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.
@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.
@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.
@abhayakara I cannot appeal to TERFs as a group unless I am agreeing with their philosophy or declining to oppose their hatred, both of which advance their agenda. There is no way to gain their support without giving them support, either actively or passively, in return.
Now I could on an individual level appeal to something else about a given TERF to gain support, but that is not an attempt to recruit or mobilize TERFs, that is appealing to them based on other groupings.
@abhayakara Based on that I'm not attempting to gain the support of TERFs at all, I'm appealing to other groupings, and some of them may include TERFs, racists or other types of bigots but in these other spaces that is not obvious.
I still don't need or want their support, but I have no idea who may hold such views in that context.
Brianna Wu
David Fleetwood
Ted Lemon