i’m a trans woman, i have plenty of skin in this, and from where i’m standing the democrats have been actively complying with anti-trans legislation rather than fighting it. Pretty much every day there’s a new democrat ad about how they’re going to protect women’s sports.
those labour protections were concessions extracted by organized pressure, not liberal goodwill. they’re being rolled back precisely because that pressure dissipated when the left got absorbed into electoralism.
ice is what it is today because of liberals like obama and his enablers, do you really think the same people that built these structures up will dismantle them?
i do vote, just not for genocidal centrist parties and from where im standing the priviliged one is you
Maybe there’s a regional difference then? I’m passing on the synthesis of lectures I’ve been given by other transgender communists and people of color, but I don’t know where they’re based. In any case, there clearly are dems that do defend trans rights; I’m sorry that the rest are failing you.
that pressure dissipated when the left got absorbed into electoralism.
Yeah, the idea that elections alone can fix anything is bullshit and I’ll admit I took long to understand that lesson. It only really sank in after 2021, I think.
Change needs to be cemented with popular support to stick, but the pressure to change things in the first place will need to come from outside.
do you really think the same people that built these structures up will dismantle them?
No. That’s why their traditionalist leadership is so incensed at the “insurgency” of progressive candidates gaining visibility and influence in primaries: they don’t want those structures challenged, but the fact that people are electing reformers at all is a threat to their democratic legitimacy for preserving the structures. Their efforts might fail, but for now, they’re a problem to the leadership.
By contrast, the Republicans have made an explicit point of suppressing all dissent. There are no (visible) challengers, because no freedom of expression is allowed in the first place. Whatever charge of building and maintaining such structures we may bring against the Democrats, the Republicans have made things much worse. Any semi-progressive measures the Obama administration might have undertaken were rolled back, while any restrictive ones were accelerated.
The notion that both sides are equal just smudges over a lot of these distinctions. Obama wasn’t great, but this is significantly worse.
i do vote, just not for genocidal centrist parties
The idea to vote left in primaries, but vote anti-right in general elections where actual leftist chances are slim for all the reasons you’ve brought up. When one option is objectively worse in some aspects and better in none, standing on the moral high ground does nothing for the people in the valley being overrun. All they hear from the right is the propaganda “They want to take away all your shit” and all they see from us is hostility and condescension.
Don’t get me wrong, voting left is better than not voting at all, and if it’s a deeply one-sided election, it may even be more prudent. But the message “I won’t vote for the people that’ll hurt you less” sounds a lot like “I won’t protect you”. I don’t think that’s your intention, but from the conversations I’ve head, that’s the impression many get.
That’s really the core of my argument: many liberal voters don’t really want this, but don’t (yet) see the restrictions of the system and how it preserves this shit. We don’t yet have the leverage to topple the system, and with each step the fascists get to take, it’ll become harder to build that leverage.
Hence, I believe that we should adapt our messaging (not our ideals, just the way we present them) to be less hostile to the closest thing we get in terms of like-minded people. It’s not a problem of ideology, but of PR. We’re not gonna radicalise voters that perceive us as arrogant pricks, just feed into the “left and right are both bad” centrist narrative of complacency.
If we can emphasise that we (mostly) want the same goals - life, liberty, happiness - it will be easier to talk about the reasons that’s impossible right now and the measures we suggest to make it possible.
(As an aside, that’s the problem at the heart of leftist infighting: we tend to forget that we ultimately want the same thing and get hung up on fights about how to achieve it until we accuse each other of being the enemy.)
from where im standing the priviliged one is you
Point taken. Your talking points sounded a lot like the ones I’ve heard others complain about; chalking that up to privilege instead of a different perspective is my mistake. Diminishing your struggles wasn’t my intention.
Maybe there’s a regional difference then? I’m passing on the synthesis of lectures I’ve been given by other transgender communists and people of color, but I don’t know where they’re based. In any case, there clearly are dems that do defend trans rights; I’m sorry that the rest are failing you.
to give you some context, in the US there is no popular vote for presidency. my vote for president in the general has essentially zero impact. the democrats win by such a large margin that voting no confidence or for communists running 3rd party is more ‘useful’ under the reform-electoral framework than voting for the democrats. getting a party that challenges capital to a non-negligible percentage is what communists should do if the option is available.
if anything it’s the ‘blue no matter who’ browbeating which is serving to suppress left-wing dissent in the party. there are a lot of states in the country where that’s the wrong position. if democrats had anti-capitalist 3rd party challengers in safe blue states, they might actually have to be something other than diet republicans.
i would like to return to your original question:
I never understood why “libs” are so broadly hated within the leftist spheres. Pro-capitalist stances in some strains of liberalism, sure, but at least in terms of human rights, equality, rule of law and such, it feels like we should have more common ground with them than this animosity implies.
i vote for whatever progressive challengers there are in the primaries, however this year there has been a widespread pattern of democrats winning their primaries and then abandoning trans people. every day there’s a new campaign ad from democrats across the country talking about ‘protecting girls sports’. some of my comrades did a protest demanding our (progressive liberal) attorney general (top law enforcer in the state) enforce our states equal protection law against hospitals complying in advance with trump on trans healthcare. they were arrested.
the reason ‘libs’ are so broadly hated is because they serve capital and protect institutions over people. those hospitals which complied in advance with trump wield outsized political influence (spend lots of money) in liberal spaces as well as political campaigns. They already did the political calculus on abandoning us, they know can afford to lose our votes. me expressing my disgust with them is not going to move a bunch of mainstream liberals to change their blue no matter who votes.
to paraphrase malcolm X:
The white conservatives aren’t your friends either, but they at least don’t try to hide it. They are like wolves; they show their teeth in a snarl that keeps you always aware of where you stand with them. But the white liberals are foxes, who also show their teeth to you but pretend that they are smiling. The white liberals are more dangerous than the conservatives; they lure you, and as you run from the growling wolf, you flee into the open jaws of the “smiling” fox.
re:
It’s not a problem of ideology, but of PR. We’re not gonna radicalise voters that perceive us as arrogant pricks, just feed into the “left and right are both bad” centrist narrative of complacency.
i am not going to self-censor in the name of optics and catering to people who don’t see me as human. you can call that arrogant, but i think that people with disgusting beliefs deserve scorn. i have zero faith that appearing unthreatening and compliant will ever placate them.
to give you some context, in the US there is no popular vote for presidency.
I’m aware, and I’m also a vocal opponent of the FPTP system that produces the spoiler effect in the first place, without which the whole question would be moot. But as you said, there is little incentive for either of the big parties to change the system that keeps them in power. Frankly, if there is to be any hope for democratic change, I think that thing has to be the fdreamto go.
my vote for president in the general has essentially zero impact. the democrats win by such a large margin that voting no confidence or for communists running 3rd party is more ‘useful’ under the reform-electoral framework than voting for the democrats. getting a party that challenges capital to a non-negligible percentage is what communists should do if the option is available.
if anything it’s the ‘blue no matter who’ browbeating which is serving to suppress left-wing dissent in the party. there are a lot of states in the country where that’s the wrong position. if democrats had anti-capitalist 3rd party challengers in safe blue states, they might actually have to be something other than diet republicans.
Yeah, that’s what I meant (unless I forgot to add it) with voting third party in places where it doesn’t matter. Even in places where democrats lose by a large margin, third party would be a reasonable choice for sending that signal. Imagine their faces if they came in third in a red state… Ah, one can dream.
i vote for whatever progressive challengers there are in the primaries, however this year there has been a widespread pattern of democrats winning their primaries and then abandoning trans people. every day there’s a new campaign ad from democrats across the country talking about ‘protecting girls sports’.
Okay, this is definitely an issue of perspective on my part. I didn’t see as much of that, but you’ll obviously be far more sensitive to that issue. Yeah, no debate, that’s fucked up.
they were arrested.
Something something bastards…
the reason ‘libs’ are so broadly hated is because they serve capital and protect institutions over people.
The difficulty I have with this is that I occadionally see people decried as libs that don’t seem to share that sentiment. This might not be you specifically, but there is a vocal part of the fediverse that seems bent on putting people in boxes to beat on. I’ve also been called liberal before because I disagreed with someone on some point. I might have well been wrong then, as I have been here too on some points, and I know I’m not entitled to any correction, but instead of any nuanced treatment, my entire worldview was reduced to that interpretation of my statement.
In short, my concern is that the label “libs” has been (mis-)used so broadly that I’m not convinced your statement holds for everyone who has been subjected to that designation.
To be clear, I’m not saying that it doesn’t apply to actual liberals. I’m right with you on hating people that think a CEO making several hundred times as much as the person cleaning their pissoir is justified, respond to any mention of police violence with the same anecdote about a cocktail being thrown at cops that one time or tilt at the “leftist lunatics” for being disruptive with their protests. Those are all personal examples I’ve picked fights over.
I’m saying there’s a demography of political “orphans” that want things to get better, don’t know any other system than the one they’ve grown up in and default to liberalism out of ignorance and uncertainty. In my opinion, they don’t deserve the same hatred, and I feel we should be more precise in that regard.
That said, I absolutely understand that you’ve got enough troubles and, after worrying about healthcare, livelihood and the right to exist,
don’t have the nerve or patience to spare to also worry about the distinction between those who hurt you and those who watch it happen and do nothing. I mistook that for arrogance, but I agree that you don’t owe anyone that charity.
I’m very glad you went to this length to talk to me and show me perspectives I genuinely didn’t know. You’ve given me things to think about, to talk to other people about, to check my own preconceptions.
i’m a trans woman, i have plenty of skin in this, and from where i’m standing the democrats have been actively complying with anti-trans legislation rather than fighting it. Pretty much every day there’s a new democrat ad about how they’re going to protect women’s sports.
those labour protections were concessions extracted by organized pressure, not liberal goodwill. they’re being rolled back precisely because that pressure dissipated when the left got absorbed into electoralism.
ice is what it is today because of liberals like obama and his enablers, do you really think the same people that built these structures up will dismantle them?
i do vote, just not for genocidal centrist parties and from where im standing the priviliged one is you
Maybe there’s a regional difference then? I’m passing on the synthesis of lectures I’ve been given by other transgender communists and people of color, but I don’t know where they’re based. In any case, there clearly are dems that do defend trans rights; I’m sorry that the rest are failing you.
Yeah, the idea that elections alone can fix anything is bullshit and I’ll admit I took long to understand that lesson. It only really sank in after 2021, I think.
Change needs to be cemented with popular support to stick, but the pressure to change things in the first place will need to come from outside.
No. That’s why their traditionalist leadership is so incensed at the “insurgency” of progressive candidates gaining visibility and influence in primaries: they don’t want those structures challenged, but the fact that people are electing reformers at all is a threat to their democratic legitimacy for preserving the structures. Their efforts might fail, but for now, they’re a problem to the leadership.
By contrast, the Republicans have made an explicit point of suppressing all dissent. There are no (visible) challengers, because no freedom of expression is allowed in the first place. Whatever charge of building and maintaining such structures we may bring against the Democrats, the Republicans have made things much worse. Any semi-progressive measures the Obama administration might have undertaken were rolled back, while any restrictive ones were accelerated.
The notion that both sides are equal just smudges over a lot of these distinctions. Obama wasn’t great, but this is significantly worse.
The idea to vote left in primaries, but vote anti-right in general elections where actual leftist chances are slim for all the reasons you’ve brought up. When one option is objectively worse in some aspects and better in none, standing on the moral high ground does nothing for the people in the valley being overrun. All they hear from the right is the propaganda “They want to take away all your shit” and all they see from us is hostility and condescension.
Don’t get me wrong, voting left is better than not voting at all, and if it’s a deeply one-sided election, it may even be more prudent. But the message “I won’t vote for the people that’ll hurt you less” sounds a lot like “I won’t protect you”. I don’t think that’s your intention, but from the conversations I’ve head, that’s the impression many get.
That’s really the core of my argument: many liberal voters don’t really want this, but don’t (yet) see the restrictions of the system and how it preserves this shit. We don’t yet have the leverage to topple the system, and with each step the fascists get to take, it’ll become harder to build that leverage.
Hence, I believe that we should adapt our messaging (not our ideals, just the way we present them) to be less hostile to the closest thing we get in terms of like-minded people. It’s not a problem of ideology, but of PR. We’re not gonna radicalise voters that perceive us as arrogant pricks, just feed into the “left and right are both bad” centrist narrative of complacency.
If we can emphasise that we (mostly) want the same goals - life, liberty, happiness - it will be easier to talk about the reasons that’s impossible right now and the measures we suggest to make it possible.
(As an aside, that’s the problem at the heart of leftist infighting: we tend to forget that we ultimately want the same thing and get hung up on fights about how to achieve it until we accuse each other of being the enemy.)
Point taken. Your talking points sounded a lot like the ones I’ve heard others complain about; chalking that up to privilege instead of a different perspective is my mistake. Diminishing your struggles wasn’t my intention.
to give you some context, in the US there is no popular vote for presidency. my vote for president in the general has essentially zero impact. the democrats win by such a large margin that voting no confidence or for communists running 3rd party is more ‘useful’ under the reform-electoral framework than voting for the democrats. getting a party that challenges capital to a non-negligible percentage is what communists should do if the option is available.
if anything it’s the ‘blue no matter who’ browbeating which is serving to suppress left-wing dissent in the party. there are a lot of states in the country where that’s the wrong position. if democrats had anti-capitalist 3rd party challengers in safe blue states, they might actually have to be something other than diet republicans.
i would like to return to your original question:
i vote for whatever progressive challengers there are in the primaries, however this year there has been a widespread pattern of democrats winning their primaries and then abandoning trans people. every day there’s a new campaign ad from democrats across the country talking about ‘protecting girls sports’. some of my comrades did a protest demanding our (progressive liberal) attorney general (top law enforcer in the state) enforce our states equal protection law against hospitals complying in advance with trump on trans healthcare. they were arrested.
the reason ‘libs’ are so broadly hated is because they serve capital and protect institutions over people. those hospitals which complied in advance with trump wield outsized political influence (spend lots of money) in liberal spaces as well as political campaigns. They already did the political calculus on abandoning us, they know can afford to lose our votes. me expressing my disgust with them is not going to move a bunch of mainstream liberals to change their blue no matter who votes.
to paraphrase malcolm X:
re:
i am not going to self-censor in the name of optics and catering to people who don’t see me as human. you can call that arrogant, but i think that people with disgusting beliefs deserve scorn. i have zero faith that appearing unthreatening and compliant will ever placate them.
I’m aware, and I’m also a vocal opponent of the FPTP system that produces the spoiler effect in the first place, without which the whole question would be moot. But as you said, there is little incentive for either of the big parties to change the system that keeps them in power. Frankly, if there is to be any hope for democratic change, I think that thing has to be the fdreamto go.
Yeah, that’s what I meant (unless I forgot to add it) with voting third party in places where it doesn’t matter. Even in places where democrats lose by a large margin, third party would be a reasonable choice for sending that signal. Imagine their faces if they came in third in a red state… Ah, one can dream.
Okay, this is definitely an issue of perspective on my part. I didn’t see as much of that, but you’ll obviously be far more sensitive to that issue. Yeah, no debate, that’s fucked up.
Something something bastards…
The difficulty I have with this is that I occadionally see people decried as libs that don’t seem to share that sentiment. This might not be you specifically, but there is a vocal part of the fediverse that seems bent on putting people in boxes to beat on. I’ve also been called liberal before because I disagreed with someone on some point. I might have well been wrong then, as I have been here too on some points, and I know I’m not entitled to any correction, but instead of any nuanced treatment, my entire worldview was reduced to that interpretation of my statement.
In short, my concern is that the label “libs” has been (mis-)used so broadly that I’m not convinced your statement holds for everyone who has been subjected to that designation.
To be clear, I’m not saying that it doesn’t apply to actual liberals. I’m right with you on hating people that think a CEO making several hundred times as much as the person cleaning their pissoir is justified, respond to any mention of police violence with the same anecdote about a cocktail being thrown at cops that one time or tilt at the “leftist lunatics” for being disruptive with their protests. Those are all personal examples I’ve picked fights over.
I’m saying there’s a demography of political “orphans” that want things to get better, don’t know any other system than the one they’ve grown up in and default to liberalism out of ignorance and uncertainty. In my opinion, they don’t deserve the same hatred, and I feel we should be more precise in that regard.
That said, I absolutely understand that you’ve got enough troubles and, after worrying about healthcare, livelihood and the right to exist, don’t have the nerve or patience to spare to also worry about the distinction between those who hurt you and those who watch it happen and do nothing. I mistook that for arrogance, but I agree that you don’t owe anyone that charity.
I’m very glad you went to this length to talk to me and show me perspectives I genuinely didn’t know. You’ve given me things to think about, to talk to other people about, to check my own preconceptions.
I hope things get better for you.