Lordy, it's worse than I thought. Another strain of leftist thought that comes to the same place as some of the liberals and centrists they're apt to criticise.
It's bitterly ironic that a piece calling for self-reflection contains so little of it. And I remain in awe at the unwillingness of such people to capitalise on the fact that millions of liberals are talking about fascism. That seems like an *opportunity* to me, boys.
It really does seem to be as simple as "we must always own the libs; therefore, if the libs are organising against fascism, fascism isn't a problem." And this is the kind of thinking that leads to rapid microwaving of one's brain.
The fact that the authors cite the last few elections as proof that fascism doesn't remain a threat--rather than proof that the hated liberals organised in response and helped beat the Republicans at the polls by mobilising newly engaged voters--is just incredible to me.
Like, yeah. A lot of folks really didn't like the fact that the GOP took away reproductive healthcare, and liberal winemoms in Kansas, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania did something about it. Maybe there's a lesson there? Maybe there's a new constituency there?
...Nah, just shitlibs being shitlibs.
I get so exhausted by this sort of thing. Yes, a lot of liberals can be annoying and wrong. They're also warm bodies that are part of the polity, and essential parts of any coalition that the left can use to make this country a better place.
But also, the message of this piece is so *weird* because it's arguing the same thing that you get in Politico or a David Brooks column: that salt of the earth Real Americans are being condescended to by haughty liberal elites who dismiss them as racist, when they should be winning them over.
This is the sort of thing that leftists (rightly!) criticise New York Times' liberals for promoting. But now it's leftist when you Mad Lib in some buzzwords like "neoliberal"? C'mon man.
The other argument, which is more colorable, is that a fixation on fascism can blunt self-reflection about how mainstream liberalism has hitherto failed us and brought us to this point. But this is not a globally true argument, nor an argument against liberals paying attention to fascism.
Shhhh, don't mention the horseshoe. (Although, hilariously, the horseshoe's ends connect leftists to the worst stereotype of the centrists they despise? It's kind of hilarious)
Dan Bessner is both ends of the horseshoe in one person.
In the sense that he's a fellow of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, the whole idea of which was left-right unity, so of course it's turned out to be dominated by the far right
This is another piece of evidence for my thesis that a lot of left-wing activists were raised in heavily right-wing culture (e.g., parents who watched Fox News or listened to Rush Limbaugh, etc), absorbed its tropes, and repeat those tropes without realizing it.
I remain convinced that a major problem for shitlibs is that they are essentially reactionaries and are deeply envious of the lockstop discipline that characterizes the Republican Party. They'd like to replicate it on the left and see the Dem Party as one of the biggest obstacles to that.
The Dem Party's essential nature is as five squabbling raccoons in a trenchcoat pretending to be a single party. Shitlibs dream of replacing it with The Party that happens to agree with them about everything, including and especially which scores to settle.
I just remember them patting themselves on the back that they were "saving America" from Bernie supporters and thinking if they do this enough, no one will take them seriously about Trump 🙃
I also never understand the people who think generic liberal wine moms are somehow worse constituencies to try to align with than rightwing chuds. Like what are you even doing at that point?
My pet theory is that it's because (besides the misogyny) both the right wing chuds and the cosplay leftists do politics as identity but don't actually care about outcomes or the, you know, human beings involved, so they see that in each other and feel like they can just have the big debate and win
But it's people! It's always people! That's the whole point of every fucking thing! lol
My quick and dirty test to distinguish between a cosplay internet leftist and someone doing actual useful stuff is to ask them if they can name three of the people who live in their neighbourhood lol
It’s particularly impressive when they make this claim alongside references to “real” anti-fascism of the 30s.
Socialists and communists were in coalition with liberals—that was kind of a key idea of the Popular Front! And it was also when the CPUSA was kinda at the height of its influence!
Shouldn’t shock but, lot of communists at the time were following Stalin and so were generally against WWII until they weren’t.
That same element was still very present…
If your politics boil down to “we are one brief civil war away from the workers’ utopia” it makes sense that you think the people who are already arming up for one are a more convincible constituency than the people who would rather avoid it. Just bad news about who they’re planning to shoot.
Yeah, but the theory says that suburban wine moms will never be good leftists because they will always serve capital first. Nevermind that there do seem to be opportunities to move people.
The leftists get mad at me who is disabled and on SSI because we don’t want to overthrow the national gov or sit out on voting.
“Serve capital first” yeah they don’t care. If you serve government first they hate you.
I don't think these types understand that the resistance to move leftward for many is due to a lack of understanding because of an inability to put leftist policy into effective practice. Many liberals might be as distasteful as ever; just as many might have clear eyes if they see a better world.
If you're politically disengaged for the most part, you're not going to imagine further beyond what you already understand in your worldview; and many liberals are only as active now because Trump is.
The only people who brought up wine moms in regards to this article were the weirdo who decided it was defiant to call them "better at anti-fascism than you" . Even if this piece is stupid making it into a pissing contest doesn't imporve the situation.
Is that the theory? I thought the theory was “if they’re moving anything to the left, we have to call it out as extremism…”, even when the nation as a whole is far more center-right than it’s ever been left.
Don't fully agree with this but there's a reasonable case to be made if you look at racism, acceptance of immigrants... lots of "left" countries don't look as good
Strongly disagree. Please provide your reasoning. Everything I have read so far about the GLOBAL left-to-right political spectrum tells me that the USA is FUNCTIONALLY and comparatively a center-right (sometimes center) nation, sociopolitically.
