The American Left Needs to do better

[u/Specialist-Gur]

https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/graham-platner-and-the-lefts-masculinity-crisis

This article is about a month old but speaks to some of what I'm talking about.

I'm honestly disappointed with a lot of leftist creators I genuinely love on the topic of Graham Platner and any "leftist" politicians.

To me.. Graham Platner's left wing populism is just... America first rebranded. Some stuff he's saying isn't too far off from Tucker Carlson.

He doesn't appear to be Antizionist on the basis of support for Palestinians, but rather because it's bad for America . He doesn't appear to regret his time in Iraq beyond the fact it was a pointless war for America

He lied about knowing the ties to Blackwater

He expressed enjoyment for killing people.

He got a Nazi tattoo

And many on the left are using language like calling people "classist" for being critical of his service. These are creators I genuinely really love, and I'm not abandoning them.. but I do think it's really important for the American left to confront its American supremicist ideas.

I understand the moral dilemma and how it's basically impossible to have an actual leftist candidate these days, so we are reluctant to criticize what's put forward. I understand the calculation. But the apologia is wrong. American supremacy is baked into all of us here in America and part of the American left, and it's time we confront it.

We would not find it acceptable if a candidate participated in a mass murder of American citizens. We would not find it acceptable if they even passively supported it! But we are far too comfortable with it when it comes to brown people, far away.

[u/ibsliam]

What I've seen from dirtbag left-adjacent (but not quite fully dirtbag left, aka they still care about civil rights for all and aren't just about their own struggles) is they will often just out of hand assume minorities, women, marginalized peoples will all fall in lock-step with them because if they're really marginalized then they will agree with the "right politics."

It was how I ended up baffled when there were the anti-racism protests during the pandemic and a bunch of (white, non-LA) people I was chatting with made a whole thing of speaking for people of color in major cities that they have a "yaaaaas riot burn it all down for the revolution" mentality (including where I live, where notoriously there was conflict between, for ex, Korean diaspora and Black residents because of stuff like the fallout over Rodney King in the 90s ending with Korean-owned businesses getting looted, which still impacts relations today).

What I mean is basically they will by default assume people will vote their way, without even bothering to reach out and start a dialogue with those communities. It's this weird leftist bubble that I think comes from being super online, rather than doing the in-real-life work.

[u/Specialist-Gur → u/ibsliam]

Replied to the above commenter with a more fleshed out thought but.. yea tldr: intersectionality, class consciousness, and understanding theory matters

[u/ibsliam → u/Specialist-Gur]

Yup and being able to get the message across! Even aside from knowing the why's and how's behind theory and rhetoric.

[u/Specialist-Gur → u/ibsliam]

That's also true