leftist infighting
(this is a sarcastic post meant to highlight the absurdity of some of the “greater good” rhetoric we’ve been hearing, especially around leaving vulnerable populations like disabled people behind in case of revolution, basically accelerationism)
Anything that gets you to target people with less power than you is a psy-op.
There is only one group of people to oppose. It's a small group of extremely wealthy people. All their mouthpieces on the internet are irrelevant (and likely bots) and are best ignored/blocked.
There is one small, powerful group who are the only justifiable targets. Everything else is a distraction and likely a divide-and-weaken tactic.
One small group of powerful, wealthy people. That is the enemy. No one with less power than you is worth focusing on.
You’re absolutely right.
The billionaire owner class is at the root of all this. They own the politicians, they buy up the media outlets and bot farms to control the narrative, and they make our lives miserable in order to further pad their already incomprehensibly massive bank accounts.
Working class must look out for each other. We have so much more in common with our brothers and sisters across the aisle than we ever will have with these parasitic elites.
This is why leftists consistently lose elections.
Difficult to raise this amongst friends but one 2022 story came to mind
https://www.vox.com/policy/385549/trans-sports-transgender-biden-harris-democrats-titleix
PS: obviously my conflict is about “fight for 1% of athletes vs. lose election to Hitlerguy and harm like 50% of the population”, to oversimplify greatly
more of these conservatives on our side
To clarify, screenshot quotes democrats
Trans folx in sports is the most narrow topic - I am discussing it as so. A very specific topic where not every ally is an agreement. A very specific topic that someone very orange did a great job of lying about constantly.
“Force humans into certain bathrooms” = different topic, for example
Referring to the cited source, the screenshot?
If you aren't going to fight for that "1% of athletes" even though you think they're right just because they're too politically inconvenient then I have zero faith you'll fight for me when I'm politically inconvenient and actually need you to
I think the point there was reasonable disagreements exist amongst us allies so we can focus on the 99% where we agree entirely
I haven’t mentioned… today… how sickening this is. Sorry to be talking so GOPy. That ain’t me
Is our president a political inconvenience?
Liberals will say shit like this and then be baffled why leftists don't want to fall in line behind the party of moderate fascists.
You throw trans people under the bus and you also lose, or at least depress turnout, of everyone who supports trans rights. You also make it clear to every minority that if they're in the crosshairs next, they'll be sacrificed next for the same reasons of political convenience. Jews represented <1% of the population of Weimar Germany, and you may be familiar with a poem about what happened after they came for them.
Furthermore, by ceding ground to the Republicans on this you make them look correct and you discredit your own side for having previously denounced their position as bigoted, which makes people more likely to support Republicans. We saw this happen with the border, when the Democrats turned from "Building the wall is racist" to "We're the ones who are actually going to build the wall," they didn't win over moderate republicans, instead they lost on virtually every demographic. The people who are pro-immigration hated it and the people who are anti-immigration saw their views as being validated and if they had any lingering reservations about voting Republican, those reservations vanished.
Framing politics as a Trolley Problem is extremely stupid, and fundamentally not how the world works, it's liberal brainrot and one of the reasons Democrats are worthless. They literally did this "strategic" sacrifice with Palestinians and immigrants (and it's not like they fully supported trans rights either) and they still ate shit with the worst electoral map since the Republicans took California. When throwing trans people to the wolves doesn't work, which minority will you sacrifice next?
“fight for 1% of athletes vs. lose election to Hitlerguy and harm like 50% of the population”
Republicans who got on the "Freak out about transgender policy" lost their elections in droves in 2022. Several big swing Senate seats flipped because guys like Blake Masters and Herschel Walker couldn't stop screaming slurs at campaign rallies. We've seen Republicans scrub out over and over again by downing too much of their own kool-aid.
Democrats didn't lose 2024 because they were too nice to Transgender people. They lost because they were too nice to Liz Cheney. Harris made a big show of aligning with neoconservatives on everything from immigration and trade to military policies against Russia and China to the stubborn endorsement of the Palestine genocide. All of this shit polled worse than support for Transgender civil rights. Harris had no problem throwing the country in front of Hitlerguy to endorse the tear-gassing of Columbia University and the Kids In Cages on the Texas/Mexico border.
Even then... even if you can argue with a stack full of polling papers that Harris knew with perfect certainty and well in advance of the November vote that an impassioned speech in defense of transgender athletes would doom her campaign and subject the US to Hitlerguy, so what? She didn't do this and she still fucking lost.
So she and the rest of her squishy latte liberal cohort threw away a big chunk of LGBTQ support for what? What did Dems gain by embracing reactionary policy?
Democrats didn't lose 2024 because they were too nice to Transgender people. They lost because they were too nice to Liz Cheney.
This right here can't be said enough. The problem isn't policies that are too leftist. It's the "liberals" that a working so hard to cozy up to conservatives. If we wanted moderate Republicans we'd vote for 'em. We want fucking leftists goddammit!!!
On one hand I don't fucking like Liz Cheney... on the other hand.... I think you should welcome (almost) anyone against an enemy like Trump. I thought that at the time, and now with the additional information we've gained since then (and I personally learned) only reaffirm that to me. We don't have to glorify Liz Cheney later.
But not voting for Kamala because the coalition allowed Liz Cheney in is probably just as dumb as not voting for Kamala because somehow... Trump isn't WORSE on Palestine?
There is not a "single issue" that won for them beyond voter manipulation. They did the same thing as 2016 and did targeted ads and segmenting people on social media. Mass voter suppression in the south (Russian bomb threats in Georgia... the disenfranchisement across multiple states...etc) FB & Twitter owned by them. TikTok in question but absolutely started showing even more right wing content after the election. I'm sure one issue (or two) might be more influential, but that's only because of the coordinated reach of their voter manipulation.
We have ALL been targeted with propaganda and segmented from each other. They continue to do it now. They lie and Fox News, which something like 60% of the country, carries their lies for them. Bots barrage social media every where. Tech-bro toelickers and tankies promote right wing, anti-globalist propaganda everywhere. (Anti-globalism is primarily right wing, Kremlin propaganda to disconnect The Americas (primarily US ofc) from Europe).
Be wary of bots that feel like they're your ally, too.
"But the 63 per cent of the German people who expressed their opposition to Hitler were much too divided and shortsighted to combine against a common danger which they must have known would overwhelm them unless they united, however temporarily, to stamp it out.”
Excerpt From The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich Shirer, William
The problem with this is that it assumes Democrats have no agency. Democratic politicians have treated trans issues like those crusty old male Dems who don't like saying the word abortion.
Dems have never provided loud and full-throated support to trans issues. Go watch the recent John Oliver video on trans sports. There are very very good arguments on why excluding trans people from sports is incredibly anti-scientific and just thinly disguised bigotry. But Democratic politicians have never bothered developing the talking points to defend trans people, like they have for other core issues.
Look at how Kamala responded when asked about trans issues. She didn't provide full-throated support to trans people. Her reply was simply, "I'll follow the law."
Democrats have completely failed to defend trans people. They've quietly passed a few state level anti-discrimination laws, but in terms of rhetoric, they've completely ceded the space to conservatives. The only mainstream voices talking about trans issues have been the anti-trans bigots. The Democrats have instead just called the whole issue a distraction and hoped it would all just blow away.
They're right that it is a distraction, an artificial one concocted by Republicans. But that doesn't mean they can just ignore it.
Propaganda works. And if you don't do the hard rhetorical work to fight it, it eventually does change public opinion.
Her reply was simply, "I'll follow the law."
Well, that's more than she was willing to do for Gaza.
Propaganda works. And if you don’t do the hard rhetorical work to fight it, it eventually does change public opinion.
yeah it never works on you, no sir... we're all a lot better because everyone stood by their principles and punished the bad biden/harris team, yep, so much better.
those trans people, they'll be safe now.
those kids in gaza, I'm sure now that trump's won he'll make sure they're safe.
Yeah this all punishing those bad bad dems you'll show 'em.
stupid fucking liberals, when will they learn their lesson.
working out great.
So, how large does a minority have to be before they are no longer disposable?
It’s possible to be willing to jump in front of a bullet to save a trans brother and loudly tell everyone to shut the fuck up about sports until we codify the right protections into the constitution etc.
Back channels baby! Back channel fights on controversial topics. Fox News can’t demonize what they’re ignorant of.
But this is assuming this topic is popular on the left and it’s reportedly divisive (again, amongst those who are not hateful scumbags)
reminds me of 2003, when the bush regime convinced everyone that their marriage would somehow be worthless if they let the gays get married.
and it worked, the stupid fucks bought it. iraq paid badly for it tho, whoo hoo...
Can we please put a pause on the focus on social inclusion, and focus on defeating the fascists trying to own the world?
One does not preclude the other. There is energy for both inclusion and revolution.
In fact, revolution is inclusion, is mutual-aid, etc. It's a requirement. For every person "fighting" there are 10 more people supporting the people and the community that fascism and its shrinking safety nets leave behind
The portion of the population of trans people in the US is the same as the Jewish portion of the population of pre-Nazi Germany.
You would have happily sat by as the Jews were sent to the ovens.
Can we please put a pause on the focus on social inclusion,
Ok. You're no longer included.
oop quick note man it’s “trans people” or whatnot will delete this once ya see
This post could actually be the psy-op. Spread the idea that infighting is happening to then create it
I've seen enough infighting already, if anything this joke is late to the punch.
Tankies justifying slave labor "only 10% of industries were built with gulag forces" calling socialist countries that succeeded with market socialism revisionist "Tito is a revisionist prick delaying global Revolution" and then not even batting an eye to the worse state capitalism that USSR and china engaged in "it improved the lives of people! No, it wasn't authoritarian! And yes, the party members we sent to gulags and killed were DEFINITELY anti revolutionists and not trying to stop the state capitalism that was forming."
Tankies... calling socialist countries that succeeded with market socialism revisionist “Tito is a revisionist prick delaying global Revolution”
Hate to break it to you but supporting Tito would make you a tankie in the eyes of most people on Lemmy who use the term (though you may get a pass for denouncing others).
Personally, I like a hybrid system. You know the famous Laffer Curve? Laffer was a hack who just used it to justify tax cuts, but he did have a point. At a 0% tax rate and a 100% tax rate, the government is bringing in zero revenue. However, the shaped of the curve in between is unknown. He just arbitrarily assumed that wherever tax rates happened to be at, the optimal rate was lower. I say we actually study it and harness the principle.
Personally, I like the idea of using this principle not just as a crank tool to justify tax cuts, but as a way to maximize redistributive spending. Figure out what tax rate allows you to have the absolute most generous social welfare system possible, and set your tax policies to that rate. I like the free market, but as a practical tool, not for its own sake. I want to keep the free market around...chained to a treadmill, set to the maximum speed possible that won't cause it to die of exhaustion.
That curve is so stupid on so many levels, wow.
But also, when we talk about socialism, we don't mean "capitalism but we tax the rich". A socialist society would not even need taxes, in the liberal sense. When the means of production are controlled democratically by the workers, by extending democracy from the political to the economic, who would you even tax, and who would the money go to?
It's a big problem that people have been so convinced that capitalism and liberal democracy are the only way to organize society. We can do better!
Essentially the 'left' on the topic of Palestine
"The left, american left, and right should join hands to fight american right"
Kamala voters in a nutshell
I mean, I voted for Kamala, I pushed for the harm reduction ''best hand available'' strategy... but like... it was predicated on strategically sacrificing Palestine for the ''greater good''.
Sure, the alternative was sacrificing Palestine plus a bunch of additional minorities and at risk groups...
But it was still sacrificing a minority group. Less of a braindead take, more of a ''you caught us, we did indeed try to strategically sacrifice as few minorities as possible while abandoning those we thought we had no chance to save even if logically a large scale united front would have potentially meant sacrificing no one'' take.
I still believe it was our best play, but only because a terrifying percentage of folks left of MAGA felt it was a necessary sacrifice.
now that I think of it, it works both ways, you could use it to criticise people who vote for Harris as she obviously didn’t have great policies on things like Palestine.
Or you could use it to criticise people who don’t vote because then they let trump win which is far worse for minorities than Harris.
why would people ever vote for Biden/Harris when they established the legal basis for Palestinians getting deported and mask bans being enacted? they could vote for the proud fascists instead of the fascism-lite.
I also hate the rhetoric pushed by blue MAGA that equates not voting with letting Trump win. I can't recall a single time in history where voting has defeated fascism. Also the fact that the people most impacted by Trump can't vote or don't have accommodations in place to be able to vote.
I know that you're really concerned about being stabbed with knives. But you just need to accept the Hard Truth that you not being stabbed with knives is losing political issue! Really, that's why we're losing elections. You can't have everything that you want. And you need to see where the other side is coming from...
vs
I know that you're really concerned about being stabbed with knives. One of these candidates is implicitly okay with you being stabbed with knives, and the other wants to personally stab you with even more knives. I recognize the injustice in this and will therefore vote for neither of them! (the worse one won and now you're being stabbed with even more knives)
Who will win? (spoiler: I don't know but certainly not you because you're too busy being stabbed with knives)
this is why so many people had an issue with the Democrat party platform of "let's sacrifice Palestine"
The entire concept of “accelerationism” is complete nonsense. First of all, none of the people advocating for it are willing to say, “Yes, I am perfectly happy to become homeless and starve to death in order to foment the revolution.”
And what are people gonna do? Take up arms? We’re just gonna wait until everyone is starving but armed with an AR-15 and then hope the state doesn’t crush us with nukes? It’s highly privileged absurdist faux revolutionary nonsense.
Heh Penis Prager
This is the fart side shat
looking at you, Sarah McBride 👀
The take I’ve been seeing more lately is that many on the left don’t internally support genocide, they’re just afraid of AIPAC money taking away their ability to do any good.
And that’s pretty bad. But the more we expose the core threat, the less they may fear them as hate for AIPAC overwhelms their ability to spew lies. Much like how hate for Musk overcame his spending on the WI election.
(But hey, I’m eager to learn. If anyone can show that people on the left are actively Zionist, or have personally motivated reasons for their silence, I’m curious about it)
PS: verytallbart makes some pretty funny YTPs off politics and far-right aholes.
It sounds like you're talking about the Democratic Party, not the left. I think some in the party are true Zionists (like Chuck Shumer and Joe Biden) while others are just afraid to be visibly anti-Zionist out of fear of AIPAC.
The take I’ve been seeing more lately is that many on the left don’t internally support genocide, they’re just afraid of AIPAC money taking away their ability to do any good.
This is true but I don't know how much. There's some democrats explicitly and correctly calling out AIPAC as being an a far right PAC. Taking money from AIPAC needs to be seen as treacherous as taking money from NRA or the Heritage foundation.
This, but unironically.
Is that the youtube poop person?
Ah yes, because there’s nothing between “Accept and approve all Hamas atrocities” and “Bomb innocent Palestinian children”.
Sick of people pretending war still means total annihilation of one side. No one even wants to attack all Russian youths that are victimized by Putin.
ROFL, next they'll say they just have a disagreement and it's ok for people to disagree.
Fight all you want, by all means, bring those in power further left. But at the ballot box come election day, I don't care if the dem wants to sacrifice puppies on weekends. Guaranteed their Republican opponent has a factory grinding puppies into various consumer products by the millions. And their 3rd party counterpart likely has a greater chance of getting elected to mayor of flavortown than to congress/president (and also still probably kills puppies casually among friends themselves).
Is this system bullshit? Yup. Is it the one we got? Yup. We need to deal within that reality. By all means, let's work to change that system, but for the love of God, let's not shoot ourselves in the foot when our favorite candidate doesn't stand a chance in hell, or the more likely candidate is blatantly flawed (but still better than the alternative)
100%. Prior to Election Day? Get a democratic butt in every race and challenge the people advocating for puppy sacrifices.
Unfortunately we are at a point where only one party can be fixed.
But I was told democrats are worse than hitler
Do you see us electing ourselves out of this mess (that we elected ourselves into)?
I'm not going to lie, this mess will only end with the sitting congress and judiciary growing some nuts and shutting all of this shit down, OR with a military coup. I don't see either happening. Realistically, we have likely had our last truly free election for the foreseeable future the way this is going. I hope I'm wrong.
How's that been working for you? It looks to me like this attitude brought us Trump. Maybe it's time the Democrats started demanding better.
I say demanding. Sitting out an election doesn't count. The system doesn't change just because you refuse to participate.
I'm really having trouble parsing your suggestion here.
But surely a demand comes with a consequence if not met, right? What is the consequence in an election if not withholding your vote? But you said not to sit it out. Are you arguing in favor of voting 3rd party then? I have to assume that's your intent, though you didn't actually say that.
If that is your position, sure, but the problem with voting third party is that, without the mother of all grassroots followings, no third party candidate stands a shadow of a chance. And there was clearly no such popular candidate for president last election. And providing third parties with support is as bad as just not voting if they no chance of winning. It just amounts to not supporting your preferred candidate that does stand a chance.
That is fucked. I know and I agree. But that is the nature of First Past The Post voting and always will be. It's a lot like the prisoners dilemma. The best possible outcome for you would be to get your most preferred third party candidate, but if you vote for them, and the rest of the voters don't, you split the vote and end up giving your least preferred candidate an advantage instead. But voting your mosr preferred two-party candidate/popular candidate, or least of two evils as it may well be, comes with some negatives, but is an objectively better outcome.
We need election reform to get rid of FPTP and the two-party system with it. That is no small thing, I know, and there is no quick way to get that done. All we can do is advocate for it, vote for other advocates for it, and hope that eventually it becomes a party platform. But until then, we have to live with the reality and vote strategically. Demand better in so far as you use your voice and your dollars to support better candidates, vote in the primaries for the better candidate, but use your vote on election day with the system we have. Unfortunately, that does sometimes mean voting for a bit of evil to save yourself from a lot of evil.
What got us Trump 2.0 was people refusing to support Kamala. Apathy, protest, contempt, indifference, whatever their reasons, they didn't show up and give her their votes. A big part of that is her fault for failing to live up to the standards the left expected of her, for failing to excite left wing voters. Those voters were perfectly justified in not being happy about the idea of voting for her, but, ultimately we are worse off because they didn't. And choosing not to vote at all or to vote third party instead is on them alone.
The problem is, all that fighting, criticizing and finger pointing can be weaponized. That’s why FUD works.
You just amplify any legit concerns until they seem worse than Trump.
I’m convinced most of the leftists on here are either foreign actors or repeating their talking points.
I agree. It's important to not lose the thread or your sense of reality when focusing on internal problems. Internal problems are usually differences of opinion, perspective, or goals, but with the same or similar basic values behind them. It's important to keep those shared values in mind even while nitpicking the other stuff when you're trying to influence the direction of your side. Keep in mind that you are all going generally the same direction while the Right is pulling against every step you take together, and just because your differences among the Left is your focus now doesn't mean it is a bigger deal than your differences with the Right.
Every time a democrat talks like this they lose votes. "Yeah my candidate supports genocide, but-" stop you've just smeared your own candidate. If you don't have anything nice about your candidate then keep your mouth shut.
Any normal american will see the rest of your comment and think they're better off investing in bullets and silver than worrying about the election. You're basically doing voter surppression.
Or maybe their candidates shouldn't support genocide. It'd be much easier to sell the Democrats as a valid party to vote for if they weren't in support of things like genocide.
Buddy this post is about leftists. You are not a leftist. You're a left-leaning liberal. Read a book ffs.
Tbh I think the Republicans get us closer to revolution than the Democrats do. I think the only way out is to break the system.
Means to an end, maybe. But do the ends justify these means? And what makes you think a leftist utopia is even the ends of all this in the first place?
Bring them further left how? Why would they need to do anything when you'd vote for them anyways? Every election both parties move a little bit to the right, and you have no choice but vote Dem. What can you realistically do when the only power you have is voting unless you are a billionaire? Your electoral system is truly fucked and the probably of it fixing itself is low, because why would the party in power want to change the system that just gave them that power?
All I can say is leave if you are able to.