Look, it's been clear that I've been falling out with the left HARD this election cycle. Still, at the same time I've been trying to angle as being somewhat left myself. But yeah, just watching how some of these people are responding to Kamala Harris being the nominee now just makes me realize they're nuts.
A lot of the disagreements I'll mention here aren't new. I've ripped on them before, but yeah, I really gotta bring them up here.
1) Anti Electoralism
Really, I get it. In 2016, I was there. Bernie got screwed, and I felt a need to punish the democratic party that election cycle for it. I admit, the party hasn't changed a ton. They have, however, shifted left on policy enough to satisfy some basic demands of mine somewhat. I still admit that if we were in a safer election cycle where the republican candidate wasnt a fascist and the dems ran a full blown centrist like Andy Beshear or something, that I would likely just go third party and not look back. But, as long as they're trying to achieve some of my goals somewhat, and they're TRYING, even if it's not as far left as I want, I feel like I gotta try to reward that somewhat. As such, in 2024, the democrats are finally earning my vote with this Biden-Harris style of liberalism. Would I want something more progressive? Sure. But let's face it, I don't think the country would accept it. It's not the democratic party. The dems are already pushing left to where the overton window is right now. We can keep pushing, but we gotta be cautious and not overdo it or we lose to the right and risk backlash. That's just the electoral realities. Again, my protest votes were based on the fact that the democrats weren't even trying. They were literally treating us like crap and banking on the idea that we would support them anyway, it was an abusive relationship.
I admit the dems still do a lot of weird screwery and I don't condone that. But these "leftists" have gotten to a point where i could flat out tell people all the good things dems actually are doing and wanna do and they're just so far gone that nothing will get through to them. They're a lost cause, and I really don't feel like I have much in common with them any more.
2) "Socialism"
The big thing about these guys is that everything with them is "socialism." Socialism this, socialism that, capitalism bad. Nothing can save capitalism, blah blah blah.
Now, in all fairness, I still maintain a bit of an anti capitalist streak to my politics. if anything, the more I research into the history of it and I formulate my own views, the more I realize that yeah, to some extent capitalism is just evil. The system was literally designed to keep us in a constant state of precarity to force us to work to generate ever greater levels of growth that most of us never benefit from.
But...and this is where I diverge from these guys, my own vision for solving the problem diverges significantly here. These guys are burn it all down nothing is ever good enough. Meanwhile my own attitude differs from them. I do think liberalism can properly reform capitalism. And I don't even think capitalism is the core problem, forced labor is.
As such, you start moving toward a UBI, M4A, free college, housing plans, etc, you can win me over. And what are progressives doing? They're at least giving us some versions of some of those things. if anything their visions are more aligned with what "leftists' want with the green new deal and the like. You think that me, the anti work guy, wants a jobs program of all things? Please.
But, leftists gonna left, and they're gonna simultaneously claim nothing is ever good enough because it's not socialism, even as a candidate gives them a large portion of what they say they want. Just because they're not ideological socialists. It's baffling.
I even got banned from the anti work sub for these reasons. My great sin? "Right wing content". I dared admit things like maybe not all billionaires are inherently satan but that the system is the problem instead and they happen to be part of it, or that the housing situation could be solved by building more homes and sticking it to landlords ins't the solution, or that, maybe, god forbid, we can be for a basic income instead of a fricking JOB GUARANTEE. ON THE ANTI WORK SUB. Yeah, I'm still bitter over that one.
I'll say it, leftists poison everything they touch. Their cynicism and ideological extremism leads to levels of brainworms I can't even comprehend any more, and I'm just so done with them. They wanna scream into the void about that crap, so be it. But I'm gonna actually focus on improving peoples' lives, even if it doesn't solve the problems with the evil system overnight.
3) Wokeism
However, the left has an even bigger problem right now. It's what Jordan peterson calls the "woke mind virus, and while I don't like peterson on much of anything, as an ex atheist and someone who still considers myself a bit of a skeptic and free thinker, I would agree, wokeism is a problem. It's a militant ideology that tends to spread in a way similar to fundamentalist religion, and whose ideology cannot be questioned. And leftists are infected with it to insane degrees.
There's nothing wrong with the ideas per se. Just as there isnt necessarily anything wrong with marxism in the right doses. But the thing is, these guys tend to take those views and make them their entire ideology with no counterbalances in their perspective. And at the end of the day, it just leads to a circlejerk of uselessness, a rejection of liberal ideals, and just this weird grievance politics which is use to bully people and push them around. Which brings me to the next point.
3.5) The Empathy circlejerk
In moderation there's nothing wrong with empathy. but due to wokeism and it being an underlying unifying ideology for the left, it's very quickly weaponized. "Care" is the only metric that matters. You have to care about the right causes. You have to show your support. Drop what you're doing and support the right things. And if you don't, you're a terrible person. Thankfully as an ex conservative I'm inoculated against such emotional blackmail and I don't care if people think I'm a crappy person. You can't shame a person with no shame. And if I have to be somewhat of a jerk to be effective at maintaining my own ideals and my own conscience without being manipulated then so be it. Btw, this is also why appeals to "vote blue no matter who" fell flat in previous cycles too. The dems thought they could use social justice politics and shaming to bully me into voting for them, and I'm just too strong willed for that. Appeal to me the right way, or you don't get my support, period.
4) The "anti imperialism" thing
Okay, so I'm going to level with lefties here. I hate the idea of imperialism. I hate the idea of having to oppress others overseas in order to further our own foreign policy goals. I actually, in terms of ideals, kind of agree with the left here.
BUT...the world isn't always fair. Morality is something that can exist primarily within states, but it breaks down between them. Because between them, you get lawlessness. You get the rule of the strongest and might makes right. And we have to be the one with the biggest stick, or whoever has the biggest stick will come after us instead.
And once we have the biggest stick, THEN we can afford to be multilateral and use soft power and promote a "rules based order" and the like. because we're the ones who have the stick to enforce it. And that's where I'm at. And what does that sound like? Liberalism. The idea that liberal democracies look out for each other and protect each other, and our ideals and way of life from those who think differently and who quite frankly, are the "barbarians at the gates." The powers of the east are authoritarian. They're autocracies, they're dictatorships. It's just the raw exertion of power for them. You have no rights, you have no freedoms, you do what we say or else. Life is cheap. Life is expendable. You should give your life for the glory of the country in these parts of the world. And then, you got the religious crazies, like Islamic extremism in the middle east. it's amazing how so many on the left fear christian nationalism, while being so soft on islam, which is just as bad or worse.
But yeah, you get where I'm going with this. Due to the nature of the world, I'm a liberal through and through, and consider myself the "reluctant imperialist". It's not that I like imperialism, but again, the west and its way of life must be protected from foreign adversaries. Sometimes this, in practice, looks morally questionable. Sometimes it leads to crazy moral dilemmas and trolly problems that leftists dont have the stomach to handle.
And maybe they end up just somehow being so anti west with their analyses they end up simping for our enemies. And cheering on the wrong side in various conflicts. Being more sympathetic to Russia than Ukraine, or PRC over Taiwan, or Palestine over Israel.
Btw, I do think there is room to criticize Israel in my worldview. They are doing things that quite frankly, run afoul of our liberal values, the left are right on that. But do they overemphasize the problem and hyperfocus on it to unhealthy degrees out of their weird tendency to identify more with our enemies than our allies? YES! It's baffling to me. Even if you cant in good conscience support Israel, supporting Palestinian nationalism is just insane to me. But yet, many leftists are doing this. And they're STILL protesting in places like NYC. And they're STILL calling Biden "Genocide Joe", and they're still making this their ride or die issue of 2024 even if most of them probably arent gonna vote dems even if they do what is asked anyway. It's just baffling.
Conclusion
But yeah. If I havent already, and perhaps I have, it really is time I put some distance between myself and these people. They're taking a bunch of crazy pills. They mightve had a point in 2016, the dems did screw us, but honestly, I'm gonna be frank, I identify far more with the progressive lane of the democratic party a la AOC, Bernie Sanders, Ro Khanna, etc, than actual online progressives. The weirdo leftists seem to poison everything they touch and are a massive liability. I'll support progressive leaders within the democratic party still, and even some outside of it like Yang, but uh...yeah. I think I'm done with the far left. I feel like I'm just becoming most hostile to them over time and listening to commentators I used to agree with on the left like Cenk Uygur, Kyle Kulinski, and others, I just feel like I don't fit with these people any more. Am I necessarily becoming more moderate? Eh, perhaps a little, I'd say a little more PRAGMATIC. I mean, my ideas, ideology, and convictions are about the same, but I'm a little more willing to compromise, and right now, I'm finding progressive democrats far more appealing and in line with me than the weirdo leftist whackos and their crazy views.
And that's why I wrote this. I can't even really find myself agreeing with left wing commentators I used to agree with any more. We're just on different wave lengths now, with me being more willing to embrace the democratic party when they try to do nice things, while these guys just move further left and continue to just push grievance after grievance against the democratic party and liberals.
It's weird when I kinda start having more in common with democratic party loyalists than the left.
Now, to be fair, I don't think that I can maintain a long term coalition with those guys either. My support is contingent somewhat on them trying to embrace progressives and progressive policy. But yeah, I honestly feel like at least in 2024, that I'm aligning more with the party than the left. Then again, the party has shifted to meet me part of the way so I feel more comfortable responding to that than going with these wierdo far leftist radicals who can't be satisfied. Any alliances I have with anyone can be subject to change in the future depending on where things go from here.
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