So I've seen a lot of leftist infighting over the DSA, whether to work with them, whether not to. And I'm mixed myself. I've discussed my thoughts on this to some degree already, but I also kind of had a breakthrough tonight and want to write about it.
So...I'm gonna be brutally honest. I REALLY am politically homeless. I REALLY am part of the left out left. I've actually been feeling down in the dumps over it today after seeing a poll where most people HATE UBI these days and then I had an argument with a socialist who started spouting all of the same bullcrap at me. And it made me realize again, that yeah, I AM politically homeless. I dont vibe with the DSA or socialists at all. Quite frankly, the only reason I'm attached to them is because the republicans are sociopaths, the liberals are useless, and it seems like the left are the only ones advancing goals I agree with.
But even then, that left isn't MY left. Democratic socialism isn't MY ideology. These goals aren't necessarily MY goals. I don't want a jobs program. I dont want socialism. I have nuanced opinions on labor unions and the labor movement, believing that while they've done a lot of good, they're too jobist, ludditeish, and reactionary. I dont believe there is dignity in work. I want a society where people are free from work. I want a UBI, not means tested social programs. I'm okay with a public option, and dont necessarily want medicare for all. I agree with the left where I intersect with them, but I'll show disagreement when I don't.
I feel like this is the healthy approach to take toward ALL of these factions. I purity test like a champ. I establish my goals, and then I weigh candidates and movements with how well they conform to what I want, I don't change my opinion to fit THEM. If the DSA wants to be run by tankie crazies, well, they're gonna fail my purity tests. If centrist libs wanna be worthless, well, they're not gonna get a good score from me either.
The breakthrough I have is that I am free. I'm free from everyone else's BS, and I know what I want, and I set my own path. I don't give AF what others wanna sell to me. I care about how well you align with MY goals. And if you don't, well, you don't get my support, period.
This isn't to say i dont make compromises. Sadly, I gotta align with factions that I don't generally like very much. I align with democrats over republicans. I align with progressives and sometimes even socialists over centrist democrats, and the second you get someone who actually represents human centered capitalism, I'm all over that. But sadly, it's so rare we've only seen one candidate like that, and he was horrible at representing the ideology.
If anything, his entrance into politics alienated me more from the left. While Yang deserved some criticism for his inconsistency and abandonment of shared goals at times, he also faced a lot of weird purity tests from the left, and it kinda made me realize how much i dont vibe with these guys in reality. I just align with them because they're less crappy than the alternatives. The same couldn't have been made more stark today as I watched these guys once again tear UBI a new one, and I realize that wait, I don't actually agree with these guys much on anything.
Again, I dont agree with ANYONE on much all things considered, all of these factions are not just imperfect but horribly flawed, even if I do have a clear hierarchy of preferences. The best ones might be better than the others, but not great.
Like, for me, the right is the epitome of evil, and their morals are just screwed. Centrist democrats' big flaw is basically compromising with these guys and offering a softer version of the same thing. Progressives and socialists want change, but we disagree on specifically what change we need and why. Our ideological bases are fundamentally different. I'm a social libertarian influenced by the basic income and anti work movements. I ultimately want freedom from coercive institutions like wage slavery. Socialists believe that work can be saved and merely want a better version of it with more fair rules, this is better than the psychotic attitudes of the right who basically believe in social darwinism, and the centrist democrats who want a version of that that is a little softer around the edges, but it isn't freedom.
Again, if I'm not gonna just withdraw from politics altogether, sitting on my mountain of self righteousness and refusing to participate unless someone meets me 100% of the way, I'm gonna have to align with someone, but honestly? it's all lesser evils all the way down. Between republicans and centrist democrats, the democrats are the lesser evil. between centrist democrats and DSA, DSA often comes off as the lesser evil. if DSA goes full tankie, suddenly I'm back to backing the liberals again. And all goes on and on.
I just want to declare my independence and express that I lack loyalty to ANYONE at this point. I am loyal ONLY to my own ideas. Everything else is a means to an end in achieving them. It should have been obvious all along, but I just want to express that. I am not loyal to say, AOC 2028. I'm not loyal to the democratic party. I just use these various factions as puppets to get as close to my own goals as possible. And the second these factions don't support my goals, well, I'll jump ship.
Idk why this is so hard for people. It's like people have to be part of a faction or tribe. Even I fall into that, but try as I might, I realize that I just dont fit into any major faction, because my own ideas are so unique and niche that theyre fundamentally different than everyone else's. I really am a super special snowflake with super special needs, and while some people view that as denigrating, in my typical fashion of turning such denigration on its head, I'll embrace it, just like I always embraced being "entitled." Darned right I want a better world and act like im owed something when people say I'm not. I don't care about your stupid little social conventions and your morality. I care about my own morality.
And the same is true with how I approach the left these days. I just got an earful about how workers believe in the dignity of life and how they feel like heroes for sacrificing for their kids. Good for them, but I still see them as victims of oppressive systems and resent the fact that people have to sacrifice to begin with. I dont care if you think I suck because I denigrate your work ethic. I think you suck for embracing it. As I said of AOC, I think anyone who actively embraces the work ethic is a brainwashed fool. And as I pointed out recently, I see most people as ignorant and uneducated. I dont care what they think. I care what I think. They're in the cave, I'm not. And if you think I'm an arrogant little crap for being elitist and thinking you're dumb, well, I'm sorry you're dumb. I'm not sorry I think that way.
Ya know? That's the kind of attitude I'm embracing here. I'm not conforming to other people's bullcrap. I'm not gonna sugarcoat things to preserve their feelings, if I think your ideas suck, I think they suck, and I'll say it. Maybe if more people thought like me, we could actually get somewhere in society, and maybe people would realize, "gee, that idea I believe really IS stupid, i know you're an ###hole, but thanks for pointing it out to me." Ya know, kinda like how r/atheism did that for me as a questioning Christian. That tough love attitude straight up freed me from the cave in the first place. You dont change minds by coddling peoples' feelings and reinforcing their existing views. You challenge their views by pointing out the absurdity of their existing perspective. And I'm sorry, if you embrace jobism, you're ####ing stupid and you should rethink your life choices. Sorry, not sorry.
But I digress. Point is, this is how I'm gonna approach politics from this point on this political cycle. A ruthless approach of looking at where candidates agree with me, where they don't, and I'll grade them accordingly. "Metric 1" as I call it, which I've used through 2020 and 2024, does a good job here. Provides a basic understanding of what their worldview is, what their policy priorities are, and how they line up. I might fine tune it for 2028, as I said, I'm considering replacing the "are you a democrat?" Purity test with an "electability" one, but otherwise it mostly holds up.
Rankings are accordingly:
S tier- 80+
Not many candidates reach S tier. I think Bernie is the only one who got this high. But yeah, I'm grading on a curve given this is scored out of 100. Normally an 80 is a B, but again, so few people are on my level that I feel like 80 is kind of the ceiling for your standard politicians with standard ideologies.
A tier- 70-79
A strong candidate, but has the standard amount of differences. Most progressive left candidate who aren't Bernie end up here. Andrew Yang also ended up here, being aligned with me ideologically but then just being an awful politician in his own ways. I expect the best 2028 candidates to end up here.
B tier- 60-69
Eh, most moderate democrats top out here at best. I gave Biden and Harris scores in this range in 2024. Previously candidates like Elizabeth Warren ended up here, although it's possible A tier is better for her.
C tier- 50-59
Mid candidates that I feel "meh" on. In 2020, I called these guys "fauxgressives" because they were fake progressives who sounded like Bernie but without the history to back it up. While my independence from the socialist left did somewhat renovate some of those candidates into B tier given my liberal social and foreign policy views, many candidates still end up here. Ironically a lot of leftists like Jill Stein end up in this tier, because even if I kinda sorta agree with them on economics, they aren't electable and are VERY rough around the edges.
D tier- 40-49
Crappy centrist democrats who come off as overtly hostile to my goals. Hillary Clinton ended up here in 2016 in retrospect, although I may rehabilitate her into C tier. Explicit centrist democrats who have a hate boner for progressives end up here normally. They're not quite F tier, but they're just one step above that.
F tier- 0-39
While I could separate the F tiers into various rings of hell like Dantes Inferno, at this point, most people who score under 40 arent even democrats or they're some centrist third party ###holes like Howard Schultz who dont really belong in the party. The highest rung of this hell would be those types who score in the 30s, with establishment republicans scoring around the 20s, Tea party republicans scoring in the 10s, and Donald Trump types scoring in the 0s. Again, F tier is dante's inferno of politics, it's really just a matter of what rung of hell you end up on. I guess we could say 30-39 is F-1, 20-29 is F-2, 10-19 is F-3, and -0-9 is F-4.
I guess the same thing could be said if you score above 90, maybe there is like super S tier, like a hypothetical SS tier that no one has met yet above 90. but no one has scored that high. However, some have scored as low as F-4 before. Trump is in the single digits IIRC.
But yeah, that's where I'm at with this. I don't conform to you, you conform to me. I judge you by MY standards, I dont care about YOURS. I aint interested in conforming to anyone else's ideology, whether it be milquetoast liberalism or socialism. Again, there's a clear hierarchy here of what I like vs what I don't, but again, the whole thing is a matter of "what conforms to what I want?" If you dont conform I dont care what you think. Your opinions suck and you'll be rated according to my standards. I'm not negotiating with you. Period. I'm giving you a number and moving on, if I even do that.
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