So, we all know that I've had this stance for a while that the left needs to back off of identity politics and wokeness in order to push a more working class oriented political agenda. My own political ideology can be summed up as being pro working class, and libertarian on social issues. That's what I've been for for years, and I have no intention on changing that.
But today, we saw a poll out suggesting that many on the right will prioritize anti wokeness over pushing back against social security cuts. And this might lead to some suggesting that I would want to win those kinds of voters over. After all, any time I suggest the left drops wokeness, I get tons of fire back from them claiming that I wanna throw women, minorities, and trans people under the bus and they start going on about the nazbol vortex. For a while I said the nazbol vortex doesn't exist, but I do think that some segments of the bernie or bust left (and we know who I'm talking about) have gone in a weird direction like that. And I largely oppose them. Because they're nuts.
So, I want to actually clarify my position on this. As I saw it in 2016, there were a lot of voters who could have swung left from the republicans based on working class economic issues. it wasn't a huge amount, but they were a form of swing voter. In a sense, my origins coming to the left are based somewhat on this phenomenon. I am an ex right winger, who realized trickle down is full of crap, and who wanted to shift left on economics. I also shifted left culturally, but through the "new atheist" community, NOT wokeness. The woke people, I originally thought were like, conservative strawmen, but in retrospect, no, weirdos like that exist. And they are very offputting and alienating. It's not their POLICY POSITIONS for me that are the problem, it's the framing and the hyper fixation on those issues. And I know in a lot of swing states like PA, there was a time post great recession where the left could have just brought a ton of people over by pandering to working class issues. it's why obama won. But then in 2016 Hillary hyper emphasized woke cultural issues while ignoring class issues. And I would argue it cost her the election. Bernie would have won, but Hillary did not. Instead, some voters swung to Trump.
Now, I'm not saying these guys are all progressives. A lot of them aren't. But ultimately, a lot of Americans are self interested, and I think the great recession shifted them left where in 2016 we had an environment where they could've continued voting left if the dems stood for policies that helped them. The social policies wouldn't have mattered. The reason they did was because in 2016 Trump was anti PC and people loved it, and Hillary was TOO PC for her own good. And in the lack of the dems standing for anything, people voting for the anti PC candidate who at least promised to bring jobs back.
But, I do acknowledge that 2016 was potentially a realigning year, and since then, America has gone the wrong way. We've been focused on the wrong issues, and coalitions have already aligned. And if anything, some bernie types have gone over to right, and have abandoned left wing concerns altogether. So it's actually the opposite of what we wanted. Rather than bringing over some alienated right wingers to our side, we lost alienated left wingers to the right. Again, you know who I'm talking about and if you don't, it rhymes with Dimmy Jore and BayoftheWern. And the right wingers the dems ARE appealing to these days are these weirdo mitt romney and jogn kasich types who wants the dems to triangulate EVEN MORE to the center, claiming they're too extreme as they are. It's ridiculous. Our political coalitions are totally broken.
And while I dont like those centrist types AT ALL, I'm not really interested in bringing over the explicit anti woke people in the vein of donald trump and ron desantis. When I say I'm anti woke, it's that I want actual sane centrism on culture war stuff. I'm culturally left, but less in your face about it. I want people to be free do live as they want as long as they dont interfere with others. Anti woke rightoids are far right authoritarians. Full stop. They want to control peoples' lives and also how they think. They call for outright censorship of left wing ideas, and seem to be edging up to grossly mistreating the LGBT community. They're psychotic. They literally remind me of say, caesar's legion in fallout new vegas. Ya know, cray cray.
And if people care more about that kind of crazed censorship than about PROTECTING SOCIAL SECURITY, then we have lost those guys to the right, and they are no longer worth appealing to. I mean, the best I wanna offer to those guys is to deemphasize those issues and focus on ecnonomics more. But if they dont care about econ and just wanna wage a war on woke, screw them, let the "confederate" party have them. And before some right winger tells me hurr durr, dems were the party of confederates, yeah, google party realignments and the southern strategy.
The fact is, while I'm okay with people coming over to my side FOR ECONOMICS even if they hold personal anti woke views, I'm not interested in actually compromising left wing positions to psycho authoritarians. I'm just not gonna demand insane purity and demand everyone who dares come over for economics not hold some personal views that may be questionable.
I guess for me the line is this, if you're willing to stow your crappy views on social issues to come over on our side and to vote on economics, fine. But if you demand i be anti woke in the same way as you are, I'm gonna tell you to take a hike, potentially while sending you offensive rammstein/lindemann concert performances that overtly express leftie opinions on said social issues.
Again, my goal was always depolarization on cultural issues. Not "abandoning" them. I'm never gonna actually give up my convictions. I'm just going to shift a little bit to the center in terms of rhetoric as to NOT PISS PEOPLE OFF. The left has a habit of pissing people off and alienating them and driving them to the right. But if you're gonna be a far right authoritarian, Im more likely to support left wing positions unapologetically enough in my own way. Which STILL aint going to be enough for the leftist purity testers, but screw them too. I roll my way.
I just wanted to clarify my position on these issues. I know the far left likes to accuse me of wanting to abandon left wing positions and go full on nazbol vortex, but nah, I just wanted to win over some people who care about their economic livelihoods over the culture war. But if they are gonna prioritize the culture war from the right and not care about economic positions, well, I have no interest in going out of my way and pandering to them.
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