I want to draw attention to the elephant in the room.

Leading up to the election, and perhaps even more prominently now, we’ve been seeing droves of people on the internet displaying a series of traits in common.

  • Claiming to be leftists
  • Dedicating most of their posting to dismantling any power possessed by the left
  • Encouraging leftists not to vote or to vote for third party candidates
  • Highlighting issues with the Democratic party as being disqualifying while ignoring the objectively worse positions held by the Republican party
  • Attacking anyone who promotes defending leftist political power by claiming they are centrists and that the attacker is “to the left of them”
  • Using US foreign policy as a moral cudgel to disempower any attempt at legitimate engagement with the US political system
  • Seemingly doing nothing to actually mount resistance against authoritarianism

When you look at an aerial view of these behaviors in conjunction with one another, what they’re accomplishing is pretty plain to see, in my opinion. It’s a way of utilizing the moral scrupulousness of the left to cut our teeth out politically. We get so caught up in giving these arguments the benefit of the doubt and of making sure people who claim to be leftists have a platform that we’re missing ideological parasites in our midst.

This is not a good-faith discourse. This is not friendly disagreement. This is, largely, not even internal disagreement. It is infiltration, and it’s extremely effective.

Before attacking this argument as lacking proof, just do a little thought experiment with me. If there is a vector that allows authoritarians to dismantle all progress made by the left, to demotivate us and to detract from our ability to form coalitions and build solidarity, do you really think they wouldn’t take advantage of it?

By refusing to ever question those who do nothing with their time in our spaces but try to drive a wedge between us, to take away our power and make us feel helpless and hopeless, we’re giving them exactly that vector. I am telling you, they are using it.

We need to stop letting them. We need to see it for what it is, get the word out, and remember, as the political left, how to use the tools that we have to change society. It starts with us between one another. It starts with what we do in the spaces that we inhabit. They know this, and it’s why they’re targeting us here.

Stop being an easy target. Stop feeding the cuckoo.

  • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.catEnglish
    1·
    1 day ago

    Okay, I’ll work on my solution for better conversation on the internet. I think I’ve spent enough time aiming to help you with reading comprehension for today.

    I said, “The Democrats can be ghouls who need replacement or foundational reform” and you spent like a short story’s worth of words screaming at me that the Democrats are ghouls who need replacement or foundational reform, and then when I tried for like the 10th time to express to you that you can calm down about expressing that like a street preacher shouting on a corner an inch from my face, you apparently heard “I agree with you about 100% of what you say and have no disagreement with anything” even though you had previously picked up and explicitly disagreed with the part where I said that propaganda and media also had something to do with it.

    You seem like you are doing literal backflips to avoid the conversation of whether that propaganda is happening, in favor of just shrieking at me that the Democrats carry some blame for losing the election, no matter how many times I attempt to express that I, also, think that.

    I have literally no idea why you are that way. I hope you come out of it someday. Let me know if you do, and we can talk about the propaganda thing.

    • anarchiddy@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      1·
      1 day ago

      Democrats are ghouls who need replacement or foundation reform

      I was saying AMERICA needed reform, that democrats are bleeding voters because they’ve lost faith that foundational reform is possible.

      You seem like you are doing literal backflips to avoid the conversation of whether that propaganda is happening

      It is happening, but even if it wasnt I think the material conditions would be doing the same thing anyway. I don’t think its the reason dems lost. A clear difference, I now know.

      shrieking at me that the Democrats carry some blame for losing the election, no matter how many times I attempt to express that I, also, think that.

      I’m telling you they carry all the blame. That even if the cards were stacked in their favor they’d still lose, if they don’t propose foundational change.

      Idk how else I could have communicated that without any less emphasis, but ‘shrieking’ is a bit hyperbolic.

      I have literally no idea why you are that way. I hope you come out of it someday

      I hope dems come out of it someday.