I got purged from a leftist space once for not lambasting a man on the spurious accusation by a woman. Wasn’t even salacious: she thought he was laughing at her when he was laughing at something else. He’d been an upstanding member of the group since its inception while she’s been there for like three weeks.
The argument was that not doing whatever she wanted was misogyny. It really didn’t get deeper than that.
I would consider myself a leftist (at least, I lean towards leftism). I will never forget when I tweeted a mocking comment about Vaush’s horrendous take on evolution. He had claimed that because the brain was in the skull, it wasn’t affected by the sun, wind, or environment. It was “insulated” from environmental factors that cause genetic change.
In response, my replies were filled with leftists calling me a race realist who thinks Black people are genetically inferior. Apparently, Vaush had made this point in a debate about race realism, and because this obviously incorrect point was made in an argument against race realism, I was accused of being a race realist for pointing out how absurd it was.
I think I hate most people on the left. They don't particularly care for the truth is what I gather.
If you hate most people on the left, wouldn’t you be better off at minimum in the center-left, if not in fact (most of us here think that if you’re sharp you’ll come around eventually.. 😏) all the way to the classical liberal/libertarian view?
If nothing else, you’ll find you are a happier person.
Interesting. Thanks for the advice. I'm pretty far leftist, but I'm not on Twitter. so I've avoided a lot of this. But I do agree that there are many in the left who I see as temperamentally a bit insane.
Certainly I hate Stalin more than Mitt Romney.
But I think this dynamic exists in most ideological groups. For example, there are social conservatives who are very invested in the idea that what they prefer is normal and mainstream, but there are also those who relish the idea that they are the counterculture.
Within libertarianism, you will find advocates who present themselves as very normal and tend to see it as common sense that people would like government off their backs. But there are also many who view libertarianism as a revolutionary politic and often partake in counter-cultural living, engaging in liberal use of drugs, non-monogamy, etc cetera.
I think a surprising amount of this is mostly based on personality differences, amplified by the deleterious effects of social media that you describe. Regardless, I take your advice graciously and I will work on resisting the urge to sane wash when I feel it.
“But I think this dynamic exists in most ideological groups.”
Without claiming that there is zero percent of this on the non-left - which would of course be patently false - there is MUCH MUCH less of it.
Partly because lacking control of institutions like the media, social media, and academia, those not on the left find it harder to “cancel” others even if they were so inclined.
Partly because most Americans not on the left continue to value free speech.
And there are serval other reasons as well.
(Though P.S. there is surely more of this dynamic even on the non-left in the run-up to a general election, for what should be fairly obvious reasons.)
a certain elision here between “the left” and “the extremely online campus activist left” no? like all ideologies leftism is capable of degenerating into conformism but i don’t think eg the brenner debate was a question of social proof. (you might consider that a minute difference surrounding an obscure bit of theory; i think the origin of capitalism is probably more significant than squabbles over slogans.) you can read the nlr and find a lot of real, substantive disagreement over questions of ends and strategy. most glaringly, though, it’s simply not true that the outgroup for the left is conservatives. conservatives occupy the position of isis, ie bad but not really relevant; the real outgroup is always other leftists. if you’re a trotskyite your entire identity is rooted in not being a stalinist; if you’re a demsoc your entire identity is rooted in not being an anarkiddie. “punching left” is absolutely possible: one of the most potent political slurs is to call someone an “ultraleftist.” there’s a lot about leftist political culture that’s deeply unhealthy but i think you misdiagnose much of it here.
I certainly did not claim to be talking about all leftists--I wouldn't have you in mind, for instance, or Chomsky, and I Chomsky is one of the ~5 people that has most influenced me.
Personally, I would hold that the outgroup for leftists is usually 'liberals'. While leftist infighting memes have a venerable history, I would say quite a lot of leftists out there don't really cleanly perceive differences between different leftist groups that haven't been drilled into them like say, the concept of tankies, and tend to see most leftist infighting as arbitrary discourse as opposed to campist fights.
This has a lot to do with my position that "the extremely online campus activist left" should be who "leftist" refers to because they're the primary representative for the idea. And I think most of this faction probably barely understands the difference between socdems and demsocs (which admittedly is a funny sentence to normal people but we both know the difference is very real)
i think every movement probably contains large numbers of people who don’t really understand anything about what they’re supposed to believe. if they’re more visible on the left, it’s probably because the left and its institutions have historically put a greater emphasis on internal democracy than other movements. but tbh now everyone is online i think that gap’s basically closed: you can see that basically nobody of any political orientation has the faintest idea what they’re talking about.
i still don’t believe these people are the primary representative of the left, though. primary representative where? for whom? online, sure, but a lot of politics does not actually happen online. there are still labour unions, there are political parties, there are institutions that aren’t primarily concerned with furries in videogames or whatever. again, those institutions have a lot of problems, but they’re different to the problems you describe, which strike me as a product of social media far more than the left.
What I wanted to say but always feels awkward to phrase in the first comment, is I want to distinguish "the left" and "leftists." I think "leftist" should essentially be reserved for the online cohort, because they're the only people who I see use the term leftist. I have known people in real life labour unions who call themselves leftists, but invariably, it's been because of how online they are, and their union participation is just downstream of being online too. Likewise, watching real life institutions like the DSA and other groups in practice fill up with younger activists has shown to me how many of their priorities are driven by Online as well.
Naturally on the other hand, "the left" can also include the normal committed unionists at the unions who wouldn't be able to tell you what the A stands for in LGBTQIA (but then again, that wouldn't make them any different to 2016 Tumblr), or otherwise people who I don't think should count as leftists. But "leftist" I believe should be reserved for that online cohort because a) they are the only people who still meaningfully use leftist, b) they have totally monopolized the usage in the first place, and c) anyone else who could be usefully described by the term leftist usually has a better, more specific label that can be used, whereas the vague, incoherent group only has 'leftist'.
So we're supposed to be flailing our fists leftward at... who exactly? The barista with the Che Guevara tattoo, fomenting revolution one soy latte at a time? That guy at the end of the bar muttering about the proletariat, whose idea of seizing the means of production is hogging the karaoke machine?
Look, if someone clinches a Democratic nomination for dog catcher - let alone actual office - on a platform of "Abolish the Police and Rewrite History with Stalin as the Good Guy," I'll be first in line to start throwing rhetorical jabs. I might even spring for a "Punching Left" gym membership. Until then, I'll save my energy for problems that actually exist outside of Twitter's fever dreams.
So while we're all frantically searching for leftists to punch, the right's got a former president right there, front and center, putting on a showcase of punchable moments that would make Muhammad Ali say, "Whoa, pace yourself."
My workplace might have an HR manager, but I have never met or heard from them. I am a union member and work on a ferry, if you have some sort of cushier job you might have a different experience.
In any political camp, there are people that have a well considered program or range of possibilities in mind, and those that are confident that someone else on their side has.
With regards to police abolition, you don't appear to be aware of the simple fact that investigation, prosecution, and the process of law all occurred for many centuries before the invention of the police. Police are neither necessary nor sufficient for a functioning justice system. While people on the left are not typically advocating a return to thief-takers etc. there is no need to equivocate justice with a historically contingent set of institutions. Police perform a lot of functions (which aren't all the same in every country) and these could be split up in various ways.
The results of the defund the police crowd having influence in public policy is that police are defunded and discouraged from policing. Theoretical alternative systems of law enforcement are something that the defund the police crowd only reluctantly trots out in response to criticism and usually just involve ways to create more jobs for their demographic. If they were really interested in creating a better alternative system of justice, rather than embracing the rampant criminality of the criminals they already worship as heroes, then this alternative system would be front and center. It would be the name that defines their chanting.
>With regards to police abolition, you don't appear to be aware of the simple fact that investigation, prosecution, and the process of law all occurred for many centuries before the invention of the police.
Do you suggest a return to Thief-Takers, Outlawry, Exile, and Avengers of Blood?
Thank you for explaining some of my older posts in a much more readable way - but I'd like to actually nuance a certain point. I don't think that for Leftists, the outgroup is "conservatives" - I think it's "liberals", and I think it's become that way more and more over time. Some leftists spaces portray conservatives as a subset of "liberals", but conservatives are virtually the "ISIS" fargroup to leftists vs the liberals they hate. And liberal is often effectively just another word for normie. It's ordinary people who are not radical and dismiss radicalism out of hand that earn more ire online, even if the same people talking about how much liberals are scum are the ones who'll go be friendly to their liberal coworkers later.
I also want to explain better at some point the way I see overlapping left-spectrum social circles, and in particular, about how progressive overlap with but aren't totally in leftist groups, but I've got a lot more work to do to make that post readable.
“I don't think that for Leftists, the outgroup is ‘conservatives"’ - I think it's ‘liberals’,”
Given how Bentham has defined the term Leftist here, I think I agree with you.
But then the far more interesting question is: why do “liberals” (the rest of the folks left of center on the political spectrum, who mostly/entirely vote for Democrats) refuse to punch left AT ALL?
Because THEIR outgroup is “conservatives”??
That would explain why they are somewhat reluctant to punch left, I’d concur. But it would not explain their virtually complete refusal to do so.
You are still leaving something important out with this claim. I’m very curious to hear your response though.
The reason why liberals don't punch left is because they don't know about leftists.
That's it! They don't know about them! That's why I have to struggle to define the term constantly, even in places that should know about them in detail by now because they spend a lot of time dunking on them. The mainstream use of "leftist" is by conservatives trying to describe liberals. The average liberal is so politically disengaged with online discourse that they're just not aware leftists really exist. They might be vaguely aware of the concept of a "Bernie Bro". They've probably heard about Campus Protests. But they just don't know about them overall. And yes, their outgroup is conservative.
There is a second explanation, and it's the same as the one I explained in my original post about Defunding The Police, which is that for some people - especially younger and more progressive people - their social graph overlaps too much with leftists to comfortably punch left.
“ The mainstream use of "leftist" is by conservatives trying to describe liberals.”
Speaking only for myself, I now use the term leftist to describe anyone left of center because a) I refuse to use the word “liberal” since most of what’s happening on the left is decidedly il-liberal, and b) it is analogous - and imo much more reasonable - to the MSM and those on the left referring to everyone right of Susan Collins as “right wing”.
I just don't think this is good practice. The most illiberal people on the left are people who hate liberals - leftist. Even if they weren't, I would still say "separate liberals and leftists and just use the words they choose for themselves", because they're the accurate words.
“Liberal” is no longer an accurate word to describe the things that so many people on the left [even leaving out the ones YOU call “leftists”] believe in and defend: censorship, depraved oppressor-oppressed pro-Hamas support, children being able to consent to irreversible surgeries, blatant disregard for the rule of law re: immigration, etc.
So much of what the left advocates for is so il-liberal that imo it is Orwellian to still use the label “liberal” to describe them.
And I don’t think conservative is an accurate word in the abstract and detached sense for a lot of conservatives, and I just don’t care or think it matters. It’s what they call themselves and what everyone recognizes them as. Also, almost no actual liberals support anything to do with Hamas as the polls show, and the same goes for the surgeries thing you’ve mentioned. I don’t feel compelled to read the rest of the comment.
Well, your second explanation is at least an explanation. Though not a complete one.
Your first one is not at all. It’s an explanation perhaps as to why they don’t “punch at ‘leftists’”, but it’s not at all an explanation as to why they don’t punch “to the left”.
Your 2nd explanation leaves out why liberals/moderate Dems used to be willing to criticize their own left flank but no longer are.
Again, they're genuinely unaware that such a flank exists. At all. I had at least several arguments like this on Twitter over Chappell Roan, with a lot of people assuming her lack of endorsement of Kamala could only mean she was a closet conservative, when Chappell Roan is the most leftist girl I've ever seen.
The people you label “liberals” are very aware that many SJWs exist. That you suggest otherwise is absurd.
Even if I granted your claim that those “liberals” aren’t aware that what you call leftists (ex-SJWs) exist. That is likely true about SOME of those “liberals”, but not of others of them.
Of course, I gladly grant you they don’t know the details of the various players within the leftists, or how they argue with each other.
But to claim that most “liberals” are not aware of the existence of their left flank is absurd.
And that’s ignoring that “liberals” refuse to even denounce AOC or most of the rest of the Squad (with the rare exception of Ilan Omar).
Are you claiming that most “liberals” are not aware of the Squad?!?
When *any* suggestion to rein in police (abolish qualified immunity e.g.) is characterized by pro-policers as “abolishing the police! (as we’ve known them)”, then yeah, we “leftists” are going to say ok yeah, “abolish” the police then. You are writing as if there is only one side “abusing” rhetoric.
"They call for defunding the police, while aggressively insisting that you’re some sort of rube if you take that to mean that they don’t want the police to be funded"
That's just literally true: let X be the current funding, I'm sure there is some Y s.t. 0<Y<X. It's basic logic, not sane-washing.
As for "from the river to the sea", the current Likud charter reads "from the sea to the Jordan". So, if for some reason you only ever want to interpret that slogan as a call for genocide, ask yourself who your tax dollars have been founding since 2009. Alas, I find this example pretty instructive of the actual (or actually consequential) sane-washing going on here: plenty of reasonable centrists getting incensed about campus protestors but then rushing to assure us that no, Israel is absolutely not pursuing the policies they are pursuing, the n videos of Israeli officials proudly displaying their war crimes don't represent Israel conduct, their sitting ministers don't represent the Israeli govt, the settlers protected and aided by the IDF are just rogue elements, etc
I was going to post this literal point, but you beat me to the punch: the Likud charter literally calls for ‘absolute sovereignty from the sea to the river Jordan’. (The current Likud prime minister is the longest serving prime minister in Israeli history). I’m kind of flabbergasted that a liberation slogan that takes critical aim at the literal dominant ideology of the state of Israel, in its own language, (“freedom of group x” vs “sovereignty over group x”) is lazily written off as evidence of genocidal intent. (Eg “what they *really* mean is…”).
Binationalism very well be untenable, practically and ideologically, but this is paradigmatic if the sort of double standard that sweeps the problem under the rug rather than addresses the reality of it’s context.
Yeah exactly, it's pretty obvious unless one tries really hard to not get it.
Also I'm not a big fan of indigeneity as a concept, but the way Israeli talk about indigeneity and "Arab invaders" is treated as a totally legitimate discussion of historical grievances while Palestinian talk about indigeneity and "settlers" is automatically decried as blood and soil ideology can drive you crazy if you observe it from a distance
I think that’s the rub though. The main thrust of the defund movement is to take critical aim at the unpopularity of moving from X to Y, and challenge it. It’s also unpopular to not “support the troops” or “invest in defense”, but does this mean that all wars are justified or immensely inflated military budgets shouldn’t be critically examined.
And in any care, the point still holds: defund = Y not defund = 0 directly addressed the claim made in this essay and charges it as a false dichotomy. Regardless of “popularity”
The goal of the movement was to force X to go to Y regardless of how unpopular it was, by terrorizing institutions until they complied. This tactic works, but also makes the perpetrators look like psychotic ne’er do wells.
The singular goal? From what I understand, criticism of notoriously bloated police budgets range from moderate reformers to radical abolitionists, and as far as I know, it was a relatively decentralized movement. God almighty, even many police unions want psych calls relegated to a different response ecosystem with different governance structures, and presumably different budgets. The problem is how to get for A to C without reductive, simplistic overreactions. I mean, my god: they’re eating PETS in Ohio! Quick! Give Mayberry, OH PD a fucking tank! Meow! 🐱
And actually, to your point: I’m not sure it did work - the radical nonsense of their overreach was embarrassing imo. I think radical public defenders were recalled?, which is almost unheard of in local politics. And there is a deep aversion to anything remotely critical of police now across the political spectrum. It’s politically toxic. I think critics of police had genuine cultural capitol ~2019-22 and they blew it on the whims of ideologically fanatical children who hijacked the bullhorn and advocated style over substance.
If you were chanting defund the police at a rally, you were enabling the fanatical children.
More generally, such rallies serve as a way for the fanatical children to express their will, so giving them any support should be considered with that in mind.
By the way, not that it matters terribly but I do agree with you in a lot of ways. Are you familiar with Patrick Sharkey by chance? He does a lot of really great work on this stuff, and I really like his approach, fwiw
I agree with this article, but I think there’s another explanation of the reluctance to punch left that it doesn’t consider. Leftists may feel that even if a particular lefty talking point is wrong, it is directionally correct.
“Leftists may feel that even if a particular lefty talking point is wrong, it is directionally correct.”
Exactly!
Like being Pro-Hamas, in the wake of the Oct 7th murder, rape, and kidnapping rampage.
After all, based on oppressor-oppressed ideology, the BiPoC Palestinians are entitled to overthrow their rich white capitalist evil Jewish oppressors by any means necessary, correct?
This is why about half of 18-24 year olds (meaning a FAR higher percentage of left-of-center people in that age group) choose Back Hamas - go look it up for yourself in the October and December 2023 Harvard-Harris polls - and 29% even said “Back Hamas” when given a 3rd choice of “stay out of it” in the aftermath of October 7th.
Because of course backing Hamas is directionally correct. And so leftists do so, and do so *virtuously*.
Of course, my example shows how leftists indeed follow your logic even when the results of it are immoral to most of us.
Support for irreversible gender-altering surgeries and chemical procedures on minors whom leftists and the rest of us consider unable to give consent to sexual relations with an adult or most other things is another example where leftists refuse to “punch left” because they believe that support for “trans rights” is directionally correct, so they say nothing about unconscionable actions by monstrous doctors and healthcare administrators.
In the UK there has been a backlash pushing back at this, but so far, not in the U.S.
Because leftists here won’t push back against their own radicals, since the radicals are “directionally correct.”
Any reason you say the left’s antagonists are moderate conservatives? Seems to me they’re much more irked by moderate liberals, since they’re seen by other outsiders as ostensibly being on the same side
This is closer to the mark but still not exactly right. It’s “progressive” liberals who occupy the apostate slot. Moderate liberals and moderate conservatives are considered basically equivalent.
Fundamentally, I don’t like to puff up this type of scene - the group of bloggers and writers that this stack and others orbit, because I don’t want to contribute to even a positive group connotation. I’d always rather the discussion talk about the ideas themselves, instead of attacking or even praising the individuals involved.
I will break this personal rule one time, I definitely appreciate how many times I’ve been able to explain disagreement and not be attacked or adhomed. I think this has happened only 1 times out of all of the times I’ve voiced disagreement. I think that’s a very positive reflection of the community at large, conceding that it is just a personal anecdote.
Why is it not crazy for Likud to say From the River to the Sea and not be accused of genocidal intent?
"The right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is eternal and indisputable… therefore, Judea and Samaria will not be handed to any foreign administration; between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty. —Likud Party Platform, 1977"
This was a Soviet propaganda technique. Someone made an outrageous and incendiary claim. When anyone pointed out that the claim wasn’t true, they would pretend that the words didn’t mean what anyone sensible would understand them to mean.
It’s a variation on motte and bailey argument, except that they don’t retreat from the original wording. They pretend that everything is ok now that their true meaning is “understood”. The outrageous statement or slogan continues to have an emotional impact.
I got purged from a leftist space once for not lambasting a man on the spurious accusation by a woman. Wasn’t even salacious: she thought he was laughing at her when he was laughing at something else. He’d been an upstanding member of the group since its inception while she’s been there for like three weeks.
The argument was that not doing whatever she wanted was misogyny. It really didn’t get deeper than that.
I would consider myself a leftist (at least, I lean towards leftism). I will never forget when I tweeted a mocking comment about Vaush’s horrendous take on evolution. He had claimed that because the brain was in the skull, it wasn’t affected by the sun, wind, or environment. It was “insulated” from environmental factors that cause genetic change.
In response, my replies were filled with leftists calling me a race realist who thinks Black people are genetically inferior. Apparently, Vaush had made this point in a debate about race realism, and because this obviously incorrect point was made in an argument against race realism, I was accused of being a race realist for pointing out how absurd it was.
I think I hate most people on the left. They don't particularly care for the truth is what I gather.
“I think I hate most people on the left.”
If you hate most people on the left, wouldn’t you be better off at minimum in the center-left, if not in fact (most of us here think that if you’re sharp you’ll come around eventually.. 😏) all the way to the classical liberal/libertarian view?
If nothing else, you’ll find you are a happier person.
Just my two bits; take it FWIW.
Another valuable post.
I've been in a situation where I had to "sanewash" before but I didn't have the experience I have now to recognise and face the issue.
And when it became too much and I couldn't keep supporting such toxicity, I ended up banned from the group.
Interesting. Thanks for the advice. I'm pretty far leftist, but I'm not on Twitter. so I've avoided a lot of this. But I do agree that there are many in the left who I see as temperamentally a bit insane.
Certainly I hate Stalin more than Mitt Romney.
But I think this dynamic exists in most ideological groups. For example, there are social conservatives who are very invested in the idea that what they prefer is normal and mainstream, but there are also those who relish the idea that they are the counterculture.
Within libertarianism, you will find advocates who present themselves as very normal and tend to see it as common sense that people would like government off their backs. But there are also many who view libertarianism as a revolutionary politic and often partake in counter-cultural living, engaging in liberal use of drugs, non-monogamy, etc cetera.
I think a surprising amount of this is mostly based on personality differences, amplified by the deleterious effects of social media that you describe. Regardless, I take your advice graciously and I will work on resisting the urge to sane wash when I feel it.
“But I think this dynamic exists in most ideological groups.”
Without claiming that there is zero percent of this on the non-left - which would of course be patently false - there is MUCH MUCH less of it.
Partly because lacking control of institutions like the media, social media, and academia, those not on the left find it harder to “cancel” others even if they were so inclined.
Partly because most Americans not on the left continue to value free speech.
And there are serval other reasons as well.
(Though P.S. there is surely more of this dynamic even on the non-left in the run-up to a general election, for what should be fairly obvious reasons.)
a certain elision here between “the left” and “the extremely online campus activist left” no? like all ideologies leftism is capable of degenerating into conformism but i don’t think eg the brenner debate was a question of social proof. (you might consider that a minute difference surrounding an obscure bit of theory; i think the origin of capitalism is probably more significant than squabbles over slogans.) you can read the nlr and find a lot of real, substantive disagreement over questions of ends and strategy. most glaringly, though, it’s simply not true that the outgroup for the left is conservatives. conservatives occupy the position of isis, ie bad but not really relevant; the real outgroup is always other leftists. if you’re a trotskyite your entire identity is rooted in not being a stalinist; if you’re a demsoc your entire identity is rooted in not being an anarkiddie. “punching left” is absolutely possible: one of the most potent political slurs is to call someone an “ultraleftist.” there’s a lot about leftist political culture that’s deeply unhealthy but i think you misdiagnose much of it here.
I certainly did not claim to be talking about all leftists--I wouldn't have you in mind, for instance, or Chomsky, and I Chomsky is one of the ~5 people that has most influenced me.
Personally, I would hold that the outgroup for leftists is usually 'liberals'. While leftist infighting memes have a venerable history, I would say quite a lot of leftists out there don't really cleanly perceive differences between different leftist groups that haven't been drilled into them like say, the concept of tankies, and tend to see most leftist infighting as arbitrary discourse as opposed to campist fights.
This has a lot to do with my position that "the extremely online campus activist left" should be who "leftist" refers to because they're the primary representative for the idea. And I think most of this faction probably barely understands the difference between socdems and demsocs (which admittedly is a funny sentence to normal people but we both know the difference is very real)
i think every movement probably contains large numbers of people who don’t really understand anything about what they’re supposed to believe. if they’re more visible on the left, it’s probably because the left and its institutions have historically put a greater emphasis on internal democracy than other movements. but tbh now everyone is online i think that gap’s basically closed: you can see that basically nobody of any political orientation has the faintest idea what they’re talking about.
i still don’t believe these people are the primary representative of the left, though. primary representative where? for whom? online, sure, but a lot of politics does not actually happen online. there are still labour unions, there are political parties, there are institutions that aren’t primarily concerned with furries in videogames or whatever. again, those institutions have a lot of problems, but they’re different to the problems you describe, which strike me as a product of social media far more than the left.
What I wanted to say but always feels awkward to phrase in the first comment, is I want to distinguish "the left" and "leftists." I think "leftist" should essentially be reserved for the online cohort, because they're the only people who I see use the term leftist. I have known people in real life labour unions who call themselves leftists, but invariably, it's been because of how online they are, and their union participation is just downstream of being online too. Likewise, watching real life institutions like the DSA and other groups in practice fill up with younger activists has shown to me how many of their priorities are driven by Online as well.
Naturally on the other hand, "the left" can also include the normal committed unionists at the unions who wouldn't be able to tell you what the A stands for in LGBTQIA (but then again, that wouldn't make them any different to 2016 Tumblr), or otherwise people who I don't think should count as leftists. But "leftist" I believe should be reserved for that online cohort because a) they are the only people who still meaningfully use leftist, b) they have totally monopolized the usage in the first place, and c) anyone else who could be usefully described by the term leftist usually has a better, more specific label that can be used, whereas the vague, incoherent group only has 'leftist'.
So we're supposed to be flailing our fists leftward at... who exactly? The barista with the Che Guevara tattoo, fomenting revolution one soy latte at a time? That guy at the end of the bar muttering about the proletariat, whose idea of seizing the means of production is hogging the karaoke machine?
Look, if someone clinches a Democratic nomination for dog catcher - let alone actual office - on a platform of "Abolish the Police and Rewrite History with Stalin as the Good Guy," I'll be first in line to start throwing rhetorical jabs. I might even spring for a "Punching Left" gym membership. Until then, I'll save my energy for problems that actually exist outside of Twitter's fever dreams.
So while we're all frantically searching for leftists to punch, the right's got a former president right there, front and center, putting on a showcase of punchable moments that would make Muhammad Ali say, "Whoa, pace yourself."
Some are useless baristas, many end up as the HR managers of your workplace.
My workplace might have an HR manager, but I have never met or heard from them. I am a union member and work on a ferry, if you have some sort of cushier job you might have a different experience.
In any political camp, there are people that have a well considered program or range of possibilities in mind, and those that are confident that someone else on their side has.
With regards to police abolition, you don't appear to be aware of the simple fact that investigation, prosecution, and the process of law all occurred for many centuries before the invention of the police. Police are neither necessary nor sufficient for a functioning justice system. While people on the left are not typically advocating a return to thief-takers etc. there is no need to equivocate justice with a historically contingent set of institutions. Police perform a lot of functions (which aren't all the same in every country) and these could be split up in various ways.
“The purpose of a system is what it does.”
The results of the defund the police crowd having influence in public policy is that police are defunded and discouraged from policing. Theoretical alternative systems of law enforcement are something that the defund the police crowd only reluctantly trots out in response to criticism and usually just involve ways to create more jobs for their demographic. If they were really interested in creating a better alternative system of justice, rather than embracing the rampant criminality of the criminals they already worship as heroes, then this alternative system would be front and center. It would be the name that defines their chanting.
>With regards to police abolition, you don't appear to be aware of the simple fact that investigation, prosecution, and the process of law all occurred for many centuries before the invention of the police.
Do you suggest a return to Thief-Takers, Outlawry, Exile, and Avengers of Blood?
Thank you for explaining some of my older posts in a much more readable way - but I'd like to actually nuance a certain point. I don't think that for Leftists, the outgroup is "conservatives" - I think it's "liberals", and I think it's become that way more and more over time. Some leftists spaces portray conservatives as a subset of "liberals", but conservatives are virtually the "ISIS" fargroup to leftists vs the liberals they hate. And liberal is often effectively just another word for normie. It's ordinary people who are not radical and dismiss radicalism out of hand that earn more ire online, even if the same people talking about how much liberals are scum are the ones who'll go be friendly to their liberal coworkers later.
I also want to explain better at some point the way I see overlapping left-spectrum social circles, and in particular, about how progressive overlap with but aren't totally in leftist groups, but I've got a lot more work to do to make that post readable.
“I don't think that for Leftists, the outgroup is ‘conservatives"’ - I think it's ‘liberals’,”
Given how Bentham has defined the term Leftist here, I think I agree with you.
But then the far more interesting question is: why do “liberals” (the rest of the folks left of center on the political spectrum, who mostly/entirely vote for Democrats) refuse to punch left AT ALL?
Because THEIR outgroup is “conservatives”??
That would explain why they are somewhat reluctant to punch left, I’d concur. But it would not explain their virtually complete refusal to do so.
You are still leaving something important out with this claim. I’m very curious to hear your response though.
The reason why liberals don't punch left is because they don't know about leftists.
That's it! They don't know about them! That's why I have to struggle to define the term constantly, even in places that should know about them in detail by now because they spend a lot of time dunking on them. The mainstream use of "leftist" is by conservatives trying to describe liberals. The average liberal is so politically disengaged with online discourse that they're just not aware leftists really exist. They might be vaguely aware of the concept of a "Bernie Bro". They've probably heard about Campus Protests. But they just don't know about them overall. And yes, their outgroup is conservative.
There is a second explanation, and it's the same as the one I explained in my original post about Defunding The Police, which is that for some people - especially younger and more progressive people - their social graph overlaps too much with leftists to comfortably punch left.
“ The mainstream use of "leftist" is by conservatives trying to describe liberals.”
Speaking only for myself, I now use the term leftist to describe anyone left of center because a) I refuse to use the word “liberal” since most of what’s happening on the left is decidedly il-liberal, and b) it is analogous - and imo much more reasonable - to the MSM and those on the left referring to everyone right of Susan Collins as “right wing”.
I just don't think this is good practice. The most illiberal people on the left are people who hate liberals - leftist. Even if they weren't, I would still say "separate liberals and leftists and just use the words they choose for themselves", because they're the accurate words.
You do you.
“Liberal” is no longer an accurate word to describe the things that so many people on the left [even leaving out the ones YOU call “leftists”] believe in and defend: censorship, depraved oppressor-oppressed pro-Hamas support, children being able to consent to irreversible surgeries, blatant disregard for the rule of law re: immigration, etc.
So much of what the left advocates for is so il-liberal that imo it is Orwellian to still use the label “liberal” to describe them.
And I don’t think conservative is an accurate word in the abstract and detached sense for a lot of conservatives, and I just don’t care or think it matters. It’s what they call themselves and what everyone recognizes them as. Also, almost no actual liberals support anything to do with Hamas as the polls show, and the same goes for the surgeries thing you’ve mentioned. I don’t feel compelled to read the rest of the comment.
Well, your second explanation is at least an explanation. Though not a complete one.
Your first one is not at all. It’s an explanation perhaps as to why they don’t “punch at ‘leftists’”, but it’s not at all an explanation as to why they don’t punch “to the left”.
Your 2nd explanation leaves out why liberals/moderate Dems used to be willing to criticize their own left flank but no longer are.
Again, they're genuinely unaware that such a flank exists. At all. I had at least several arguments like this on Twitter over Chappell Roan, with a lot of people assuming her lack of endorsement of Kamala could only mean she was a closet conservative, when Chappell Roan is the most leftist girl I've ever seen.
You are completely ignoring MY point.
The people you label “liberals” are very aware that many SJWs exist. That you suggest otherwise is absurd.
Even if I granted your claim that those “liberals” aren’t aware that what you call leftists (ex-SJWs) exist. That is likely true about SOME of those “liberals”, but not of others of them.
Of course, I gladly grant you they don’t know the details of the various players within the leftists, or how they argue with each other.
But to claim that most “liberals” are not aware of the existence of their left flank is absurd.
And that’s ignoring that “liberals” refuse to even denounce AOC or most of the rest of the Squad (with the rare exception of Ilan Omar).
Are you claiming that most “liberals” are not aware of the Squad?!?
When *any* suggestion to rein in police (abolish qualified immunity e.g.) is characterized by pro-policers as “abolishing the police! (as we’ve known them)”, then yeah, we “leftists” are going to say ok yeah, “abolish” the police then. You are writing as if there is only one side “abusing” rhetoric.
"They call for defunding the police, while aggressively insisting that you’re some sort of rube if you take that to mean that they don’t want the police to be funded"
That's just literally true: let X be the current funding, I'm sure there is some Y s.t. 0<Y<X. It's basic logic, not sane-washing.
As for "from the river to the sea", the current Likud charter reads "from the sea to the Jordan". So, if for some reason you only ever want to interpret that slogan as a call for genocide, ask yourself who your tax dollars have been founding since 2009. Alas, I find this example pretty instructive of the actual (or actually consequential) sane-washing going on here: plenty of reasonable centrists getting incensed about campus protestors but then rushing to assure us that no, Israel is absolutely not pursuing the policies they are pursuing, the n videos of Israeli officials proudly displaying their war crimes don't represent Israel conduct, their sitting ministers don't represent the Israeli govt, the settlers protected and aided by the IDF are just rogue elements, etc
I was going to post this literal point, but you beat me to the punch: the Likud charter literally calls for ‘absolute sovereignty from the sea to the river Jordan’. (The current Likud prime minister is the longest serving prime minister in Israeli history). I’m kind of flabbergasted that a liberation slogan that takes critical aim at the literal dominant ideology of the state of Israel, in its own language, (“freedom of group x” vs “sovereignty over group x”) is lazily written off as evidence of genocidal intent. (Eg “what they *really* mean is…”).
Binationalism very well be untenable, practically and ideologically, but this is paradigmatic if the sort of double standard that sweeps the problem under the rug rather than addresses the reality of it’s context.
Yeah exactly, it's pretty obvious unless one tries really hard to not get it.
Also I'm not a big fan of indigeneity as a concept, but the way Israeli talk about indigeneity and "Arab invaders" is treated as a totally legitimate discussion of historical grievances while Palestinian talk about indigeneity and "settlers" is automatically decried as blood and soil ideology can drive you crazy if you observe it from a distance
Going from X to Y is generally unpopular and supporters dance rhetorically around that
I think that’s the rub though. The main thrust of the defund movement is to take critical aim at the unpopularity of moving from X to Y, and challenge it. It’s also unpopular to not “support the troops” or “invest in defense”, but does this mean that all wars are justified or immensely inflated military budgets shouldn’t be critically examined.
And in any care, the point still holds: defund = Y not defund = 0 directly addressed the claim made in this essay and charges it as a false dichotomy. Regardless of “popularity”
The goal of the movement was to force X to go to Y regardless of how unpopular it was, by terrorizing institutions until they complied. This tactic works, but also makes the perpetrators look like psychotic ne’er do wells.
The singular goal? From what I understand, criticism of notoriously bloated police budgets range from moderate reformers to radical abolitionists, and as far as I know, it was a relatively decentralized movement. God almighty, even many police unions want psych calls relegated to a different response ecosystem with different governance structures, and presumably different budgets. The problem is how to get for A to C without reductive, simplistic overreactions. I mean, my god: they’re eating PETS in Ohio! Quick! Give Mayberry, OH PD a fucking tank! Meow! 🐱
And actually, to your point: I’m not sure it did work - the radical nonsense of their overreach was embarrassing imo. I think radical public defenders were recalled?, which is almost unheard of in local politics. And there is a deep aversion to anything remotely critical of police now across the political spectrum. It’s politically toxic. I think critics of police had genuine cultural capitol ~2019-22 and they blew it on the whims of ideologically fanatical children who hijacked the bullhorn and advocated style over substance.
If you were chanting defund the police at a rally, you were enabling the fanatical children.
More generally, such rallies serve as a way for the fanatical children to express their will, so giving them any support should be considered with that in mind.
By the way, not that it matters terribly but I do agree with you in a lot of ways. Are you familiar with Patrick Sharkey by chance? He does a lot of really great work on this stuff, and I really like his approach, fwiw
You mean kind of how like criticizing the Iraq war in 2003 was “hating the troops”? It’s that simple, huh?
You’re either with Good or with Evil.
Right vs Wrong.
Friend vs Enemy.
Got it. 😉
I agree with this article, but I think there’s another explanation of the reluctance to punch left that it doesn’t consider. Leftists may feel that even if a particular lefty talking point is wrong, it is directionally correct.
“Leftists may feel that even if a particular lefty talking point is wrong, it is directionally correct.”
Exactly!
Like being Pro-Hamas, in the wake of the Oct 7th murder, rape, and kidnapping rampage.
After all, based on oppressor-oppressed ideology, the BiPoC Palestinians are entitled to overthrow their rich white capitalist evil Jewish oppressors by any means necessary, correct?
This is why about half of 18-24 year olds (meaning a FAR higher percentage of left-of-center people in that age group) choose Back Hamas - go look it up for yourself in the October and December 2023 Harvard-Harris polls - and 29% even said “Back Hamas” when given a 3rd choice of “stay out of it” in the aftermath of October 7th.
Because of course backing Hamas is directionally correct. And so leftists do so, and do so *virtuously*.
It feels like you’re angry with me but I have no clue why
Not angry with you at all.
I think you made an *excellent* point.
Of course, my example shows how leftists indeed follow your logic even when the results of it are immoral to most of us.
Support for irreversible gender-altering surgeries and chemical procedures on minors whom leftists and the rest of us consider unable to give consent to sexual relations with an adult or most other things is another example where leftists refuse to “punch left” because they believe that support for “trans rights” is directionally correct, so they say nothing about unconscionable actions by monstrous doctors and healthcare administrators.
In the UK there has been a backlash pushing back at this, but so far, not in the U.S.
Because leftists here won’t push back against their own radicals, since the radicals are “directionally correct.”
I have to say I found this article by mistake and if feels a little like walking into an intellectual padded cell.
What on earth does that mean?
Any reason you say the left’s antagonists are moderate conservatives? Seems to me they’re much more irked by moderate liberals, since they’re seen by other outsiders as ostensibly being on the same side
This is closer to the mark but still not exactly right. It’s “progressive” liberals who occupy the apostate slot. Moderate liberals and moderate conservatives are considered basically equivalent.
Fundamentally, I don’t like to puff up this type of scene - the group of bloggers and writers that this stack and others orbit, because I don’t want to contribute to even a positive group connotation. I’d always rather the discussion talk about the ideas themselves, instead of attacking or even praising the individuals involved.
I will break this personal rule one time, I definitely appreciate how many times I’ve been able to explain disagreement and not be attacked or adhomed. I think this has happened only 1 times out of all of the times I’ve voiced disagreement. I think that’s a very positive reflection of the community at large, conceding that it is just a personal anecdote.
Why is it not crazy for Likud to say From the River to the Sea and not be accused of genocidal intent?
"The right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is eternal and indisputable… therefore, Judea and Samaria will not be handed to any foreign administration; between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty. —Likud Party Platform, 1977"
This was a Soviet propaganda technique. Someone made an outrageous and incendiary claim. When anyone pointed out that the claim wasn’t true, they would pretend that the words didn’t mean what anyone sensible would understand them to mean.
It’s a variation on motte and bailey argument, except that they don’t retreat from the original wording. They pretend that everything is ok now that their true meaning is “understood”. The outrageous statement or slogan continues to have an emotional impact.