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.

@briannawu I'm a natural contrarian anytime I see someone being a smug asshole, and I find myself getting irritated and argumentative with online folks on the left even though I agree with most of that platform (maybe not the stuff about flaying your landlord).

@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.

@briannawu