Doug Jones could win in Alabama (against a horrifying opponent who is probably the single worst Republican that could get nominated - but still). That's because Jones was a moderate. Nobody on the True Left is winning shit in Alabama for the next several decades. Keep fighting the good fight!
I'm really interested to see how your experiment in Huntsville goes. Intuitively, I'd suspect most Dem/left-leaning people in that area would be relative moderates. On the other hand, in my personal experience with Real America, red state lefties (though fewer in number) can be just as (if not more) ideological, e.g. old school Bernie Sanders labor-left types who are just a little more grouchy and less interested in the whole pluralist/cosmopolitan project. To me, this exposes yet another clear problem with the left-right paradigm. People like you and I could be considered moderate/centrist in the sense that we're less ideologically pure than some on the left. On the other hand, I think some of the things we want would actually be more transformative, even utopian (the labor-left just wants to make working conditions suck less, while starry-eyed libs like us want to make work as we know it obsolete and transition into a post-scarcity world of abundance where people are free to pursue their own happiness). So are we really the "moderates" here? Idk. Whatever label gets more people off their asses, I guess.
My experience growing up in South Dakota is that red state Dems tend to be more "left" because there is a social stigma for identifying as left of center, so moderates and unengaged voters identify with the right. However, I think red state Dems seem to be a bit more clear eyed about what is popular.
As someone who was once pretty politically active, but got burned out long ago, I have so many thoughts on this. Full disclosure, most of the real true left activists thought of me as some sort of #girlboss bitch, so that definitely colors my perspective.
In addition to the center left/left infighting, where the center left definitely shares some blame, there is a refusal to truly engage with normies.
Like, on a shallow note, it shouldn't impact how your ideas are viewed, but being viscerally unpleasant will make your ideas less popular. And it makes sense! The world is complicated and we each only understand a small part of it and have to rely on trust where we lack understanding. "I don't know a lot about this, but assholes sure seem to love it." Is not the worst hueristic! And when engaging with the left means that you may misspeak and get jumped on, or get pilloried for disagreement about what's practical like it means you must have bad values.
And normies are so important! Like the path to change is activists push normies and then politicians and markets and such chase after normies. Perhaps it's a manifestation of the suspicion of ambition, but so much of the left seems to think that elites pull the strings and normies think what they are told.
Like, we have to deal with the fact that a lot of left ideas are either unpopular or only superficially popular. Like, people will express hatred of "big oil", but political careers live and die by gas prices, so even if a politician falls on her sword and accepts higher gas prices, the voters will replace her with someone who won't make that mistake.
The process of change is just slow and hard and takes decades and isn't usually glorious and satisfying.
As a leftist it’s hard to trust anyone. With cops, fbi, cia taking away or flat out assassinate people who get shit done. See Atlanta bail fund, stop line 3, Dakota access, the real deal original Black Lives Matter. Cops arrested and media brutalize the left and feels like centrists are the ones turning us in. I want to do way more but I also don’t want to get thrown in prison for doing nothing illegal but disrupting the system. Oh we don’t have prisons in America we have rape, torture, and death colleges here. We set up alternative markets, co-ops, mutual aid projects. It’s really the center dems that keeps fucking up progress. I have no issue talking to everyone, and listening to them, relating to them. I would argue your probably going to see a shift left.
Have you listened to a right politician or supporter today? I literally can’t understand what they are saying. They talk in a ghoulish code language that is only accessible if your 100% on line. It was a good thing Elon got ride of twitter. It literally forced the left to find new outlets, have some self reflection and talk to people. The right is busy taking over Facebook, Twitter, redit and sending meams All in inside coded Language. At this point the system is so fucked it’s not possible to fix it. A new one has to be built to in order to save humanity that’s the new project.
There’s also a real issue around national vs local. To get serious fundraising from national sources a democrat had to publicly adhere to all the platform much of which is better left unsaid in the middle. Seen it kill good candidates in TN, MS, KY
Cathy, I call the uniparty the Borg now. They want to control and assimilate us. Check historian Brion McClanahan, he gets it right most of the time. Also, Lew Rockwell is good, different. We are in deep shit, just my opinion,, a 69 year old history major.
I sort of endorse that idea too. Clinton was Republican light, as was Obama, it can be said. We really need to form a more frank social-democratic left in the US, but I fear it will take disasters to get us there. Perhaps global warming. The Communism movement was strong in the 1930s due to the depression. Of course that stood on a labor movement that had contiguous plants and workers who frequently had ethnic solidarity and lived in the same neighborhoods. But disaster conditions can also bring about fascism. I think the part-feminization of radicalism in the US has been a good thing because it offers some protection from fascism. 78 year old sociology major
Doug Jones could win in Alabama (against a horrifying opponent who is probably the single worst Republican that could get nominated - but still). That's because Jones was a moderate. Nobody on the True Left is winning shit in Alabama for the next several decades. Keep fighting the good fight!
I'm really interested to see how your experiment in Huntsville goes. Intuitively, I'd suspect most Dem/left-leaning people in that area would be relative moderates. On the other hand, in my personal experience with Real America, red state lefties (though fewer in number) can be just as (if not more) ideological, e.g. old school Bernie Sanders labor-left types who are just a little more grouchy and less interested in the whole pluralist/cosmopolitan project. To me, this exposes yet another clear problem with the left-right paradigm. People like you and I could be considered moderate/centrist in the sense that we're less ideologically pure than some on the left. On the other hand, I think some of the things we want would actually be more transformative, even utopian (the labor-left just wants to make working conditions suck less, while starry-eyed libs like us want to make work as we know it obsolete and transition into a post-scarcity world of abundance where people are free to pursue their own happiness). So are we really the "moderates" here? Idk. Whatever label gets more people off their asses, I guess.
My experience growing up in South Dakota is that red state Dems tend to be more "left" because there is a social stigma for identifying as left of center, so moderates and unengaged voters identify with the right. However, I think red state Dems seem to be a bit more clear eyed about what is popular.
As someone who was once pretty politically active, but got burned out long ago, I have so many thoughts on this. Full disclosure, most of the real true left activists thought of me as some sort of #girlboss bitch, so that definitely colors my perspective.
In addition to the center left/left infighting, where the center left definitely shares some blame, there is a refusal to truly engage with normies.
Like, on a shallow note, it shouldn't impact how your ideas are viewed, but being viscerally unpleasant will make your ideas less popular. And it makes sense! The world is complicated and we each only understand a small part of it and have to rely on trust where we lack understanding. "I don't know a lot about this, but assholes sure seem to love it." Is not the worst hueristic! And when engaging with the left means that you may misspeak and get jumped on, or get pilloried for disagreement about what's practical like it means you must have bad values.
And normies are so important! Like the path to change is activists push normies and then politicians and markets and such chase after normies. Perhaps it's a manifestation of the suspicion of ambition, but so much of the left seems to think that elites pull the strings and normies think what they are told.
Like, we have to deal with the fact that a lot of left ideas are either unpopular or only superficially popular. Like, people will express hatred of "big oil", but political careers live and die by gas prices, so even if a politician falls on her sword and accepts higher gas prices, the voters will replace her with someone who won't make that mistake.
The process of change is just slow and hard and takes decades and isn't usually glorious and satisfying.
Amen
As a leftist it’s hard to trust anyone. With cops, fbi, cia taking away or flat out assassinate people who get shit done. See Atlanta bail fund, stop line 3, Dakota access, the real deal original Black Lives Matter. Cops arrested and media brutalize the left and feels like centrists are the ones turning us in. I want to do way more but I also don’t want to get thrown in prison for doing nothing illegal but disrupting the system. Oh we don’t have prisons in America we have rape, torture, and death colleges here. We set up alternative markets, co-ops, mutual aid projects. It’s really the center dems that keeps fucking up progress. I have no issue talking to everyone, and listening to them, relating to them. I would argue your probably going to see a shift left.
Have you listened to a right politician or supporter today? I literally can’t understand what they are saying. They talk in a ghoulish code language that is only accessible if your 100% on line. It was a good thing Elon got ride of twitter. It literally forced the left to find new outlets, have some self reflection and talk to people. The right is busy taking over Facebook, Twitter, redit and sending meams All in inside coded Language. At this point the system is so fucked it’s not possible to fix it. A new one has to be built to in order to save humanity that’s the new project.
Shout out for Give Them an Argument: Logic for the Left, by Ben Burgis
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44903309-give-them-an-argument
There’s also a real issue around national vs local. To get serious fundraising from national sources a democrat had to publicly adhere to all the platform much of which is better left unsaid in the middle. Seen it kill good candidates in TN, MS, KY
Absolutely right.
Cathy, I call the uniparty the Borg now. They want to control and assimilate us. Check historian Brion McClanahan, he gets it right most of the time. Also, Lew Rockwell is good, different. We are in deep shit, just my opinion,, a 69 year old history major.
I sort of endorse that idea too. Clinton was Republican light, as was Obama, it can be said. We really need to form a more frank social-democratic left in the US, but I fear it will take disasters to get us there. Perhaps global warming. The Communism movement was strong in the 1930s due to the depression. Of course that stood on a labor movement that had contiguous plants and workers who frequently had ethnic solidarity and lived in the same neighborhoods. But disaster conditions can also bring about fascism. I think the part-feminization of radicalism in the US has been a good thing because it offers some protection from fascism. 78 year old sociology major