This will upset some, but it needs to be said.
People keep asking when the right will wake up and denounce their worst reactionaries.
It’s not same scale, but progressives have a similar challenge. When will we stop letting our most reactive, anonymous people define us?
I’m a progressive. So much so, I ran for congress on universal health care, working class economics, addressing structural racism, and legalized marijuana and sex work.
The difference isn’t in our ideals, it’s in our behavior
2/ I do not know a single person doing actual work on the left that it's at their wits end about the crazies.
I do not know a single person doing actual work on the left that doesn't have some degree of trauma from abuse by our own side.
Here’s the truth. Your behavior has destroyed the mainstream perception of progressives. We’re not seen as champions of the working class.
We’re seen as a bunch of self-righteous assholes. You are in the business of dividing us over the most petty nonsense
3/ Every single person on the left I know with actual power I know is tired of your bullshit. I’m inviting you to grow up.
There is not going to be a moment where you scream and people on the right and center have an epiphany and realize you are right and they are wrong.
If you are serious about change, you have to work for it. The same way every other successful progressive movement in history has worked for it.
4/ You say you want a glorious revolution, but it's the normie Democrats showing up to canvas and phonebank. It's why they win.
Another thing. We need to learn to let things go. Every difference in perspective is not a crisis. We amplify every minor disagreement like it’s a moral failing.
Politics is about addition, not subtraction. We have to work with people who see the world differently.
5/ My hands are not clean on this. I've certainly done my share of reactionary, non-constructive bullshit on Twitter.
But, I also think that gives me credibility to publicly say, "This is not working. We have to do something different."
And here’s why I’m speaking up now.
I think you are vulnerable.
6/ People are tired of the drama, the bullshit, the moral indignation over small differences. This is the moment we can have a culture shift if people speak up.
The left has always had to work twice as hard as the right. We have to be twice as strategic, and we’re punished twice as hard for mistakes.
Our Twitter activism culture is cancer. And I am done being bullied into silence over it.
Precisely. It's the Overton Window. To the rest of the world, a lot of the "left" in the US seems to be moderate conservatives cosplaying as progressive, because the window has been dragged so far to the right that people that would formerly have identified as centrists are utterly adrift.
@abhayakara @briannawu A red line is something like "Are we going to defend trans folk or are we going to sacrifice them to gain aceptance for lgb folk like we did for generations?"
That's not an 'emotional' need, it's a red line.
Or how about whether or not we'll let unrepentant sexual harassers like, say, Al Franken, back into party leadership?
Again, not emotional, it's a red line.
@ReflexVE @briannawu The TERF problem is a really big problem, and I honestly don't know what to do about it. What's going on in the UK is horrifying.
Would I try to connect with those people who are currently TERF voters and change their minds? Hell yes. Would I pretend not to disagree with them to get their vote? No. Not worth it.
@briannawu @abhayakara A smart idea? Vs taking sexual harassment seriously especially when the harrasser has done nothing to admit much less atone?
Finding your choice of wording revealing...
@ReflexVE @briannawu This is exactly the problem. Look, suppose Trump is running against somebody who's got a strong voting history of supporting Big Pharma and the banks, but is generally likely to do a lot less harm than Trump.
Morally, voting for him is indefensible if your morality is all about appearances. But if what you care about is results, then voting for him is really not even a choice.
@ReflexVE @briannawu I think you're fooling yourself. How many candidates have you voted for that approved increases in the military budget? Approved importing goods from countries with really bad human rights records? Approved invading sovereign countries because they were evil?
I've almost never gotten to vote for a candidate I was sure wouldn't do that. Even Becca Balint had to kowtow to the military. That's dehumanization: saying it's okay to kill someone you disagree with.
@abhayakara Your 'common ground' started with the assertion that red lines are inherently emotional, as opposed to logical, ethical or moral, then proceeded to invent a scenario where I could achieve some progressive goal by allying with TERFs but not agreeing with them, and followed up by suggesting that if there is a common goal they should be appealed to on that basis.
The only way you appeal to a group unified by hatred of something is to...agree with or decline to oppose that hatred.
@briannawu I feel like there's a big overlap between people in technical/engineering fields, whose strength and important skill is to find any miniscule issue and inconsistency in a system and people who try to apply this to a movement/a political group that should be working together for a common goal.
But in this case, getting rid of inconsistencies doesn't make the system (group of people) stronger, but instead weakens it by dividing it into ever smaller incompatible sub-groups.
The "furore" where the admin planning to emigrate to Thailand told users to kill themselves because they posted spoilers for fascist propaganda? (Blood libel and so forth is still regarded as such propaganda.) And then decided to close the instance? Is it a furore because it doesn't affect you personally?
I don't like identity politics but the people in power are pursuing genocidal agendas on such lines so I have to pay attention.
@Homebrewandhacking @briannawu way to prove my point, my guy 👍🏻
[edit] oh I'm blocked now. Literally a perfect example of the type of person the OP was referring to
@COMPU73E
Not a guy. You clearly are OK with antisemitism being propagandised to people.
Doubtless you think you are immune due to your "superior intellect". :) Just goes to show the propaganda about Jewish people and trans people worked very well on you.
@Jackthelion
Eh. It's harmless rhetoric from a powerless group, just like the RadFems were until US money started flooding their coffers. When billionaires start funding the antilandlord movement then they'll be a problem.
It's the smug "both siders" that annoy me personally. Real "apples with M16s" stuff.
By all means, fuck Twitter culture and everyone who possibly can do so and survive should get off there immediately.
But there are always going to be outliers on whom someone can hang a hat. Someone’s going to have a mental illness, for god’s sake. I think it’s more about how to handle that than trying to think we can be respectable enough for the other side to stop demonizing us. That’s their entire MO. They demonize the least powerful among us, and they are quite adept at it.
@briannawu I'd only add that the real work is done locally. If even a fraction of our passion went into consciousness raising activities and uplifting the awareness of the people immediately in our lives and around us, there'd be a lot more folks working with us rather than standing by idly.
I bring my activism into the work I do and within my own sphere of influence by being visible and working to uplift others rather than worry too much about what others on the internet think.
@briannawu This is an interesting post but i find it rather Vague on what its actually about which is a pity.
I Think an important question is what you mean by small differences and who gets to define that. for people not affected by a form of oppression it could be easy to ignore certain differences of opinion as they literally cant See the Problem.
We do need to take that into Account.
@briannawu Thank you. Some pragmatism is, unfortunately, required.
I think we agree that the world is not as it should be, and that our societies have a long way to go. I don't pretend to have many solutions, but I do see some of the problems in out path.
We cannot accomplish change when divided and pushed to the fringes. Change will likely be incremental, and will require a critical mass of mainstream support. We cannot afford to alienate potential allies.
@briannawu this reeks of self-hatred and respectability politicking
We could be perfectly behaved and the mainstream portrayal would be the same. They hate our values, not our behavior.
And why assume all leftists seek electoral change? Not all do.
This is my genuine concern here. I have seen them do this with the most non-radical things.
“We could be perfectly behaved and the mainstream portrayal would be the same. They hate our values, not our behavior.”
Did you watch the Twitter hearings the other week? There was no both sidesing that. I just don’t see it happening.
Have you seen the controversies over Jira? 🫠
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