[dude with glasses in a communist t-shirt, arguing] I’m the only leftist here, your opinions are TRASH
[dude holding a theory book on smug, arguing] Read theory you losers, you’re all WRONG
[dude in an anarchist hoodie, arguing] Nuh-uh, I’m the only leftist here, you’re SHITLIBS
[the three dudes are now caught in a cartoon fight, glasses gone flying, punches everywhere, while a firing squad of nazis are targeting them with rifles]
[a confused nazi asks] Why… why are they still arguing?
I believe you are missing the forest for the trees. First, I acknowledge your examples are separate ideologies.
That concept also applies to the right… social conservatives, right-libertarians, and neoliberal ideologies are equally separate. However, those practitioners have no qualms about banding together to suppress dissent (or until such time they are the only voices).
Where the left leaning practitioners are unable to do so, they will be forever tyrannized by the banded majority.
To put it more succinctly, the enemy of my enemy is my friend (when freedom is on the line).
This. They act like they’re giving up fringe beliefs to keep the consensus more left. It’s isolating and alienating
It does help that the overarching theme of the right is centered around taking as much for yourself as possible and not caring about the collateral damage. The right is full of single-issue voters who might, say, not actually explicitly hate gay people but who also don’t give a shit about their rights and safety if it means they can keep their guns. The left, almost definitionally, needs to consider the complexity inherent in not being able to ignore the effects that any given policy might have on others and this means that there is so much more opportunity for conflict.
You’re correct, of course, I’m just pointing out the difference such that it might help attack the issue from a better perspective.
There’s the nuance the original post relies on ignoring. But it’s supposed to be a humorous joke-post anyway.
You are assuming no ideological changes of opinion are possible or useful.
People that vote right wing aren’t better off just because they voted that way. They’re not tyrants oppressing the left, they’re fellow citizens who get oppressed just as much. Their vote for the winning team doesn’t win them anything.
The solution to right-wing banding isn’t left wing banding, it’s disbanding the right wing by showing its voters that they’re being had. And that takes a cohesive and functional alternative.
Leftist “infighting” is healthy. It’s a process of discovering these alternatives, and it regularly churns out consensus issues such as consent-based queer rights, veganism, not funding genocide, and how the US government is now fascist.
Over time these issues get normalized through leftist action until liberal centrists rewrite the histories as if they are responsible for producing them through liberal democracy.
Daily reminder that the DNC does not acknowledge that the US government is now fascist. Uniting under a common front doesn’t mean we fight fascism together, it means we canvas for votes until we’re black bagged one by one.
Ultimately it is important to vote in every election for a candidate that has a good chance of actually getting in to represent you, but that is just one day every year or two. Everything else should be dedicated to finding and testing these alternatives.
K.