenty of examples exist too for other countries and around Lemmy/Fedi). I don’t particularly like him, he has done things I think are good, some things I think are funny, something things I think are bad and some things I think are downright horrible. Yet I have encountered some users online who will say they can’t ever applaud a move of his if one specific other policy or set of other unrelated policies crossed a line for them. I’m not asking people to change their mind on what they think of a person because of an isolated good thing they do, but to at least acknowledge it as a good thing or add nuance describing what about it you like or don’t. I can accept saying “I don’t think this is a good thing in this circumstance”, “this person will not follow through with this thing I think is good thing because ___”, or “they are doing a good thing for wrong and selfish reasons” too. But to outright deny any support for an action because of a wildly extrapolated character judgement of the person doing it, when that user would support it otherwise, vexes me greatly.
I know this is not every or most interactions on Lemmy, but these are just some thoughts I have to get out of my head. You don’t have to agree with me. I’m using ‘left-wing’ because the definition of ‘leftist’ or ‘liberal’ is wide-ranging depending on who you talk to. And on the side of the spectrum I’m calling left to left-centre, we seem to let the fewer things we disagree with get in the way of the many more things we would agree with each other. That’s all, thanks for reading.
Weaponized sincerity is a term defined by Katherine Cross (“Log off”) as an online behavior opposite to trolling, and genuine in intent, but equally harmful as malicious trolling. The example she herself gives is about a woman who cooked a meal for her refugee neighbors or sth, and after a couple hours people were at each other throats, fighting about her infantilizing immigrants or not. It is ubiquitous in Lemmy and once you learn about it you can’t unsee it.
Extracts from Katherine Cross’s Log off: Why posting and politics almost never mix. Pasted verbatim.
It’s worth taking a second to define weaponized sincerity. Weaponized sincerity is where extreme takes are born. It’s a mode that deploys ever more esoteric manipulations of social justice concepts for the purpose of being edgy or controversial, while still earnestly pursuing some noble idea. It’s the 0-to-60-in-two-seconds-flat acceleration of an innocuous bit of posting into a mass callout. It’s being nebulously accused of being X-phobic or silencing Y-group or being imperialist when all you were doing was, for instance, delivering chili to your neighbours.
One evening in 2022, a relatively prominent lefty Twitter user posted the following:
several guys moved in next door, students I guess. and I’ve gotten two confused door-dash drivers for them in the last week, and their trash can was completely overflowing with pizza boxes. i don’t think they cook. i am feeling such a strange motherly urge to feed these boys… They’re incredibly quiet which is a real surprise. I dunno if they’re renting or what but I would like them to stick around. Maybe I will make a big pot of chili this weekend when it gets cooler.
This, somehow, ignited a firestorm. She was accused of coddling “manchildren,” of being “presumptuous” or otherwise rude, of ableism for ignoring potential allergies, and of being a white saviour.
“For the love of god, stop babying men. This is why they learn to take advantage of their wives” went one tweet, apparently blaming this woman for the endurance of sexism and unequal marriages. Another tweet read, in part, “The intent was good, right? No. It was presumptive and stereotypical [white people] shit.”
The harassment went on for days.
It was a flaming gout of internet rage that reached into the stratosphere of the mainstream press. Even the Washington Post reported on the controversy — and it got its money’s worth from the world’s most efficient content farm. The article wasn’t just a news report; it was an advice column. WaPo food reporter Emily Heil used the incident to ask etiquette experts for their opinions on how best to share food with strangers.
The social media food fight left us exhausted but also wondering: Have the rules for giving home-cooked foods changed? Does the simple act of baking a casserole or cookies for a stranger have to be so fraught? We asked two experts for guidance.
Imagine the horror of having such an innocuous post lead to three people you’ve never met dissecting your behaviour in the pages of a national newspaper.
In the event, the leftist in question delivered the chili, it was well-received, and the young men helped her fix a fence. Outside the swirling cyclone of Discourse, a rather ordinary and charming exchange took place. On Twitter, this pot of chili had to be saddled with the unbearable weight of some of the most important issues of our time. Even a Le Creuset can’t hold that.
But, worst of all, because most of the Washington Post’s newsroom is on Twitter, they made this sorry spectacle into everyone’s problem. Even New York City’s Fox affiliate got in on the action, with an article entitled “A Chili Controversy? Neighbor’s Good Deed Draws Online Outrage.” Their source was the Washington Post.
I’m talking as if weaponized sincerity was the opposite of shitposting, its natural enemy. And in one sense it is. But, like all true opposites, it’s also a twin. Weaponized sincerity is the horrible second helix that wraps around irony culture, feeding off it and nourishing it in equal measure.
BTW while looking for this I found out she also defines sincerity like this:
One of the things I really can’t forgive social media for is how deeply it has corroded our sense of sincerity, making it uncool to care.
The one rule, if you can call it that, is to not appear to take anything seriously. Sincerity is anathema to shitposting.
So, all in all, I can figure she draws a continuum from irony culture, like people “so deep in layers of irony they don’t know who they are anymore” to weaponized sincerity, like, people who will take everything literally to the exteme of its political and ideological severity. She seems to be placing “real” sincerity to a point closer to the center than its “weaponized” counterpart. But I am no expert, I just have seen this happening over lemmy and it clicked, so I think she is onto something.
Also a disclaimer, I am personally more on the weaponized sincerity side.
I did a cursory search but couldn’t find too much on weaponized sincerity or Cross’ writings on that. The best I can make out from what you wrote, is that weaponized sincerity is someone’s act of goodwill getting contorted or (charitably) misinterpreted by others as an injustice upon them. You can tell me if I got it wrong.
I think it is rather adding a very purist angle to everything while still having good intentions. This then pushes everyone to a more purist direction. I am bad at keeping track of sources, but I will try to quote the relevant context later if I can.
Thanks!
Posted above. No worries.
As much as I despise the idea of getting a Newsom presidency when he’s about as “mediocre centrist” as politicians in the US come; it would still be leaps and bounds better than four more years of Trump, Vance, or whatever corrupt fuck crawls out from under the MAGA movement in 2028. I’m hoping primaries mean we get an actual candidate, so we could, I dunno, win on a progressive platform for a change – but being realistic, if we’re driving off a cliff and turning around is not an option, pumping the brakes is still better than stamping down on the gas.
This all, of course, assumes we still have free and fair elections come 2028, which is looking like an increasingly fanciful idea.
Yeah, we’ll see. Looking from the outside of the US I hope you can get through it.
You’re on the right and have no clue.
🤡
There are lines that need to be drawn. If a neo-nazi says they want to push neo-nazi policies in the name of defeating Trump, nope, still not letting them in the tent just because they said they’re trying to beat Trump.
And if you can agree with that extreme hypothetical, then it just becomes a debate over where we draw that line, not over whether a line should be drawn at all. I think for a lot of people, “leftist infighting” is something that’s only bad when other people do it, because they drew the line in a different place from you.
Getting a little less hypothetical here, I don’t think it’s acceptable to throw LGBTQ people under the bus in the name of defeating Trump. Even if you want a big tent, you’re still stuck with a conflict on whether that tent should include LGBTQ people or Gavin Newsom. I’d rather have the former.
We have almost four years to find a better nominee than Gavin Newsom. I am positive that we can do better than him.
If a neo-nazi says they want to push neo-nazi policies in the name of defeating Trump, nope, still not letting them in the tent just because they said they’re trying to beat Trump.
Boy, it sure is good that we’re talking about exactly that, and not some totally different scenario.
We have almost four years to find a better nominee than Gavin Newsom. I am positive that we can do better than him.
Sounds great. I think OP’s point (my point certainly) would be that as a random example, these people seem to spend lots and lots more time shitting on Democratic or leftist politicians than they do on trying to find someone better. Gavin Newsom? POS. Graham Platner? War criminal. Bernie? Zionist. AOC? Genocide supporter.
So who do they support? Why don’t we hear them trying to rally support for those left-wing people instead (except when it comes around to the general election and they suddenly get super-passionate about voting third party because the Democrats haven’t earned my vote, red line, lesser evil, and so on.)
The anti-homeless and anti-trans policies of gruesome newsom are not easily distinguished from the fascists policies tbf
Did you read the very next sentence? I made the hypothetical intentionally extreme in order to make a point.
Sounds great. So you wouldn’t vote for Newsom over Nick Fuentes? And you describe that somehow as choosing LBGTQ people over Newsom, even though they would suffer massively when Fuentes wins?
My point is that this whole framework for looking at the elections is extremely bizarre.
You are deliberately going out of your way to miss the point.
So you wouldn’t vote for Newsom over Nick Fuentes?
Most lefties with this viewpoint will eventually and begrudgingly agree that they’d vote for Newsome but of course spend the rest of their efforts sabre rattling against him while offering no one who meets their requirements… shrug
Yeah, I mean I definitely do not like Newsom. He is sort of textbook of the modern neoliberal bullshit Democrat, and he’s just “Gen Z” enough with all this social media crap that I could absolutely see him being the guy who gets trotted out so that the Democrats can avoid letting an actual progressive near power for another 50 years, and then get all confused when they lose the election. Literally my only criticism here is for the idea “… and that’s why it’s okay to let Republicans win over and over, until the Democrats get better all on their own!”
It is okay to influence your politicians and fight for better in Washington. It is vital, we’re fucked without it, maybe even with it. Refusing to vote isn’t that. People have been refusing to vote, in really amazingly high numbers, it has accomplished fuck-all.
And I’m okay with your example, that would be to me best described as “even if it was for reasons you would like (defeating Trump) he did actions you think are bad (neo-Nazi-like, and specifically transphobic)”. Like you can say that Newsom shouldn’t belong in the Democrat tent because of this or that, but if he proposes housing policy that you think would be helpful, either link a material reason as to why his transphobia, previous deed or other negative quality would taint this proposal. Otherwise say something “I like this policy …even if I don’t like him” or “…even if he’s a shitbird neo-lib transphobe” or “…even if he’s probably just doing it to run for a future Presidency” or “…though most of the credit should go to the CA Assembly”.
In a more extreme hypothetical, if Trump were to somehow get Grok or ChatGPT to slop out a universal US healthcare policy document that has comprehensive detail, I might applaud the plan itself on its merits, but of course I know Trump is a pathological liar, changes his mind all the time, his administration is full of idiots too evil and incompetent to implement it, and Republican, big pharma and insurance donors will never let that get off the ground and so I’d have little trust in that happening. But I would say “Trump, as much as I despise him, had a good idea for once that Democrats could actually try implementing for real”, or “he’s probably going to say the opposite after a quick chat with Perdue” instead of “I don’t like this plan only because it came from Trump”. Discourse would be better if we could separate the words/actions from the speaker, at least to start, but say why that speaker or a relevant larger context makes the words/actions unreliable if that’s the case.
In a representative democracy, we don’t just vote for policies that can be separated from their politicians. We vote for politicians.
Yes you are correct that is how elections work, but I argue that when an article or post topic is about a policy, let’s focus the discussion on the policy, and caveat with what you don’t like about the politician alongside it if you need to. Just because you like someone’s policy idea in one area, isn’t going to make you vote for them, and IMO, people assuming that association is what dissuades meaningful discussion on things we mutually want. After coming to an agreement we can then find a person that better fits the bill to elect. When it’s about voting and elections, let’s discuss more on the politician’s merits and demerits over there.
Leftist infighting is often people being bigots, predators, or defenders. The right will not be held to account with conversations and discussion but the left will - though you should listen to survivor’s warnings if they say someone has been dodging accountability for years and that they aren’t worth the effort.
As an organiser, a large chunk of my work is ensuring that certain predators, bigots and defenders don’t worm back in without changing anything. It means that survivors are safer to take part and that there is further freedom to speak up.
Prioritizing avoiding infighting to keep the peace is cop shit and is useful for predators, bigots and defenders to bide time. It also allows for a culture where those unaffected by those issues gain power.
Ah yes, if you kick everyone else out you can guarantee there’s only one toxic person in the room.
The nice thing about this philosophy is that it’s self-limiting, and so I don’t have to worry about it.
Actually, my own community is really nice and healthy. It takes a lot to get kicked out but people can choose not to hang out with people. Idiot.
You’re not the first person who’s given me a similar reply on the topic of left-wing infighting, and I’m sure you believe it. Which is sad, because I watch the cycles of purging and grief go around.
Reflect on why I called you an idiot and OP got a proper response. Idiot.
I appreciate the perspective, I understand and totally support the moderation policy of beehaw and blahaj zone. I do think it is good to have a tough stance and a no-tolerance policy of bigotry, abusers and jerks against the group you are trying to create a safe place to discuss for. Though I don’t know what you mean by defender here.
What I’m trying to get at though, is about avoiding the assumptions and jumps to conclusions that people make in policy discussions. While I recognize this can come from real trauma inflicted on people in past interactions, that prevents real progress towards helpful solutions. Other replies have provided good examples.
We do need to root out problematic behaviour, but separately we also have to re-discover solidarity if the aim is to form a political bloc or movement that can accomplish things. I posit that creating and maintaing a safe space is an equally valid but not quite the same aim–one needs more focus on reducing infighting than the other.
I’m not particularly experienced in online moderation, especially in managing serious issues in those spaces, so I would have to ask a friend about it, though I think the space she manages has different rules to her own views from what she has said. I doubt that the same issues that I am talking about occur as frequently though. The internet is much more anonymous and its full of trolls. I actually think its much harder to cultivate a culture online. I don’t really think that anyone is actively changing their mind through anonymous online discussion. The idea of that being a thing was part of an astroturfing campaign to normalise shitty views.
IRL, I work with others from all over the left and I tend to be someone who is responsible for the emotional labour of accountability. You can’t physically completely ban people from a scene without convincing as many people as possible not to hang out with them. You can ban them from chats easily enough, but people will cause a stink if you don’t “use proper channels” and the worst predators will still show up to events anyway. Most of the time garden variety bigotry doesn’t become enough of an issue to do that. Usually that only becomes an issue when someone starts hounding marginalised people and/or attending far-right events. People will often confront each other over bigotry before whisper networks develop but imo gossip is a really healthy way of keeping check.
What I mean is that prioritizing reducing infighting means that people within a community aren’t familiar with raising issues, which means speaking out isn’t normalized. It replicates the patriarchy on a smaller scale.
It’s not just online. Monty Python made a joke about the exact same infighting back in the 70’s.
I’m not asking people to change their mind on what they think of a person because of an isolated good thing they do, but to at least acknowledge it as a good thing or add nuance describing what about it you like or don’t. I can accept saying “I don’t think this is a good thing in this circumstance”, “this person will not follow through with this thing I think is good thing because ___”, or “they are doing a good thing for wrong and selfish reasons” too. But to outright deny any support for an action because of a wildly extrapolated character judgement of the person doing it, when that user would support it otherwise, vexes me greatly.
Ah, but nuance isn’t very motivating to the vast majority of people. Ego and having an identity is, though, and some people also crave conflict. Thinking this way serves all three, and having genuine convictions and good intentions doesn’t preclude falling into that.
Balanced people tend not to burn time and emotional energy on politics for free, basically. Yes, I know that’s a self-own.
Balanced people tend not to burn time and emotional energy on politics for free, basically. Yes, I know that’s a self-own.
As someone who’s literally currently writing a book/philosophy called Philosophy of Balance this one struck a chord 😅
But you are right, I’m burning a lot of time and energy on exactly this and I feel it makes people wary and skeptical of what’s wrong with me… When really, I don’t think anything is wrong with me now. Hasn’t always been like that though, so if I can help others ease their struggle by writing about my own, I think that’s worth it.
I think the important thing, for those of us in the picture anyway, is to have humility, and be more aware of why we do what we do. We’re not robots programmed to save the world; there’s always something else driving it, just like other people have things that drive them.
@[email protected] @[email protected] Thank you for having a thoughtful discussion. If anything, I was hoping for more of this in the comments rather than back-and-forth comment chains re-litigating specific controversies, which is why as much as I love examples and analogies, I only named one in my original vent. I am feeling much better today.
I’m glad. Hopefully that’s not an indirect way of saying it’s a swing and a miss, haha.
Cheers! ❤️
Ed Koch said it best.
“If you agree with me 51% of the time, vote for me. If you agree with me 100% of the time, see a psychiatrist.”
I have an overwhelmingly negative view of Newsom, and let me tell you: most of the people shitting themselves in fury over Newsom on here are the kind of people who celebrate their ‘principled’ advocacy of nonvoting in order to allow literal fascists to murder American minorities. They do not want to express approval of any good policy from ‘the Dems’, because that would weaken their argument that no one in the current system is capable of doing anything to improve anyone’s life, which justifies their total abstention and visceral hatred for participation in ‘electoral’ politics.
And on the side of the spectrum I’m calling left to left-centre, we seem to let the fewer things we disagree with get in the way of the many more things we would agree with each other.
The problem is the same issue that leads to right-unity, but in reverse.
Most people do not make political allegiances based on policy opinions.
The right doesn’t agree on anything, despite how it appears to many who are unfamiliar with right-wing discourse. But they define themselves as a community, largely defined in objection to modernity.
The left defines itself as many communities, and what ends up being important is not policy, but in-groups and out-groups. It doesn’t matter what policy would help the working class, or minorities, or establish a more just or even more left-friendly situation going forward. What matters is the in-group being opposed to the out-group.
There are people on here who literally and openly decry ‘turbolibs’ as worse than literal Nazis. There are many who equate liberals with literal fascists (and they would spare not an instant reminding you that Bernie Sanders is a liberal).
They don’t care about the people they claim to champion. They don’t have actual policy concerns, though they might express opinions on policy in the abstract. All they care about is in-group and out-group.
Came to comment and you stole all of my thunder! :)
The main issue for leftists is that both of your two parties are full of corrupt unabashed neoliberal capitalists who are so far to the right they would make even Margaret Thatcher blush, the main difference being that one party is more openly racist and fascist than the other. That’s not a purity test, it’s a fundamental difference of values.
Are you really living in a democracy when only one of two parties can ever win, and both are 100% commited to neoliberal economics? Nothing is gonna get better in the long run under a system that is designed to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. No war but class war.
Are you really living in a democracy when only one of two parties can ever win, and both are 100% commited to neoliberal economics? Nothing is gonna get better in the long run under a system that is designed to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. No war but class war.
I’m so glad nothing has improved since 1789 in your eyes. As we all know, minorities and the actual working class, as people don’t actually matter; only being able to beat your chest about how ‘pure’ you are over championing the abstract demographic at the expense of the actual living human beings who make up these classes matters.
Riddle me this
Where did all these people go who were so supportive of the Green Party and PSL and all that? During the election, there were super important parties to vote for, who represented a chance of real change not these dumbfuck Democrats, and a bunch of people on Lemmy were rallying behind them and saying they planned to vote for them and basically never shutting up about it. What happened to those parties and all that advocacy for them? Why, after the election, did it pivot right back around to focusing purely on the Democrats (or on how important it is not to vote just in general as a general rule)?
Also, there are people existing outside the two-party system, Bernie Sanders is one. Do you support expanding out efforts like that to try to break into the two-party oligarchy fest?
they ditched their burner accounts when their job is done to move onto to other targeted messaging.
Yeah. I was seriously curious what they were going to switch to after the election, a lot of them have pretty much just gone silent except for general “we all hate Israel amirite” messaging, and maybe individual issues they wanted to weigh in on. A bunch of them jumped in to make sure everyone knows Graham Platner is a POS and a Nazi, which to me was fascinating.
Where did all these people go who were so supportive of the Green Party and PSL and all that?
Dunno, ask them.
During the election, there were super important parties to vote for, who represented a chance of real change not these dumbfuck Democrats, and a bunch of people on Lemmy were rallying behind them and saying they planned to vote for them and basically never shutting up about it.
I do remember a few brave souls encouraging people to vote Green during the last election, but they were mostly drowned out and hounded by enraged Dems for “throwing away their vote” or for “effectively voting for Trump”. But no rational analysis of the voting patterns from the last election suggests that leftists were responsible in any way for the election loss.
Criticisms of the Democratic Party, the DNC, and the broken two party system are valid and need to be heard. If the Dems keep losing elections, that’s on their terrible candidates, rigged Presidential candidate process, terrible policy choices (e.g. wrt Israel), uninspiring election campaigns, and (mostly) because they are a party of the corporations and for the corporations.
What happened to those parties and all that advocacy for them? Why, after the election, did it pivot right back around to focusing purely on the Democrats (or on how important it is not to vote just in general as a general rule)?
I don’t care if you vote or don’t vote, because it won’t make any difference to where the country is headed unless major political reforms are made to address poverty, break up the two-party system, and stop corporate abuses. And major reforms like that are simply not gonna happen via the shambles that is the existing US political system. As I said before, nothing is gonna get better in the long run under a system that is designed to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. And the Democrats are just as responsible for that system as the Republicans. Making the rich richer and hating on leftists are the only two things they can both agree on.
Also, there are people existing outside the two-party system, Bernie Sanders is one. Do you support expanding out efforts like that to try to break into the two-party oligarchy fest?
Yes, absolutely. Anything to break the stranglehold of the two party system would be good. While I don’t think Bernie is perfect, I would totally be enthused to vote for him (if I lived in the US) because he is consistently on the right side of most issues. I’d support Mamdani too. That fact that neither of those people are “acceptable” representatives of the Democratic party from the perspective of the DNC is very telling though. They did everything they could to stop Bernie’s campaign, and are still doing everything they can to stop Mamdani. Anything to stop the Overton window from moving left an inch or two, right?
I don’t care if you vote or don’t vote
Why do you ban content from your server that says it’s a good idea to vote, then?
Honestly, this argument has been going on for 100s of years…
The argument for voting against left-wing or socialist candidates on the grounds that they can’t win and are therefore helping the right wing into power has, of course, been a time-worn argument in the United States against bucking the two-party system. Engels, in an 1893 letter to an American colleague, pointed out that in the United States, the formation of a workers’ party is hindered by the “Constitution…which makes it appear as though every vote were lost that is cast for a candidate not put up by one of the two governing parties.”
What’s changed? I’m with Rosa on this topic:
People who pronounce themselves in favor of the method of legislative reform in place of and in contradistinction to the conquest of political power and social revolution, do not really choose a more tranquil, calmer and slower road to the same goal, but a different goal. Instead of taking a stand for the establishment of a new society they take a stand for surface modification of the old society.
As Luxemburg points out, the debate is not about whether socialists are for reforms or whether socialists should turn their backs on the electoral system. As socialists we fight for all reforms that improve the conditions of life for workers under capitalism and give workers the confidence to fight for more. But any real fight for reforms requires struggle to achieve them. Reformists tell workers to sit passively and rely on elected officials. By doing so, they weaken and demobilize the class struggle that makes real reform possible and prepares workers consciously, organizationally and politically to overturn capitalism.
And to answer you directly…
Why do you ban content from your server that says it’s a good idea to vote, then?
Because of all of the above. I do sometimes remove comments promoting electoralism in leftist communities if I think it’s getting disruptive. From a leftist perspective electoralism is really nothing more than hope-mongering peddled by the State to keep the masses in check without threatening the system as a whole, and which only results in status quo outcomes. Or to put it another way, it works as a sop for the masses so they feel like they are control somehow, despite only ever being able to vote for one neoliberal party or another more openly racist neoliberal party. All this effort to try to get people to vote for a party that doesn’t align with their values and clearly couldn’t give a damn about them is a complete waste of time. If folks instead spent that energy protesting in the streets, disrupting ICE operations, protecting immigrants, and organizing for candidates who aren’t part of the status quo (like the Bernies and Mamdanis of the world), then leftist votes would naturally follow.
The argument for voting against left-wing or socialist candidates on the grouns that they can’t win and are therefore helping the right wing into power has, of course, been a time-worn argument in the United States against bucking the two-party system. Engels, in an 1893 letter to an American colleague, pointed out that in the United States, the formation of a workers’ party is hindered by the “Constitution…which makes it appear as though every vote were lost that is cast for a candidate not put up by one of the two governing parties.”
What’s changed?
Glad you asked. Most countries of the world have abandoned the kind of “51% take all” approach that the US uses, with its inevitable collapse into two and only two parties, each one a hair’s breadth from the center on one side or the other as a mathematical certainty. Voting was a nice idea but the US framework for it is shit. And that’s even before you factor in the fact that “the center” is defined in wildly distorted half-Nazi terms by our corrupted media to an indifferent and uneducated populace.
I do think that advocating for reforming or overthrowing that system is a better use of time than urging people not to vote in it (or to vote for a more palatable candidate than the two-major-party dogshit on offer, which is functionally the same thing). That was my question – why not more time spent on that? I think that is badly needed. I genuinely don’t get why people who claim to be anarchists or similar spend so much time talking about the election specifically within the two-party system and talking about Democrats specifically.
From a leftist perspective electoralism is really nothing more than hope-mongering peddled by the State to keep the masses in check without threatening the system as a whole, and which only results in status quo outcomes.
I mean… yeah. That’s what they do. Communists in power use the idea of socialism as a falseness to justify their mandate. Fascists in power use the idea of virtue and strength of character as a falseness to justify their mandate. Democrats (small d, democrats) in power use the idea of voting and the voice of the people as a falseness to justify their mandate. It doesn’t mean that socialism, strength of character, or voting become these horrible things that we have to avoid because corrupt politicians used them as a way to justify their tyranny. That is just what people do once they get in power: They lie to make it sound reasonable the way they cheated their way in. Is this your first day visiting Political Science Adventureland?
If you are saying that you don’t support the current US voting system with all its corruption and naked fascism / oligarchy, then sure, I 100% agree. We should fix it, although I am going to sort of disagree with you there that just not participating in the system will suddenly make it crumble instead of just making things worse. If you are saying that you don’t support voting as a concept (which, given “electoralism,” it sounds like you don’t), not worth subjecting to any kind of improvement to make it represent the will of the people, then… IDK, I guess you are in good company on Lemmy sort of speaking. I had the revelation recently that a lot of these Lemmy communists really do want just seizing power at the barrel of a gun, they really don’t like non-authoritarian or non-tribally-based systems and that is the root of a lot of their politics.
Not saying that’s you. I am slightly curious about which camp you fall into (reform voting camp or abolish voting camp)… let me ask this: How will refusing to vote produce any reduction in the power of the US government and institution of a better life for people in the US government-wise or tyranny-wise or oligarchy-wise? What do you see as the progression by which not voting at all could lead to better things in the future?
I think we probably agree on the general principles. But i feel like you are missing the point a bit. I’m not advocating for not voting, per se. I’m just pointing out that voting is not a real solution to the problems we face. Because reforms to the two party system are basically impossible to achieve by working from within the system, by design. The quotes I provided clearly articulate that idea. By all means vote, but let’s not pretend it will achieve any sort of meaningful change in the economic status quo. I mean, sure if voting for the Dems stops the deportations and shuts down ICE completely then that’s worth a go in the meantime. But even then, conditions for US workers are unlikely to change materially. Wealth inequality will be just as bad as before and the Dems will do nothing serious to address it. We all surely recognise that.
The problem I have with electoralists is that there is an implicit and sometimes explicit suggestion that one can simply vote fascism and oligarchy away. I’m more of the view it will take a revolution or mass protest movement of some kind (like a general strike) to achieve any serious reforms to the economic and political status quo.
I’m just pointing out that voting is not a real solution to the problems we face.
Correct
Because reforms to the two party system are basically impossible to achieve by working from within the system, by design.
Correct
By all means vote, but let’s not pretend it will achieve any sort of meaningful change in the economic status quo.
Correct
I’m more of the view it will take a revolution or mass protest movement of some kind (like a general strike) to achieve any serious reforms to the economic and political status quo.
Correct
The problem I have with electoralists is that there is an implicit and sometimes explicit suggestion that one can simply vote fascism and oligarchy away.
I have literally never heard anyone say this. Not once. There seems like there is this strawman that somehow people who are saying you should vote are also saying that you should not do any other thing, but in my experience the correlation is the exact opposite: The people who are strongly minded about voting tend to do other work in and out of the system to try to make things better.
But even then, conditions for US workers are unlikely to change materially. Wealth inequality will be just as bad as before and the Dems will do nothing serious to address it. We all surely recognise that.
I more or less agree with this. It’s a pretty big fucking problem. How does refusing to vote help solve it?
For what it’s worth, Biden did the first reduction in income inequality and the biggest increase in people’s take-home pay in decades after making a huge corporate tax increase to pay for it. Almost no one knows that that even happened. I get what you mean, it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the kind of change that would be required… but in my experience, the people who are anti-voting just as a general rule also often tend to be negative even about people like Bernie Sanders who are trying to fight to fix all of this on a more fundamental level, and generally unaware of when things change or what is happening in the places where big rules that could affect the oligarchy get made or unmade.
If you can’t be bothered to support people who are fighting for you, by putting in an hour of action once every couple of years, how would you expect any progress to happen? Organizing outside government is needed also yes, but it’s going to be so much harder than supporting people inside government (the tiny handful of them) who are actually fighting to make things right.
Like if you organize a general strike to enforce better working conditions, but then congress is 2/3rds Republicans because no one on the left was voting, doesn’t that make it harder for the general strike to accomplish anything? I don’t get this value proposition where voting is not a good use of time simply because it is not enough on its own (let alone affirmatively a bad thing that people should be banned for advocating for).
I mean, sure if voting for the Dems stops the deportations and shuts down ICE completely then that’s worth a go in the meantime.
I know multiple people personally who were not deported because of Obama-era reforms. ICE would probably not exist if Al Gore had won his election. And, of course, “anti-electoralism” to whatever extent it impacted the last election has had a massive impact on people’s safety and food safety and all the rest in the present day. Just because they were already hanging by a thread under the current system which urgently needs to change doesn’t mean it suddenly makes sense to let Trump in and cut the thread and let them just fall.
people like this are going to get JD Vance elected in 2028
Yeah it definitely won’t be the fault of the Dems for putting forward yet another corporate stooge up for election, and sticking with their unpopular policies, no matter what their own voter base actually wants. They will be blameless, as always.
By “no matter what their own voter base actually wants”, you mean “some bizarre envisioning of the Dem voter base as far-left”
https://www.newsweek.com/democrats-want-party-move-right-poll-2030713
The poll of 1,001 adults nationwide, conducted January 21 to January 27—just days after Trump returned to office—found that more Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents want the party to move toward moderation rather than becoming more liberal or staying the same.
It found that 45 percent of Democratic respondents wanted the party to become “more moderate,” compared to 34 percent in 2021. The poll also found that Democrats are less satisfied with the state of party politics, with 22 percent wanting the party to stay the same, down from 31 percent in 2021.
Meanwhile, 29 percent of participants want the party to become more liberal, compared to 34 percent in 2021.
The breakdown of the vote percentage shows that 50 percent of nonwhite participants support the party becoming more moderate, compared to 42 percent of white participants. The shift also trends higher among higher-income earners.
I get your point about the rise of neo-liberalism and the helpless feeling of having no good choices. But there’s a mindset that stems from “differences in values”, that could lead to someone today self-describing as a communist who would reject class-war opinions from a resurrected Karl Marx, because of his 19th-century patriarchal views, him not talking enough about the oppression of women transgender and non-binary folks, he may view Indigenous culture as a barrier to social progress and collective power, or because modern-day Russia attacks Ukraine or whatever. I’m not saying this is you, but I hope this illustrates what frustrates me with the online progressive movement.
If one has to wait for a perfect vessel before anyone can start agreeing on policies, then we will never find a vessel that everyone finds perfect and never get started organizing around the policies we want.
This is the problem with leftist mobilisation on the whole and basically always has been. The right is mostly made up of single issues. Things like opposing LGBT+ rights, reproductive rights, racial integration, social welfare etc. Any one of things are your main bag and Conservative it is. All the others basically aren’t deal breakers. For example, you could be closeted homosexual but also an ardent racist, you’re definitely not going to vote left.
On the flip side, all the left has are deal-breakers. Leftists will constantly come up against purity tests for a myriad of different factions, interest groups, loud parts of the Internet etc etc.
As an example, you may be the scion of the left in terms of your electoral ability but if you say women’s sport should be protected from those born with a potential innate advantage of a higher amount of testosterone, you’re pissing off a part of your base who now would rather anyone but you got into power.
Look at how the different sides (socialists, communists, anarchists, Basque and Catalan nationalists etc), descended into infighting during the Spanish Civil War even while on the brink of victory against Franco’s Nationalists. (who for example brought together the anti-Catholic and anti-monarchist Falangists and the pro-Catholic and pro-monarchist CEDA because they could all agree on wanting to destroy the Reds).
edit: added word for clarity
Progressives want to fall in love. Conservatives fall in line.
I like this point a lot. Thanks!
As an example, you may be the scion of the left in terms of your electoral ability but if you say women’s sport should be protected from those born with a potential innate advantage of a higher amount of testosterone, you’re pissing off a part of your base who now would rather anyone but you got into power.
Absolutely. Because we still have principles. And copying right-wing talking points is not one. The whole toilet and sports discussion are complete BS to get themselves angry about stuff that doesn’t actually happen in real life.
Maybe this puts us at a disadvantage but giving up our principles for a common goal is not really how this works. We’d be giving up too much of ourselves. We don’t live by anger and hate that unites us. And I don’t believe in being told what to do/think. I guess for a lot of conservatives this is less alien a concept because they have been brought up in churches which do exactly that.
Personally I also don’t have any loyalty to a political movement. I temporarily align myself while our goals are the most similar but I feel free to flip whenever I feel (or when they do something I don’t agree with). I used to be a member of the socialist party in Holland but they did a few things I didn’t agree with (like firing their entire youth movement for being too left) so now I joined the animal party. Which is also progressive.
On the subject of ‘giving yourself up.’
Escaped slave Frederick Douglas backed Lincoln over a candidate who wanted abolition. Lincoln’s Republican Party was anti-slavery, but wasn’t committed to an immediate end. Douglas figured that it was better to win, and have the President’s ear, than to lose and be completely out of the picture.
Bayard Ruskin was a gay man who was Martin King’s right hand. Ruskin did a lot of the hands-on work to get the March on Washington organized. He didn’t push an LGBTQ+ agenda because he knew that 1960’s America wasn’t ready for it.
Maybe this puts us at a disadvantage but giving up our principles for a common goal is not really how this works.
I struggle to square the statement in the scope of “democracy”. It reads like you don’t want to compromise to reach a solution at all. That’s not democracy. There will always be people who hold positions different to yours and one side is going to have to bend their principals to reach a compromise.
I’m not asking you to accept any particular position here, but if we take a step back from the actual policies of our current time it sounds less like you want a democracy, a system where different views are blended together, and more like a system that only meets “your” views.
Again not an attack on “you” but if everyone has this staunch viewpoint, how can we ever get to a workable system for all?
I struggle to square the statement in the scope of “democracy”. It reads like you don’t want to compromise to reach a solution at all. That’s not democracy. There will always be people who hold positions different to yours and one side is going to have to bend their principals to reach a compromise.
No, I’m not an active part of politics. My only input is to vote. Hence I vote which party aligns with me the most.
The actual compromise happens by politics, I’m not involved of that.
I’m not asking you to accept any particular position here, but if we take a step back from the actual policies of our current time it sounds less like you want a democracy, a system where different views are blended together, and more like a system that only meets “your” views.
To be honest I don’t know what I want. I’m just trying to make the best of the shit we have now. I do know one thing: When it comes to the extreme-right (like the PVV in Holland where I live or the republicans in the US), there is no way to make any kind of communication work. My vision is purely to live alongside them with as little interaction as possible.
I very much agree with this. Thanks for the mini history lesson.
Lesser evilism is a race to the bottom. While it’s easy to tut tut about how you’re the most reasonable person in the conversation, it’s plain to people with either memory or the werewithal to study ancient history that you and Gruesome Newsome are defending positions that were considered extreme far right 20 years ago. This is called the ratchet effect. The dems bravely hold the line against the mean, critical, STERN left, who are committing the worst crime of all (demanding results), laud themselves for being less Hitlerian (sometimes), and then the next brownshirt aficionado turns the heat up further
No, ceding to the greater evil because the lesser evil isn’t good enough is a race to the bottom. Lesser evilism is a gentle stroll to the bottom.
It’s easier to slow that gentle stroll to a stop, and subsequently turn around and head back up, than it is to slow down from a sprint.
Vote strategically to secure the best conditions the Overton window will allow, and use that period of deceleration to make a difference through direct action. Progressive change is easier to accomplish under mealy-mouthed liberals than under full-throated fascists.
Big talk abt lesser evil when the dems are more likely to suck up time and energy from ur parents only to funnel that money into a “based Republican” in a race where they lost so badly it’s red versus red
Btw my local government is now basically replacing the state level government. You guys are basically living in the fucking dark ages vro
Pardon?
Commune leadership no longer needs to rubber stamp five bajillion things with district govt. I use state and municipal so your westoid mind can fathom the power of Chavismo, Ho Chi Minh Thought, etc
Okay, I can understand your opinion. My question to you is then, how do we reverse or break this cycle? Asking earnestly.
Does the US just have to wait for a golden goose like an American Greta Thunberg who checks every box for you? Since painting every good thing with the brush of bad things doesn’t appear to inspire anyone to improve. And if your answer is there is nothing that can be done about it, then what’s the problem with at least trying to slow it down, by shaming bad things and cheering good ones?
Lol, awaiting the American Greta Thunberg like the Dalai Lama. This is gonna crack my buddy up oh man
.ml moment
Amazing how people are more willing to embrace/forgive, even revise history of fascism than communism who saved the world from fascism repeatedly.
Thank you for displaying perfectly the point I made with my other comment ITT. Based on barely more than zero, you declared me your political enemy.
Fascist apologia projection. Again.
Block feature is good.
Are you even aware the you’re denigrating with your “badge of dishonor” agrees with you on one of the biggest issues in US politics today (that I heartily disagree with) while also disagreeing with another? Same for me. We aren’t infighting. They have their own space with very clear statement on opinions permitted to participate and which aren’t, so I’m not over there arguing or trying to usurp their space. Meanwhile they are involved in discussion on .ml without getting themselves banned or flamed. Amazing how that happens everywhere but rabidly neo/liberal Lemmy.
While lemmy itself isn’t a target for propaganda bots, the narratives they push kinda seep in.
Propaganda doesn’t seek to convert a leftist to the right, their strategy is to fragment the left - factions spend their energy arguing amongst themselves instead of presenting a cohesive opposition.
For example, elements of the left were protesting about Palestine outside Kamala’s campaign events.
On that topic you’re quite right. One PAC was funding contradictory messages about Kamala Harris’ stance on Israel, targated at Jewish and Muslim populations.
There probably are a handful of propagandists here, but I start with the presumption that almost everyone engages with good faith until shown otherwise. Anyway, that’s why I’m calling for nuance in my rant, which could help combat assumptions formed from propaganda.
It was indeed very bad for the democracts to support Israel so staunchly. This is the problem with the US ‘left’. They’re not really left, they’re neoliberal. Money is all that matters to them.
You really need a real left there.
Supremacist ideology sets in
I don’t know if it was clear but I don’t subscribe to any ideology. I just align loosely with them based on my own values.
Yes, neoliberal is supremacist/adjacent.
I’m absolutely not neoliberal :)
🫶
Now I understand you sorry 🫶
I came from reddit and I’m kinda used to every comment being an attack. Sorry.
Absolutely true. And yet, whenever US politicians do buck the trend and become vaguely left and give strong criticism to Israel and try to stop us arming them, this same group of people calls them “Zionists” or throws paint on their campaign offices, and tries to insist that leftists shouldn’t support those politicians, either.
Almost as if it was always about creating division in the left and not about Israel in the first place…
Exactly what I’m talking about. Well done.
That will do little bot, that will do.
I’m not bot :P
I mean I see where you’re coming from, all the right was shouting “Genocide Joe” at the time but now that Trump is in power he’s best buddies with Netanyahu and they are silent :(
But really the democrats unrelenting support for Israel was unjustifiable and it was right to be called out. You don’t support evil just because it’s the least bad option or something. I guess there’s a lot of money filling the coffers from there or something but it doesn’t matter, it is wrong.
You may not be a bot, but you’re parroting republican bot talking points so you may as well be.
You don’t support evil just because it’s the least bad option or something.
What a silly thing to say. Of course you “support evil”, when doing to is the least evil course of action.
Well no. I’m not parroting anything, it is my own opinion that supporting Israel’s genocide is bad. In fact my own country (Holland) is a very big Israel supporter and I hate that and I often criticise that.
In fact the republican outrage wasn’t genuine because they stopped complaining when they won and their own leader started doing the same (in fact he is bigger bros with netanyaho than biden was). I called out their hypocrisy with their “Genocide Joe” statements which I don’t support (because it flattens a complex issue to a slur).
When I say “supporting evil” I mean supporting netanyahu. I wouldn’t stay silent on criticising this even if the alternative is worse. I just don’t believe in black/white discussions and I’m not a team player, I don’t get told what to think. I mean I wouldn’t support the democrats supporting Israel even when the republicans are worse (and they also support Israel).
If I were American I would still vote for the democrats but I would protest their support of Israel. Though if I were American I’d leave and renounce my nationality tbh.
Don’t be so confident there isn’t bot and or paid influence activity here. There have been some suspicious trends that pop up even on lemmy.
The narrative was vote Biden and move him left. Biden did not move left. He enabled and contributed to genocide. Kamala actively stated she would continue Biden’s policies. She also said she would be “tough on the border”.
Should anyone in a democracy believe the words and actions of the candidates?
I talk to people about ideas like “keeping the full benefit of their labor power”, “cooperating with other human beings”, “no war but the class war” and “no gods no masters”. I’m awful at parties and fragmenting the left. Infighting is real. Never trust a ML.
If the dems had convincingly won the last n elections, the republicans would move to the left, which would push the dems to the left.
Biden won by a hair’s breadth.
The narrative was vote Biden and move him left.
Whose narrative was that? The narrative was, Trump is trying to end democracy and put Hispanics (and later Democrats) in concentration camps, so vote for his opponent. Seems like that was kind of borne out by the future events.
Are you still pissed off that people were suggesting voting for Kamala Harris, watching the state of the US and the world right now? Are you proud of advocating for not voting?
While lemmy itself isn’t a target for propaganda bots
Why do you assume this? It’s impossible to tell most of the time, but every so often one of them fucks up and reveals that something hinky is going on.
The most recent example was someone who was furious about Graham Platner and said we shouldn’t support him, fellow leftists, while also claiming to have been in the US military and also to be from Platner’s tiny home county, using both of those as sources of authority to speak on it, and I can say that at least the military side of that was definitely a lie because the person didn’t know how the US military works.
What is the explanation for that, other than that the person is deliberately doing propaganda against progressive candidates?
The voting system is uttely cancerous and feeds into the westoid preoccupation with creating winners and losers in society. It naturally creates echo chambers.
That being said, your speculation is foolish. Private intelligence contractors openly advertise that they monitor the fediverse. It would be kind of stupid not to
I hear ya. In fact your rant overlaps quite a bit with my own rants against witch hunters (people who screech, bash, or try to denounce someone else, online and in the open, with little to no grounds to do so).
I know this is not every or most interactions on Lemmy, but…
…but it’s like biting into something rotten: the foul taste lingers for a while, no matter how much good food you have afterwards.
Thanks for the sympathy, your analogy describes it well.
I’m very left-wing but the thing with ‘us’ is, that we still have principles. The extreme right is long past any kind of principle or fact. They just live in a fantasy world inventing things to get themselves angry about. Anyone who disagrees in the slightest with today’s narrative will be cancelled from their community. But for us the facts still matter. And that meand we sometimes disagree.
I wouldn’t call someone like Newsom ‘left’ though. He’s left by US standards but for the rest of the world he would still be pretty right-wing. And strongly capitalist/neoliberal.
Anyway you can rant all you like but I’m not going to ‘fall in line’. It’s just a concept alien to me. I have my own goals and principles and I don’t align with others. I might join forces temporarily but that’s about it. I still remain the only one who decides how I feel on each topic. And I will change my political alliances as I go.
Thanks, I respect that. I don’t want you to change or abandon your principles just for the sake of being agreeable. You know you can hold different principles in a variety of topics, and my main ask is that in discussion we be clear where these principles align and where they do not.
ITT: @[email protected] spams every comment with left-wing infighting.
I made a couple more, just for you!
(Infighting is when you reply to infighting I guess, lol)
The prophecy unfolds.
This is my biggest problem with this place. Disagree a little and you’re scum. Someone recently told me to kill myself because I said “Nazis are horrible people, but they are in fact human”. This literally got me called a Nazi sympathizer. Because anything less than saying they’re literal cockroaches means you support awful right wing ideas.
People can’t wait to find a way to claim you believe horrible shit that you never said and is unlikely you believe. It’s fucking bizarre.
Exactly. I’m not asking people to change their opinions, I’m asking for a little more nuance and less jumping to conclusions.
Yeah I know what you mean. The tendency to take one comment and extrapolate an entire worldview is out of hand. Not just on lemmy, but I expect better on lemmy.
I used to try not to block people now but I’m getting a much more block-happy feeling recently.
