Pre 2016 and post 2016 almost feel like different eras at this point. Before 2016, I feel like, at least online, the direction of the left was pretty apparent. There was a shift toward more progressive policies, and a rejection of the neoliberal direction the democratic party had taken since the 1990s, and possibly since the 1970s. I saw a groundswell of support of pissed off millennials who largely wanted bernie for president, but then the democrats came along and told us that hillary was what we were going to get, and that we had to fall in line. And, in retrospect, it almost felt like a tower of babel moment. The left seemed fairly united, but then because of screwery from above, all of the sudden everyone was infighting and whatever energy seemed to be gathering around this new left wing coalition dissipated.
From there, this emerging coalition seemed to split into two camps: those who supported hillary clinton and the democratic party, and those who did not. Those who supported the democrats fell in line behind hillary clinton and later joe biden, and often lectured and talked down to those who didn't much like the neolibs would, but then you would have this faction of bernie supporters who just wouldn't accept that. They were principled. They wanted something the democratic party didnt offer, and much like me, they became bitter at the direction the democratic party took.
During the trump era, these online arguments intensified, and the two camps doubled down. I largely was on the side of the anti establishment progressive faction, as long time readers would know. However, by 2019-2020 I could tell something was off. I saw more people talking about literal socialism, and when Andrew Yang came onto the scene, with a platform akin to my views all along, suddenly they were screaming about how he was a capitalist. Same with warren, quite frankly. I get that bernie was probably one of the best 2020 candidates, and I understand peoples' loyalty to bernie. I only shifted to yang as I had a specific affinity for his politics, but just how people were talking was offputting. When people talked about socialism, I thought they just meant it in a "government that does things" sort of way. Like they were bringing social democracy to America and calling it socialism. That's what Bernie seemed to be doing. His policies seemed like Europe or FDR's second bill of rights. The most "socialist" thing about it is worker coops. Otherwise he just sounded like your typical angry left wing populist out of the 1930s like Huey Long or FDR or something. Which I respect despite obvious disagreements and see as a very american left wing political tradition.
But it seemed like somewhere people started moprhing into what we call leftists and tankies, and these guys often purity test and attack ALL "liberals" or "reformists". They sound more like the socialist green party with candidates like Howie Hawkins or Cornel West. I'm going to be honest, I didn't sign up for literal socialism when I supported the left and bernie's campaign, I mostly wanted social democracy or human centered capitalism, maybe, like bernie, a little market socialism at best.
It really does seem like actual bona fide social democrats or people like me (social libertarians) barely exist. Everyone has either become a biden supporting lib, or they've gone full on leftist, but the middle ground between those two doesnt seem to exist.
THe same thing happened on social issues. When I joined the left, it was through the atheist movement. Now, there have been aspects of the atheist movement that were very left leaning, ya know, feminism, critical theory, social justice, etc. They often clashed with the more traditional elements of the community, who were stereotypically white male, and there were some controversies. Still, most of us respected them for their convictions and saw them as potential allies.
Well, over the years, these guys got more aggressive and demanding, and a similar bifurcation occurred over social issues between moderate social liberals who just basically were mildly libertarian, and the social justice obsessed. People who seemed reasonable in 2014 suddenly became radicals by the trump years. Often times they became socialists and economic leftists as well as social leftists, but they often embraced a toxic form of social justice politics that I just couldn't follow.
I remember first really noticing how unhinged these guys got in early 2017, when they started talking about "punching nazis" and supporting people doing violence against trumpers. I realized "crap, this is not good", and very quickly distanced myself from them. To some extent, the feeling was mutual, as a huge friend group centered around politics had shifted from being reasonable liberals in the early-mid 2010s to this new radical form of leftism. They often treated me as a pariah for...having the views I always held. I didn't radicalize with them, and they often looked down on me for it. And we went our own separate ways after that. Once again, the ones I remain in contact with became far more radical than before, although not openly supporting literal violence.
Honestly, I didn't sign up for that either. But now I notice the left is so left that now they're eating their own whenever anyone differs with them on social issues. Just look at the Vaush vs Ana Kasperian thing. Yikes. I was gonna write an article on that, but to sum it up, I kind of sympathize with Ana in believing that the left has gotten too left and they're treating dissenters unfairly. But as I said, there is a liberal-leftist divide on the left and I'm...definitely a liberal there.
Honestly, this seems brought on by the trump administration, but I can't help but believe that Clinton polarized the left this way in 2016 by leaning into identity politics and critical theory style politics, and using them to divide the left, bashing people like me as bernie bros for being...white male and wanting universal healthcare.
I really think that these changes were caused by 2016, and this radicalization occurred because of the failures of the democrats there and in 2020. It seems like, there's a growing contingent of people who recognize that change is not going to come the legitimate way, so they've become radicals pushing for it to come the illegitimate way, through large scale revolutionary change. This is dangerous, but as the middle of the left gets hollowed out, I can't help if this is JFK's words in practice, that "those who make peaceful transition impossible make violent revolution inevitable." In other words, failing to bend enough to give the people who want change, change, causes people to lose their faith in the system and become more and more radical. Because the democrats would not cede ground to Bernie in 2016, now those who have not been absorbed into the democrats' ecosystem have radicalized and are now calling for revolution and literal socialism. meanwhile the social spectrum has also polarized, with the social justice movement replacing the atheist movement as the new left in the culture war, with more "old guard" atheists like me now being considered moderates.
Honestly, it scares me. And I also find this very dismaying. This is why on social issues I identify strongly with the sane "center" these days, while on economics, I'm in this weird camp of political homelessness, disliking both leftists and mainstream libs, and wishing we could just have a sane movement in between those two. I admit as far as the non revolutionary left that still plays electoralism goes, I'm closer to them on economics, but even then, I still think there needs to be a rethinking of this left and to shift away from the same old idea of jobs and toward UBI and leisure.
Honestly, I just hate where the country has gone since 2016. We havent made much positive progress on the fronts we wanted to make, we've regressed in some ways, and both sides have lost their fricking minds. I kinda wish we could just do a reset except this time the dems give bernie a chance and go from there. I bet history would play out a lot more positively if bernie won in 2016.
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