Wait a fucking minute! Is the guy who posted this a Democratic socialist or a social democrat? I need to know before I react!
I am a leftist by nature, but I can’t get involved in all their madness. The pettiness and bickering is absolutely ridiculous. Quit smelling your own farts and actually fucking organize.
If leftists bothered spent half the energy implementing theory that they do on arguing about theory, the Republicans would have been pushed into the margins under a voting system that actually reflects how they're in truth a pretty small part of the population.
Believe it or not, you can actually get more far right lunatic. Nazi Neo-Pagan Occultism is the first thing that comes to mind just for the sheer crazy scale, but the American far right genuinely features some shit that manages to flank right against the Nazis, the difference is that they haven't been able to solidify enough power to go as far as the Nazis did.
I remember the SPUSA (Social Party USA) chapter I was briefly apart of....
I remember that asshole who ran it quite well. He basically started telling people I was a "rape apologist" when I refused to give my blessing as the "token trans chick" in a meeting, to a blatantly transphobic candidate he wanted to push.
What really confused me, was the time that he condemned Bernie Sanders and disavowed him as a "sham progressive"" because he "refused to advocate for violence against the police", as if that was realistically something Bernie could do without being arrested on the spot, or would have been a smart idea even if he was allowed to say it.
I'm convinced Tankies have no morals or principles, outside of a desire to find the most Left Leaning people and shout "I'M HOLIER-THAN-THOU!" at them
I remember the SPUSA (Social Party USA) chapter I was briefly apart of…
I remember that asshole who ran it quite well. He basically started telling people I was a “rape apologist” when I refused to give my blessing as the “token trans chick” in a meeting, to a blatantly transphobic candidate he wanted to push.
What really confused me, was the time that he condemned Bernie Sanders and disavowed him as a “sham progressive”" because he “refused to advocate for violence against the police”, as if that was realistically something Bernie could do without being arrested on the spot, or would have been a smart idea even if he was allowed to say it.
Jesus Christ. I'd ask 'Why do narcissistic sociopathic twats always end up running things?', but unfortunately, I already know the answer. Because they want power, and they're willing to do whatever they can to shore it up, no principles needed.
Without oversight from an active community, that shit always seems to happen.
I’m convinced Tankies have no morals or principles, outside of a desire to find the most Left Leaning people and shout “I’M HOLIER-THAN-THOU!” at them
It's exhausting. I just want to not die.
... well, I guess that's not REALLY true.
I just want my friends and family not to die. Apparently that's too much to ask.
I think my favorite detail is the guy's day job was being a manager for a cable company around here, the staff under him went on strike due to his bullshit, we're in a Right To Work state where "No one wants to work!" is a common everyday line...
Personally, at this point, I want to die and see what the afterlife is like... It MUST be better than this, or for the Right to finally fall, collapse under its own weight... and if the former, make it quick. No need to drag this shit out.
Tbf most leftists seem to define leftist by differing qualities. To one you're leftist as long as you aren't racist/-phobic, to another that non-racist liberal isn't a leftist because they don't want to murder landlords in the street for the crime of renting out a house (or, y'know, kidnap a rich teen, rob a few banks, pull some unsuccessful bombings, kill the first black school superintendent and a few more people, and die in a shootout with the cops. "Death to the fascist insect that preys upon the life of the people" and all that).
The more tame example may reach a day where they are at least less upset, maybe even happy. The reactionary murderer example will never be happy because the problem is inside themselves but they externalize it as "kill and murder people I don't like," and yeah ain't nobody going for it. And of course it isn't just those two, it's a spectrum, but ykwim.
This is exactly why you need a functioning multi-party system to breed steady progress and trust in political institutions. With a multi party system you will have fringe parties getting a couple percent of the vote.
For example in Norway, the party "Red", which is literally a communist party with armed revolution as part of its official party programme, regularly gets like 3% of the vote, and more-or-less nazi party that get <1%. Then you have a bit more moderate parties that get maybe 10%, before you get to the classic "labour" and "conservative" parties, which gets 20-30% each, and a couple "center" parties with ≈5-8%.
The point is that when one of the extreme (or centrist) parties suddenly starts growing, the big parties are forced to change their policies to regain votes. This also means that a typical government is a coalition between several parties, where the distribution of power between those parties is representative of the vote. For example, one election the not-so-extreme left party could get 12%, forcing the larger Labour Party to tend left on a lot of issues to gather enough support.
In short: A functioning multi-party system with coalitions favours nuance and gradual political change, rather than a black-and-white, polarised system. At the same time, everyone can see that their views are actually represented in the parliament, because even if they have extreme views, they have a party to represent them. Over time, this likely makes people less likely to grow even more extreme, but encourages them to vote and work within the political system, while recognising that their views only hold 1-5% support in the population.
They are just as reactionary as "mAkE 'mURiCa GrAtE aGiN!" mouth-breathers. They were the very first to stop listening to Bernie when he told them what they didn't want to hear, what didn't jive with their medieval mindset of a messiah with a magical political wand to fix everything overnight, and of course republican and kremlin troll farms exploited this, keep on exploiting it.
Sadly they may be just as reactionary, but they are nowhere near as effective. Too busy eating their own for failing purity tastes instead of getting irrationally angry anytime a Republican Candidate breathes....
Oh, fuck off with this bullshit. Anyone politically conscious enough to call themselves a leftist is overwhelmingly more likely to cast a Biden vote than pretty much any other group you could carve out.
The left tells centrist morons how to appeal to average Americans. Centrist morons ignore the left. Average Americans stay home on election day. Centrist morons assume it's because they're leftists since the leftists warned them .
It's bad enough the left has to keep voting for establishment goons. It's intolerable that we are the first place they look for a scapegoat when they fall on their fat asses. Hillary lost because of Hillary, and that's on the Democratic establishment and primary voters who nominated an arrogant hag.
My 2c as a non American: The politically active "far-left" will likely hold their noses & vote for Biden as "damage reduction".
The non-voters will be the disenfranchised, suppressed and the "non-political".
Then whatever happens, democrats will blame the "far-left" and talk about how they could have done better if only they'd appealed to some imaginary conservative swing voter who doesn't exist.
I'll end up voting for Biden. Not psyched about it, but pragmatically the alternative is so much worse. Might get shit from the ultratankies and hexbros, but I'd rather do damage control than whine about Biden and do nothing while an actual fascist snakes his way back in.
It doesn't feel good. And it isn't good. But this is the reality we live in at the moment.
As an American, let me assure you, there are plenty of swing voters. Altogether too many, honestly. People who are deeply political often spend their time around others who are deeply political, which colors their views significantly.
The Dem tendency to chase the swing voter is real, and counterproductive, but it's not for an imaginary voter. The issue is that the swing voter they're trying to appeal to isn't voting on policy. They're voting on feelings. So when the Dems move their policy right, they piss off and demoralize large amounts of left-leaning voters, but do only a little to sway swing voters.
Anyone politically conscious enough to call themselves a leftist is overwhelmingly more likely to cast a Biden vote than pretty much any other group you could carve out.
Jesus, do you know how many people on here regularly swear against voting for Biden?
The left tells centrist morons how to appeal to average Americans.
Sweet Jesus, have you ever talked to an average American?
I support carving out more left positions, but if there is an electoral advantage, it would be in motivating left-leaning voters who are not deeply involved in the political process, not in swaying the 'average American' positively.
Like, man, I would love it if most people were left-leaning, but hearing this line time and time again, at this point it rings as hollow to me as the semiannual "I, a City Liberal, had waffles with these Common Folk and they're Not That Bad" articles that come out from liberal publications before every fucking election.
And you think that is evidence of something? The exit polling was crystal clear. Bernie supporters overwhelmingly voted for Hillary in 2016 and for Biden in 2020. Who the fuck cares what online trolls say?
In the case where leftists might say they won't vote for Biden, odds are that they are venting or pushing for a better candidate. When it's Trump or Biden, most will come around unless some idiot causes them to harden their position. That's pretty much the standard human reaction to this kind of post.
If you are really concerned that the left won't show for Biden, there are ways of approaching the topic that aren't designed to alienate. You are far more likely to push people away than convince them to vote for Biden with your tone-deaf chastisements.
You might have fooled yourself that this is about helping Biden win, but that's bullshit. You are scratching an itch to declare your moral and intellectual superiority to the Internet. You don't give a flying fuck about the election, you just want to be smug. If you really cared about the election then you would find a better approach.
What happened to the group that kept telling me Kennedy was going to save the world and that I'm personally committing genocide for voting Biden instead of him? Because they sure shut the fuck up after the brain worm incident.
All we have is public perception and the outward message leftists want to put off is biden is worse than donald. Sure, when you corner them they may feign some semblance of reason about the ballot box but all I've seen is calls for third party and treating joe like he is sending the orders himself.
The key is, we can be upset, and we can fight for change but right now our efforts must be against trump. I pledge my own to comeback hard on biden if he somehow eeks out the win, but I doubt I'll see any of you there. Just like 2020.
All we have is public perception and the outward message leftists want to put off is biden is worse than donald.
My personal favorite has been "If Trump was president at least Democrats would oppose these bad things out of contrarianism!", completely ignoring that the stark and unconditional opposition to the party across the aisle is a Republican tenet.
Noo but some of them understand the electorial collage, live outside a swing state, and want to try and affect the trajectory of the Democratic party in any way at all instead of just letting the modern aristocracy choose who we're allowed to vote for in perpetuity!
In any European country, afaik, Bernie and AOC would match a left-center, moderate progressive party.
It's funny that some of those countries actual left or far-left parties are kind of "let's burn the capital and go back to them fields attitude".
Those parties are rarely a significant part of the governing process, and shouldn't really be considered as a fair barometer of any given country's overton.
Also, several European socialist, democratic socialist, and social democratic parties have labelled Bernie's proposal for M4A as radical even by their standards, and American social politics to be well to their left, particularly on race issues.
France had a national panic about "American University Wokeism", which can basically be defined as "not being rancid festering dick cheese to muslims for the jollies and trying to use gender inclusive language to recognize trans and NB folks."
It's funny how that criticism always seems to be focused on the more left of the politicians running, and how it's always expressed in stark moral terms and often with a pledge to never vote for such-and-such, to encourage votes for candidates who have no hope of winning but can split the left vote, or loudly announcing that both sides are the same and that the left candidate is a fascist same as the actual right-wing fascist.
Sure, the right doesn't leave room for criticism the same way the left does. There is no problem with having morals, and using your morals to influence your vote. If you morally think that voting for the Democrats makes sense due to vote-splitting, keep advocating for that. Other people will advocate for what they feel morally strong for. You definitely added a bunch of other random, unrelated rants in here.