I've discussed this before, but for the neolibs in the back who still insist on standing on their self righteousness, I feel a need to really hammer it home.
The Jimmy Dore left exists, primarily as a response to the 2016 Clinton campaign. Clinton came in acting entitled to the position of president, and basically the propaganda campaign surrounding her seemed more about bullying progressives and doing damage control for alienating them, than actually appealing to them.
This led to a faction of the left, myself included in that, deciding that they had to vote third party in order to punish the democrats for behaving this way. That the only way the democrats would learn their lesson was if they lost the election. And they did.
But rather than learn their lesson, the democrats doubled down, blamed Russia, attacked both Trump supporters and green voters, and engaged in McCarthyism. Like always, this didn't push people back into line, it just alienated people even more. So now in response to that, many people, myself included, moved even further left. And to get away from the constant neoliberal barrage, we established our own communities and discussed politics among ourselves with like minded people.
But, somewhere along the line, something went wrong. A large portion of these guys ended up radicalizing in the four years between 2016 and 2020, and socialist rhetoric started becoming commonplace. You even saw it with me to some extent in my 2018-2019 posts. Because the establishment was so hostile, these guys went full on anti establishment in the worst of ways, they basically started adopting black pilled marxist views of the world, believing no change could come from within. Many of them stopped listening to establishment narratives at all, and just assumed that whatever they said was always false. THey rejected russiagate, and over time started becoming more conspiratorial and anti intellectual. Honestly, they started sounding like left wing versions of Trump voters, and some went so far down that path they became bona fide trump supporters, strangely enough.
The fact is, this all happened because the neoliberal establishment was so hostile to progessives. And a lot of neolibs still insist on sitting on their high horse and crapping on the left for their radicalized behavior, when they themselves are what caused it. If democrats did the right thing and appealed to bernie voters in 2016, this wouldnt have happened. Had they run a fair primary, this wouldnt have happened. Had they tried to earn their vote, this wouldn't have happened.
I don't necessarily agree with this radicalized left. I have my own ideology, and quite frankly, looking back on my 2016 posts recently, my views have remained, in the long term, remarkably consistent on the issues. But I do understand it.
Now, why do I keep referring to Jimmy dore on this topic? Again, he's the most visible spokesperson for this faction of the left, and he is a lightning rod of controversy lately. But Dore essentially is one of these guys. He's a far leftist, who ends up becoming so anti intellectual and conspiratorial that he ends up defending the boogaloo boys and crap. And he's extremely emotional and angry in his condemnation of the establishment. Honestly, I've listened to him for a while, but stopped over the past year or so, because he (and his faction of the left) has gotten so extreme that I just can't stand to listen to him any more. His perspective is valid to some extent, but I feel like I'm rotting my brain if I listen to too much of it. But many people are falling in line behind him, and attacking the rest of the left, including people i agree with more than him, in their quest for purity.
Well, you see it from me being a more rational jimmy dore lite. I understand the anti etablishment mentality, and I also understand the calls for purity to some extent. I just think that there are reasonable limits to that and dore and his supporters are reaching the point on just becoming so extreme it's destructive.
But, for any neolib who reads this, I want you to know, this is your fault. This is Clinton's fault. This is the democratic establishment's fault. It's strange. The centrist faction is still so arrogant and high and mighty that they really dont understand how they created this whole problem in the first place. And their attitudes just make it worse. We cant win with left wing politics today. I feel like the biggest faction is still these centrists who just exude hostility to all things left and refuse to acknowledge the perspectives and feelings of the left and just demand total loyalty to their crappy party.
But the second biggest faction is the progressive left, and between the attacks on yang in his mayoral race, and the recent dore drama, it's getting to the point I feel like I need to also start critiquing the left. Unlike the neolibs, I understand how you guys feel, I even agree with the left like 70% of the time on substance. I think they go overboard on some things, but im generally much more in agreement wiith them than the center. I just think we need more than extreme ideological purity and lots of anger and emotion. We need sound policies, and we need to cast our nets wide enough to build a coalition to take on the establishment. Attacking Yang (and his supporters), and Kyle Kulinski (and his viewers) is not helping us. At all. It's just fragmenting the left further and stopping us from getting anything done.
I just felt like I had to explain this phenomenon to outsiders, as well as make an appeal to the left to cool their crap a bit.
No comments:
Post a Comment