Dear "leftists" screw off with the gatekeeping!

 So...I just wanted to blog about an irritating behavior "leftists" engage in sometimes, and it generally involved gatekeeping over the term "left."

If you say you're politically "left" on the internet, this subset of "leftists" will be like hmm "but are you REALLY left?" and basically try to figure out if you're a communist or not. And when you're not they'll go "well you're not REALLY left, idk why you'd call yourself that, ackshully the term means communism."

NO ONE CARES!

Look, I am from America. We have two parties, republicans and democrats. Republicans are the right, and democrats are the "political left." 

And I understand that most establishment dems are functionally centrists akin to say, Macron's party in France, or some "liberal" party in Europe that's basically dead center, but in the US, we call that left. And I'm left of them. I'm actually so far left by American standards I'm off the spectrum and have sparse, if any, representation. Bernie Sanders and Andrew Yang are the only ones who even remotely touch my brand of politics, at least on economics. Socially and on foreign policy I'm actually relatively comfortable within the democratic party. 

So when I say I'm pretty far left, I obviously mean "for a capitalist" or "for a liberal." I mean, I literally am on the left edge of the spectrum and possibly beyond it, as far as American politics go. I'm actually the stereotype of what Americans THINK socialism is (everyone gets free stuff), even if I'm not what it actually is (workers own the means of production, possibly a state controlled economy). 

Even worse, in the exchange that precipitated this discussion, I made it clear I wasn't a "leftist", because any time I use the term leftist weirdo internet communists come out of the woodwork and are like "but are you REALLY left?" and to them, the answer is obviously no. I clearly distance myself from the "far left" as I call it, and am clearly operating within the realm of my own ideology (social libertarianism, a term i started using to differentiate myself from "left libertarians" because they won't shut up about the same gatekeepy bullcrap I keep mentioning). I STILL had someone do it. And it's annoying.

Dear leftists, when you talk like this, let me make something clear, NO ONE LIKES YOU, AND YES, YOU WIN THE "IM MORE LEFT THAN YOU" CONTEST, BUT NO ONE CARES, BECAUSE WE'RE NOT TRYING TO OUTLEFT YOU IN THE FIRST PLACE! Seriously. If I'm a SOCIAL LIBERTARIAN, and I identify as such, and say I'm pretty far to the left FOR A SOCIAL LIBERTARIAN, then that means that I'm just a left wing social libertarian. It doesn't mean that I'm a "leftist", and heck, I even ceded the term to you guys because you won't shut the heck up about how YOU'RE the only true "leftists" and blah blah blah.

So, yeah, it's like you don't want anyone else to ever use the term in any context but you. And it's annoying. No one cares. I'm not trying to outleft you, I dont care if you're more left than me, and quite frankly, screw your entire brand of politics. It's just a bunch of obnoxious gatekeeping and larping as revolutionaries. I'm not trying to seek ideological purity by your standards, because quite frankly, screw your standards, and screw communism too. Get a new ideology that isn't stuck in the fricking 19th century. K, thx, bi.