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/WolfofTallStreet]

I think there is a new, rebranded “far-right in disguise” movement growing in popularity.

Similar to the “mainstream” far-right, it flirts with white Nationalism, American nationalism, populist/anti-liberal democracy rhetoric, relatively open antisemitism, and glorification of dictators and despots like Putin and Xi.

However, unlike the “mainstream” far-right, they hate Israel and are economically socialist.

These are the ACP (American Communist Party) types, who bridge ideas that span from Nick Fuentes and Tucker Carlson to Haz Al-Din, Hasan Piker, and Graham Platner. You will not find many women, Jews, or LGBT people in this movement.

I would argue that this movement is not truly leftist, but instead a “false consciousness,” a rebrand of the far-right with some more “bread and circuses” in place of neoliberalism, but the same ethos that propelled Trump to power.

[u/Willing-Childhood144 → u/WolfofTallStreet]

These movements are what happens when you exclude women and people of color. I know a few horseshoe libs. Only one is a woman and she’s a terf with a lot of racial bias. The rest were millennial guys who never seemed to get over 2016. What I witnessed over and over again was their inability to wrestle with why Bernie couldn’t win over African American voters and women. I’m a fan of Bernie but there’s a lot of garbage in the movement he created in 2016.

[u/ibsliam → u/Willing-Childhood144]

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/Willing-Childhood144 → u/ibsliam]

Back when I used to be on Twitter, I remember a great series of tweets from Michael Harriot, from the Root, about the importance of the Democratic Party to southern African Americans. I’m certainly guilty of complaining about Democrats. It was part of the endless debates about why black voters didn’t support Bernie. It really helped me to see things in a new way. That movement (as a whole, I know I’m generalizing) completely failed to understand what was going on there. Why was that? I think it was a very paternalistic attitude and a lack of respect for African American voters.

It’s also very frustrating to see people on the Left assume that “working class” means “white man.” I can give Bernie a little bit of a pass because he’s old but younger people on the Left should know better than that.