This is Left Praxis, LIBERALS would never understand the 4d chess involved in how Trump winning helps Palestine and American minorities.
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.
More DemSoc more than SocDem since the Trump years. But in general, most interested in preventing fucking fascism.
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.
I call it the leftist uncanny valley.
Your Y axis is not labeled and that’s upsetting me more than it should.
The good old circular firing squad.
How is “literally hitler” two points on the y-axis?
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.
If you’d like to keep it that way, Vote.
i am from Germany an genuinly scared that people are walking around in the usa with swastika flags
It’s metastatic ironic edginess. They went from doing it to piss people off to doing it because they’ve lost their goddamned minds and read the turner diaries one too many times.
They find literal Hitler less repulsive than the leftists and libs they accuse of literally being Hitler.
Why is this meme literally left-leaning
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.
I had to Google what Right to Work meant to remind myself. I remembered it was some BS name for some stupid right wing rule, but forgot the detail. At first I came across international human rights meaning people are allowed to work for money, but I knew that wasn’t it. Then I came across some countries where some immigrants don’t have the right to work, and I knew that wasn’t it, too literal, then I added the word state to my search and found what I was looking for - ah yes, in the good ol’ US of A, “Right to Work” doesn’t mean you have the right to work at all, it means a union and an employer DON’T have the right to make an agreement where the employer collects union funding fees from all employees. Can’t let the unions get in the way of that good ol’ wage suppression!
A more honest name for the law would be “Right To Work An Insecure job For Less Pay”
America just loves the line that “Anyone who wants to help you is obviously evil because everyone is out for themselves! It’s a cover for fucking you over, that’s why you can trust us when we say we’re helping you by suppressing your rights!”
You fucking NAILED it! This is exactly what I’ve been trying to say, only far more efficient.
Well drone!
It’s only missing a fascist puppeteering them
Leftists need to understand that the US is not a leftist country, and they will always, always, always be disappointed by our government.
Hell, they’ll be disappointed by our populace.
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.
Thank you, comrade. I mean it. 2000 wasn’t like this. 2004 wasn’t like this. 2008 and 2012 weren’t like this. The opposition was cretinous and eager to violate what rights they could, our failure to defeat them in 2000 and 2004 caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, minimum, and is a stain on our soul, but they weren’t a direct threat to democracy itself. More than happy to cheat if they could, but not trying to fundamentally dismantle the system. This? Trump? I don’t know that we would survive a second term - large amounts of ‘us’ and the republic itself.
The vote for the Dem candidate (one hopes not Biden) is essential against fascism.
2000 was like this, the Supreme Court literally passed a law to get Bush to win the presidency.
George W. Bush and Al Gore. On December 8, the Florida Supreme Court had ordered a statewide recount of all undervotes, over 61,000 ballots that the vote tabulation machines had missed. The Bush campaign immediately asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the decision and halt the recount. Justice Antonin Scalia, convinced that all the manual recounts being performed in Florida’s counties were illegitimate, urged his colleagues to grant the stay immediately.[1] On December 9, the five conservative justices on the Court granted the stay, with Scalia citing “irreparable harm” that could befall Bush, as the recounts would cast “a needless and unjustified cloud” over Bush’s legitimacy. In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that “counting every legally cast vote cannot constitute irreparable harm.”[1]
Why do you feel the need to lie about this?
2000 was like this, the Supreme Court literally passed a law to get Bush to win the presidency.
Did you miss the part about being more than happy to cheat, or did you ignore it?
Why do you feel the need to lie about this?
Oh, sorry, you’re correct, we haven’t had real elections since 2000.
You don’t think cheating in an election, discounting votes, counts as being a threat to democracy? Using the Supreme Court to make a ruling for the sole purpose of making Bush president? That’s more than a threat, that’s a headshot.
If you think that we haven’t had real elections since 2000, why do you say things are different now? This has been ongoing. I don’t see why you feel the need to make a narrative that this is all new.
I think dismantling the ability of the opposition to acquire office or remove the ruling party from office is a existential threat to democracy.
Playing legal games to go against the popular vote and stall a region’s vote is a violation of democracy. Not an existential threat to it.
So unless you’d like to tell me how we haven’t had elections since, I stick by what I said.
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.
This is more perceptive than most things I’ve read on lemmy.
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.
Living here, it’s a different story.
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.
Who the fuck cares what online trolls say?
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Me. Obviously. Since I’m bitching about it.
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After 2016, I’m very wary of ignoring the influence of trolls on discourse.
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.
It’s funny, then, that it always seems to come along with lots of voter suppression. Spreading right-wing talking points, saying both sides are the same, playing up the idea of a ‘protest vote’ to anyone who will listen…
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.
I’m not trying to convince the self-proclaimed leftists. The self-proclaimed leftists who engage in this bullshit are not people who are working on values that are compatible with a vote for anything except fascism.
Propaganda, if unchallenged or tolerated, changes communities. I’ve seen it happen with various forums - and now I feel a little old. Man, I’m not deluded enough to think that memes on here are going to create a surge of suddenly-shamed pseudoleftists to cast their votes for Biden. I just don’t want their talking points justifying fascism and genocide to be welcomed, or propagate in the same way that gossip does, or be normalized in this community.
At best, sustained effort might choke out a vector of a vector of misinformation which may have swayed a voter. As intended, it’s not even about that much. There’s other work than posting memes to be done for actually getting out the vote and generating enthusiasm. This? This is a step above posting ordinary memes, but only a step. Insofar as it has a purpose, the purpose is recreational (to maintain standards in a community I enjoy and vent), not civic. It’s not some great effort that will sway the election - but it can be enough to see useful idiots and fascists frequent decent communities less often.
- Me. Obviously. Since I’m bitching about it.
Yeah, “bitching” is a good description.
- After 2016, I’m very wary of ignoring the influence of trolls on discourse.
Did I tell you to ignore it? Your mode of discourse is the problem. What I did say is that it will have the opposite effect of what you are apparently trying to achieve. The more convinced the left is that the Democrats hold them in contempt, the more they will see Democrats and Republicans as two sides of the same coin. You are pushing people away.
For decades it was absolutely true that there was almost no difference between the two parties, each competing to out-neoliberal the other. Biden has inched the Democrats left, and Trump has taken the Republicans full fascist. That’s what you should focus on.
Did I tell you to ignore it?
You asked “Who cares?” and I pointed out who cares and why. Don’t know why answering your question is upsetting.
What I did say is that it will have the opposite effect of what you are apparently trying to achieve. The more convinced the left is that the Democrats hold them in contempt, the more they will see Democrats and Republicans as two sides of the same coin. You are pushing people away.
So you didn’t actually read what I said, despite the fact that my explanation consists of the vast majority of the comment you’re replying to, and just presumed that I was trying to convince pseudoleftists still. Okay. Cool. Good talk.
Down voting every comment your opponent makes is such a bitch move.
I read what you said. It’s nonsense. The impact of your posts on actual leftists and also average voters is what I was addressing.
I read what you said. It’s nonsense.
That’s a convenient excuse for not actually addressing it.
The impact of your posts on actual leftists and also average voters is what I was addressing.
Oh, so it’s your opinion that actual leftists are sitting here on the fence about whether or not to welcome fascism, but someone calling out people who, say, condemn AOC and Bernie as insufficiently pro-Palestine for critical support when the GOP has become an openly fascist party, is what tips them into welcoming it. Okay. Weird people to call actual leftists, but alright, you do you.
Average voters are not going to be turned away by rejecting the kind of people who say “The US has always been a fascist country, and nothing will change anyway”. In fact, welcoming those kind of people will turn off the average voter. But I guess fascists painted red get treated with kid gloves, and everyone else gets the gauntlet.
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Wow, you aren’t wrong. OP then goes on to do exactly what you’re saying, because they know they’re definitely better than the “pseudoleftists”.
Fuck, man, if you think that being upset about shitheads advocating for literal fascism because “It’s actually the MOST left action possible in this election!” is unreasonable, and thinking that maybe not welcoming them is a good course of action is smugness, I don’t know what to tell you.
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.
They figured out that he was no longer a useful tool for suppressing left voters.
I’m probably closest to a socdem and a pragmatist. Getting me to vote anything but the furthest practical left in a FPTP system is going to require more than any of the shit talkers are ready to do.
You want me to take your third party presidential candidate seriously? First, make sure it’s not leaky brain from WiFi man. Then we can all work towards getting rid of FPTP in favor of a system that lets 10 candidates duke it out.
You want me to take your third party presidential candidate seriously? First, make sure it’s not leaky brain from WiFi man. Then we can all work towards getting rid of FPTP in favor of a system that lets 10 candidates duke it out.
God, that would be great.
Man, I just want to not have to watch people who call themselves leftists advocate for literal fascism. Not even fascism painted red, just fascism.
I’m so fucking tired. I just want to know that we won’t be make the worst decision available this November, and people are out here pledging eternal opposition to Democrats, claiming both sides are the same, giving “TRUMP STRONG BIDEN WEAK” narratives quite literally indistinguishable from MAGA types…
I’m so fucking tired. And perhaps even more exhausting is the people who defend them because, I don’t know, calling out people who call themselves leftists for supporting fascism is mean, or something.
I’m so fucking tired.
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.
But here you are … mocking people for criticizing Democrats.
But here you are … mocking people for criticizing Democrats.
… reread the comment.
I meant your meme you posted here :)
That context doesn’t make it make sense either. Beginning to think you’re just saying whatever comes to mind.
You don’t see how your meme is mocking people who criticize Democrats?
You have a meme depicting leftists being foolishly celebratory in a burning Gaza because they focused more on calling out Biden for genocide, than voting against Trump. Was the intent here not to mock?
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.”
Europeans often act all puffed up until you mention gypsies. “You don’t understand because you’re not from here” is our “I’m not racist but”.
Or the most mask off, “That’s different, they deserve it!”
Maybe they’re trying to show us the logical conclusion of moral absolutism?
I would like it if their demonstration didn’t involve making everything in our lives worse for no gain. Like, a whiteboard will do, I swear.
We need to be able to criticize politicians. Not wanting criticism is the fascist thinking.
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.
They’re not unrelated, because they’re all advocated for online by people who claim to be “leftist”, and they all result in the right winning.
Feel free to disagree with them on their merits or not instead of just calling them unrelated. You sound like you’re criticising @PugJesus for lumping a bunch of stuff together, but here you are dismissing them all purely because you claim they’re all irrelevant.
‘Criticise politicians’ is not a fair representation of the DSA withdrawing their endorsement for AOC.
Who told you you can’t criticize politicians and work within the existing system?
Sure, criticize politicians, and choose whether or not to vote for them. That’s the system.
