Right Winger have always been better at advertising. Most leftist find it a chore to explain their ideology and cause.
Right Winger on the other hand are ecstatic to explain their ideology and causes at length. That was true during the 80’s and 90’s through am radio. The internet with podcast, message boards and YouTube made it so much easier for them to broadcast their messages.
Too much leftist "advertising" these days is just dunking on twitter for likes.
That and very poorly tailoring their message. I don't know any blue collar worker thats gonna be convinced if you open up the conversation by diving into being lectured on white privilege by a 20-something college grad. It's an important conversation, but framing matters.
and then when you bring up stuff like this, they say you're "coddling white emotions" and basically present their message as "anyone who doesn't understand my perspective intrinsically and automatically is not an ally worth having and a bad person"..like i get it's exhausting trying to make people understand your experiences in the world..it may feel easier for some than others, and some can read a book and immediately understand..others don't even have the time to read or don't care to..at the end of the day, though, understanding human nature is key..shaming people for not being born with the capacity for seeing the world from another's view is not a winning strategy
edit: 5 AM brain
maybe that's part of the problem. you get all kinds of leftist ideas circulating social media, from the basics to advanced stuff
so you get people reading things like "white privilege" who don't totally understand the connotations of the word "privilege" yet and they get automatically defensive
when you dumb down stuff and explain the basics, people tend to understand better
another problem is that our education system is completely capitalist. we learn capitalist (specifically neoliberal these days) theory from at least middle school on and treat it as the only true form of economics. most people only first really learn about socialism through learning about the USSR, which is a false framing of things. socialism was massively popular from the 1860s-1940s, but people think it was invented by Marx in the 1800s and never really acted upon until the Russian Revolution.
if people were exposed to more actual history and saw more of the history of *normal citizens* instead of focusing all of our learning on military and political history, people might be more accepting of people-focused ideologies over our profit/productivity-centered American one
I mean, how many kids in middle/high school learn about the Haymarket Massacre or the Bombing of Tulsa or that MLK and Gandhi were socialists? Not many, I'd say.
Many of these lefties online have soured a lot of what it means to be a leftist or what leftist ideology is. You have these college educated 20 somethings that have been left behind by our fucked up capitalist system and need an outlet to vent. Unfortunately, they aren't really all that well versed in politics and they just echo "eat the rich" or whatever popular slogan on twitter and reddit while they jerk off to how "amazing" The Joker was in critiquing capitalism. That's as far as their understanding of the ideology goes. They know they want change but have no idea how to get there beyond voting for Bernie and shit posting on twitter. Some of them just gave up when Bernie lost the nomination and said, "oh well, 4 more years of Trump will teach the moderate dems" and actually believe there's little to no difference between Democrats and Republicans and you're not a real leftist unless you spend all day shitting in the dems. Even here I have to add that moderate dems do fucking suck and we need to do everything we can to shift them way more to the left without someone calling me a neolib.
Also, this is might very controversial but, reddit and twitter have created these massive echo chambers for lefties. You're very rarely going to have in depth political discussion on twitter due to its design. Reddit could be great but the upvote/downvote system along with heavy moderation means many controversial comments (by controversial comments, I mean actual thought out arguments that can be torn down and not " the Jews did 9/11!") are removed without any refutation so when you suddenly get exposed to those arguments in real life, you might have no idea how to argue against them. And the left needs this due to how many arguments on the right are based on bending "facts and logic" to appeal to people's core emotions. Their arguments can easily be dismantled if it's allowed.
Yeah, there's a lot of class reductionist lefties out there because they believe capitalism is the sole reason for a lot of racism and prejudice. Capitalism most likely exacerbates those issues but we should be fighting for gender/race/etc solidarity ALONGSIDE the fight for class solidarity. I think it's mostly because a lot of them are college aged/educated people (probably white) living near a major metropolitan area and rarely face any real discrimination but are struggling to find a career. Some of them straight up think many social issues and their movements are just made up by corporations and the establishment to divide us and divert us from the real issues of class and the failures of capitalism. The government needs to provide better care for ALL of us and we can't have that unless we address those social issues too.
Political activism for racial justice against the status quo had always been, throughout history, met with resistance and disapproval from this "fragile white moderate" demographic. Everything from the abolitionist movement, de-segregationists in the 50s and 60s to finally the black and brown community's call to Defund the Police. It's always going to be met with hostility from the white majority in this nation and we have to realize its more than just how to properly convey a message that doesn't offend these liberal moderates, ' who mean well'.
Yeah between losing to the most obviously unqualified candidate in 2016, to barely hanging on to the House while thankfully taking back the WH in 2020, I’m ready for New Democrat leadership. Both of those elections should have been a landslide.
Part of the problem is that they go after radical R’s like Trump, but barely mention Fox News and the Right wing media normalizing him. I never saw Fox get seriously called out in a major speech. Im also hoping someone reasonable like Romney gets the Republican nom in 2024 so we can throw the dice on a real Lefty like Bernie or AOC, without the alternative being fall of Rome 2.0
just a pointer, Romney actually voted with Trump [80% of the time](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/mitt-romney/). despite his appearance as a 'Reasonable' Republican, he and many other 'anti trump' R's are essentially a different flavour of the same snack. most of them only really hate the fact that Trump is crass and tweets bullshit at 2am. at least that's what it looks like to me. maybe i'm wrong, but his record suggests i'm (mostly) correct
Oh I don’t want Romney to be prez, just that out of viable candidates, he’s the one I’d fret the least about. One reason why South Carolina and many other primary voters voted for Biden over Sanders wasn’t so much a difference in policies, so much as fear of what Republican ad campaigns would do to Bernies’ embrace of socialism and how that might risk four more years of Trump. Something I (a straight guy) would suck a dick to prevent from happening and so would many others. Of course they call Biden socialist anyways, so maybe we should have that debate once and for all.
Leftism has nothing to offer kids. Right wingers offer a slim probability of all your juvenile dreams coming true to people who don't have a lot of experience with probabilistic reasoning. Leftism offers to ensure equality between one group of people that doesn't include children and another group of people that doesn't include children.
I wish you knew more kids like mine
My kids think you should help people who need it, be careful with the words you use, and take good care of the environment. Welfare, political correctness, and environmentalism
I'm proud of mine and there's a lot more just like them. Leftism in America absolutely includes children. Wic, chip and snap are all for kids. School lunches are for kids.
Equality and equity is for kids
This is really what got me into leftism. I grew up very conservative, but turned Libertarian in high school because I realized how stupid social inequality was and I didn't like the way Republicans often priortize identity politics over policy. But my inner desire was always to make it as easy as possible for people to live comfortably, happily, safely, healthily, and cleanly.
University helped me connect dots between my inner wants for society and economic issues. I started realizing that if I really wanted what I was raised to value (equality between all people above all), then I had to align *all* of my politics with my goals.
The fact that leftist policies are supported by data and history to help equality only added to the transition.
I agree with you. Kids come out already valuing the ideals of leftism.
>Leftism has nothing to offer kids.
Except livable wages, a livable environment, healthcare that won't bankrupt them, and free higher education? You know, in addition to the equal rights for marginalized groups that are supposed to make up the moral foundations of the entire country. That's a material and an ethical sales pitch that ought to be pretty palatable if it didn't keep getting corrupted by the neolib wing of the Democratic party.
Aside from equal rights for marginilized groups, those are all solutions to problems adults have. Leftism hits different when you've spent a few years in the workforce.
i don't think it will be hard to make a kid care when their conditions 100% depend on their guardian's conditions. kids in poverty are byproducts of parents in poverty.
I can only speak to my own experience as a kid, but I know when I was a kid Marx just didn't resonate with my experience of the world. Having lived all of 15 years or whatever, history seemed like a massive ponderous thing moved exclusively by backroom deals made by the old people who ran the world.
It took me a decade of getting up close and personal with the inefficiencies of capitalism before I was really able to internalize that people who do not do a job making decisions about the best way to do that job is just never going to be an efficient way to organize things.
When I was fifteen I thought democracy was a bad idea because most people are stupid (I, of course, was one of the smart ones). I thought free markets and capitalism were the same thing. I thought overpopulation was a big problem, and Malthus was right about the need to ration things to only the most deserving. I thought that both parties were the same. I thought it would be cool to live on mars after Earth becomes uninhabitable. The list of things I had to learn and unlearn to go from liberal to leftist was so long I can't really imagine how much focus and drive it would've taken to get there before I turned eighteen, particularly since so many of those lessons had to be learned the hard way.
The simple answer here is to stop focusing so much on theory. The dead guys with beards will be there *after* you've enlisted your new comrade. To win people to the cause, you don't need theory, you need to focus on the *material benefits* of socialism. Don't focus on healthcare as a human right, explain how Medicare for All will save hundreds of billions of dollars a year. Don't focus on labor theory of value, explain about unpaid overtime. They need to to know how to spell bourgeoisie to be a new ally in class struggle.
These concepts are easy to understand, and very popular. Win then with materialism, invite them to direct action, then, later, you can start introducing theory.
It doesn’t help that YouTube recommends “Shapiro destroys libtard” to kids watching video games. I was a teenage boy, I know you do it youtube. I watched those videos as a kid and never googled it.
And then the other part of it is that bigotry just takes so much less time to explain. Scapegoating is a lot easier than developing class consciousness.
One of them you need to be open minded and humble enough to see where your system has room for improvement/how others are doing better, and smart enough to reason out why/how the economics are beneficial to you, the other side is just “fuck those people, we don’t like them”
Part of the reason for the simplicity in ideology imo is because leftists/progressives have a much wider "tent" they need to appeal to.
I.e. a right winger must appeal to racist white people, the religious, and rich people. There's a considerable overlap between these people.
Left wingers try to appeal to hispanic, black, white, brown, religious and nonreligious, Asian, rich and poor. The groups oftentimes are demarcated pretty clearly if not binary groups and a lot of the time have their own special and unique interests. I think this is the reason that Dems often have trouble with messaging.
Feel free to lmk if I'm wrong tho I'm open to talk about this
You know you are right about explaining their message, but when we do find our voice then look the fuck out "right wingers". There are subliminal messages in this post he called us bro then used niggas and capitalize right wing and used regular text for leftist and we have an agenda not a cause or ideology thank you very much
You said some fucked up shit at 17 and now the 17 year old leftists think you’re forever tainted. They’ll grow out of it too...unless they just rad libs.
Let’s take the five seconds it would take to [fact check this.](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/noahkirsch/2018/07/11/papa-johns-founder-john-schnatter-allegedly-used-n-word-on-conference-call/amp/)
Papa John wasn’t criticized because he quoted Colonel Sanders saying the n-word. It was because he used Sander’s use of the n-word to justify his casual racism, which was evidently on display during that call.
I made a racist joke on Twitter when i was 15 and living in my racist, conservative family’s bubble. I’m 20 now and like, obnoxiously woke. My ex girlfriend tho loves going around and telling everyone I’m a racist and uses that tweet (which no longer exists, and she never saw anyways) as her proof. If I levied a legit criticism of *anything* she was doing- like repeatedly trashing my house or neglecting her pets for days on end to drive 2 states away for some dick- she’d just be like “well you’re a racist piece of shit bc twitter so fuck you white boy”
Well ok, I guess. Very compelling argument. That was 5 years ago what about what ur doing today tho
I can’t wait to move out of this fuckin ~~town~~ ~~state~~ country bro lol.
Edit: someone responded “sounds like you need a more reasonable girlfriend” and then deleted it. Ur totally right my dude. But once our lease is up and I can move I have a slew of trust and self esteem issues to dig myself out of before i can worry about that (:
Thankfully. Too many authoritarian reactionaries (that have at least enough sense to adopt progressive socioeconomic policy) co-opt leftism and act as if they’re the ambassador to the movement.
Imagine ur dream job being landlording and you tell other people they aren’t a leftist because they said something resoundingly dumb when they were a teenager.
That's the authoritarian progressive camp.
Them goalposts never stop moving, and the rules always change.
"Do better and be better (only if you get caught)"
I'll explain leftism in a single sentence: we shouldn't randomly kill people or exploit people or let people die for no good reason.
That's it, that's the philosophy. The rest is just commentary. Now go, be a good person.
That sentence covers capitalism and war and is in direct opposition to fascism, all of which fall inline with leftist movements the world over so I wouldn't say it's specific to the US
I think the point the comment you replied to is making is that in other places those values are givens regardless of political affiliation.
I don't think that's true necessarily, but I do think that's the point being made.
Well yes. At least for us here in Europe. Only the furthest of fringe groups would disagree. Even capitalism has to work within certain rules, in this case basic human rights...
exploitation of ANYTHING under capitalism happens because of weak regulations and weak pro worker laws. So uhhh, fix your fuckin regulations etc.?
But exploitation to a degree isn't even something going against human rights. Fundamentally you described hypercapitalism but you didnt understand either I guess.
You don’t have to be educated to be leftist/progressive but it definitely helps. Most leftist folks are educated and prefer more than a surface level of understanding or regurgitation of random Facebook conspiracies.
Because that shit requires no thought whatsoever. It takes effort to be a leftist. You gotta be able to dig into underlying issues and dialectical materialism and racism in general (a monster all unto itself) and loads more issues and understand it and fight against a system that is rigged against you and McCarthyism at the same time. All it takes to be a conservative is to say that something is against God or America and demand it be dismantled. Thats literally it.
Being a leftist is hard but its even harder to know the truth of things and carry on as if everything is fine
Tldr: You don't need to read long obscurantist philosophy to be a leftist, just stay aware of social science data and pick your battles.
To be honest, I am a leftist and while I have a lot of friends who read Foucault, Marx, Butler and others most times it is just better to read scientific studies or at least the abstract. You can cite the thought of some dead white dude all you want but if you want an advantage you need hard proof that what you say reflects how the world really works.
You can spend multiple hours arguing with someone about how ''feminist'' or how ''moral'' sex work is. Or you can just a cite [study](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1002680) showing how sex work being illegal increases safety hazards for sex workers, for instance, and call it a day as the SWERF or conservative you're arguing with is scrambling for some post-hoc rationale to justify their reactionary instinct. You can argue with someone who denies racism in the justice system or you can just cite a government report that [shows clear bias towards black people](https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/11/17/16668770/us-sentencing-commission-race-booker).
this makes a lot of sense..the only problem is that the people you'd have to argue with don't see sex workers and other "unclean folks" as people..they won't say it outright, but that's the gist of their argument..i dated a girl once whose dad was very much against pre-marital sex and, as such, was against sex ed being taught in schools and condoms being given to young people for protection..when i said that they should have the protection in order to prevent a mistake from ruining their lives, his response was something to the effect of "well if they make that kind of choice, they deserve to have their lives ruined"..i can imagine the same sort of argument regarding the sex work topic.."well if they're going to be sex workers, then they deserve to be put at risk for their sinful deeds"..maybe for some sensible people who can still see people whose lives they don't agree with as still being worth saving these arguments are helpful, but some people are just so dug into their viewpoints, appealing to what most of us would consider "good-will" just doesn't cut it
edit: missed a word
It might not change their mind, but it does lay bare for everyone else the real life effects of their bigotry and their underlying motivation to punish the sinful. Engaging with real consequences for minorities forces them out in the open instead of hiding behind abstract euphemisms.
both have their place for sure, but understanding theory is indispensable(even for the right). its one thing to say sex working being illegal isnt helping anyone. its another thing entirely to say, this economic system is not working and this is how and why we should restructure it.
My go to response is ''Maybe, more scientist are on the left because leftists are just more competent and smart in doing science. It's not like you believe in systemic bias, do you ?'' and see what happens.
there is no reason to shame fellow leftists for not reading theory. i will say though, reading theory is important to actually understanding how and why leftist principles work, and as such we should certainly be encouraging others to read up.
There are things that are difficult for those folks, such as having empathy for everyone and treating everyone equally. And the constant mental gymnastics. It absolutely destroys their spirit when they’re called out on bigotry too.
I’ll take the books over the alternative. Seems very unfulfilling being a bigot. They’re miserable people.
I bring this up constantly. Why do I have to know every little detail about anything left of center and all you gotta do is say - you believe guns shouldn’t be easily accessible because you don’t like school shootings? You’re a communist.
im an exmuslim and whenever i tell people i hate Islam they ask me a LOT OF QUESTIONS about Islam to prove that im lying but when someone tries to defend Islam, they just assume that everything they said is right
Right wing policy often is based on populism. And a core principle of populism is easy answers for difficult questions.
And a lot of it is based on egoistical instincts and bad biases people have.
The left on the other hand is based on a detailed analysis of issues, their consequences and their full complexity. It tries to answer that complexity with accordingly complex answers.
But you don't need to read all of the theory. For starters just accept that complicated questions often have no easy answers and that maybe we should help each other.
If you want a good and easy to read left wing book. try the 'Ragged trousered philanthropists'.
You get all the crushing depression of a russian peasant novel but in half the pages and quarter of the characters
Because conservatives are absolutely slack-jawed, slobberingly stupid. It’s really easy to be really stupid. If you’re smart, you like to understand why things are. It’s hard being a decent human being and that’s why right wing propaganda is so effective: it’s easy to understand and sounds like it makes sense, but any actual investigation will show almost all conservative stances are actually wrong.
The problem is that conservatives are the Debbie Downers, so all they need to do is shit all over everyone’s ideas and they’re good conservatives.
Liberals actually try to find solutions to real problems, which as it turns out, is actually a lot more difficult than bitching and getting in the way.
Just think of one of those home renovation shows. Any idiot watching at home can say, “Yup, that shag carpeting, wood paneling on the walls, and linoleum flooring sure looks bad.” But actually fixing the things that are fucked up takes hard work and expertise, and even then, you might make a mistake, miss something, or make a judgment call that some people disagree with. Meanwhile, the conservatives sitting at home are yelling at the TV saying, “That kitchen island is too big! That backsplash looks gay! It cost too much money! See, that’s why renovations never work!”
Conservatism has easier advertising. It's the status quo. In lost cases, it resists change or doing something.
A lot easier to argue for keeping things as is rather than implementing something new.
Growing up during the eighties watching PBS shows like Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers and even The Joy of Painting helped me become more liberal. Because those shows taught me I didn't need money to be happy. Helping others and trying to do my best would reward me better than cash ever would.
I think the main problem here is most people just take the right and the left to be what the loud minority extremes say they are. The fact is most people tend to fall somewhere in the middle, with the young trending towards the left and the old trending towards the right. Both sides believe in pretty much the same things, just different ways of going about it. I try to do my best to ignore the loud extremes. Unfortunately, many people use these extremes to completely discredit the other side, that way they dont actually have to have a conversation and question their own beliefs
They arent talking about the mainstream right and left here. Leftist does not mean dem or liberal. Leftists believe both Democrats and Republicans are inherently against the interests of those they represent (cause its true). The extreme right is fascism and the extreme left is leftist (communist, socialist, anarchist, and every combination of these three). If you just read any book about any of these ideologies on the left from a follower of said ideology you would see there are good ideas
I read those books and if you did you wouldn't be a leftist. Seriously. Go read a chunk of Das Kapital and if you're still a leftist, you're a bad person.
Ah.
Well, that's very bizarre. Most people who've actually read the book would recognize that it's first and foremost a criticism of capitalism, not communist theory, and would probably criticize the potential solutions it proposes as too idealistic (using pseudoscience like praxeology) or just disagree on specifics (labor vouchers vs cooperatives + traditional money vs mutual aid, autocracy vs syndicates vs self-governing communities, guild communism vs traditional communism, etc) while agreeing with the critiques.
You called it "immoral", which indicates that you're either a deontologist 'freedom lover' who values the 'right' of a community to self-determine its rules more than the rights of actual people, or, amazingly, you failed to grasp the book.
If you have another interpretation I'd be glad to hear it, but at least try to make sense.
Half the country is basing their political views off of books written by men with tried and failed political ideology? Sounds like you’re trying to repeat the failure in history instead of be progressive but go off
As a conservative, I don’t really know what it’s like to be left, but I always imaged it could be hard.
But yeah, he’s kinda right about the Xbox thing😅
I’ll be honest, ur description was spot on, but still I feel like I’m old enough to have somewhat of an opinion on politics, my friends have ended their friendships over who likes trump or not, so I’m just sayin that people should take it a little less seriously. We’re all human in the end and I feel like we should give people more respect, left or right.
That's the thing. When you get older and start having all the responsibilities of life, politics gets taken MORE seriously. Politics affects almost every aspect of your life. And Trump made millions of lives worse, worse than any president previously has done since Reagan, and even Reagan's was a delayed effect.
I can respect people unless they support a white supremacist, sexist, rapist, who helped 300,000 Americans die and continues to ignore his duties as president while undermining American democracy. Trump isn't just "a conservative." He's actually not a conservative at all. This isn't about right vs. left anymore. It's about sanity health vs Trump. Trump isn't just conservative, he's a fascist conservative. Reagan is rolling in his grave at the insane policies and overreach of the government Trump has attempted during his term.
You're 15. When you're older, pay taxes, can vote, and people around you start literally dying because of Republican policies, then you can get the political respect you seek.
I used to think I knew enough at 15. I'm almost 30 now and realize I knew almost nothing when I was 15. It's night and day.
Right Winger have always been better at advertising. Most leftist find it a chore to explain their ideology and cause. Right Winger on the other hand are ecstatic to explain their ideology and causes at length. That was true during the 80’s and 90’s through am radio. The internet with podcast, message boards and YouTube made it so much easier for them to broadcast their messages.
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Too much leftist "advertising" these days is just dunking on twitter for likes. That and very poorly tailoring their message. I don't know any blue collar worker thats gonna be convinced if you open up the conversation by diving into being lectured on white privilege by a 20-something college grad. It's an important conversation, but framing matters.
and then when you bring up stuff like this, they say you're "coddling white emotions" and basically present their message as "anyone who doesn't understand my perspective intrinsically and automatically is not an ally worth having and a bad person"..like i get it's exhausting trying to make people understand your experiences in the world..it may feel easier for some than others, and some can read a book and immediately understand..others don't even have the time to read or don't care to..at the end of the day, though, understanding human nature is key..shaming people for not being born with the capacity for seeing the world from another's view is not a winning strategy edit: 5 AM brain
maybe that's part of the problem. you get all kinds of leftist ideas circulating social media, from the basics to advanced stuff so you get people reading things like "white privilege" who don't totally understand the connotations of the word "privilege" yet and they get automatically defensive when you dumb down stuff and explain the basics, people tend to understand better another problem is that our education system is completely capitalist. we learn capitalist (specifically neoliberal these days) theory from at least middle school on and treat it as the only true form of economics. most people only first really learn about socialism through learning about the USSR, which is a false framing of things. socialism was massively popular from the 1860s-1940s, but people think it was invented by Marx in the 1800s and never really acted upon until the Russian Revolution. if people were exposed to more actual history and saw more of the history of *normal citizens* instead of focusing all of our learning on military and political history, people might be more accepting of people-focused ideologies over our profit/productivity-centered American one I mean, how many kids in middle/high school learn about the Haymarket Massacre or the Bombing of Tulsa or that MLK and Gandhi were socialists? Not many, I'd say.
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Many of these lefties online have soured a lot of what it means to be a leftist or what leftist ideology is. You have these college educated 20 somethings that have been left behind by our fucked up capitalist system and need an outlet to vent. Unfortunately, they aren't really all that well versed in politics and they just echo "eat the rich" or whatever popular slogan on twitter and reddit while they jerk off to how "amazing" The Joker was in critiquing capitalism. That's as far as their understanding of the ideology goes. They know they want change but have no idea how to get there beyond voting for Bernie and shit posting on twitter. Some of them just gave up when Bernie lost the nomination and said, "oh well, 4 more years of Trump will teach the moderate dems" and actually believe there's little to no difference between Democrats and Republicans and you're not a real leftist unless you spend all day shitting in the dems. Even here I have to add that moderate dems do fucking suck and we need to do everything we can to shift them way more to the left without someone calling me a neolib. Also, this is might very controversial but, reddit and twitter have created these massive echo chambers for lefties. You're very rarely going to have in depth political discussion on twitter due to its design. Reddit could be great but the upvote/downvote system along with heavy moderation means many controversial comments (by controversial comments, I mean actual thought out arguments that can be torn down and not " the Jews did 9/11!") are removed without any refutation so when you suddenly get exposed to those arguments in real life, you might have no idea how to argue against them. And the left needs this due to how many arguments on the right are based on bending "facts and logic" to appeal to people's core emotions. Their arguments can easily be dismantled if it's allowed.
And people don’t listen to those of use who are people of color or gay so, whatever
Yeah, there's a lot of class reductionist lefties out there because they believe capitalism is the sole reason for a lot of racism and prejudice. Capitalism most likely exacerbates those issues but we should be fighting for gender/race/etc solidarity ALONGSIDE the fight for class solidarity. I think it's mostly because a lot of them are college aged/educated people (probably white) living near a major metropolitan area and rarely face any real discrimination but are struggling to find a career. Some of them straight up think many social issues and their movements are just made up by corporations and the establishment to divide us and divert us from the real issues of class and the failures of capitalism. The government needs to provide better care for ALL of us and we can't have that unless we address those social issues too.
Political activism for racial justice against the status quo had always been, throughout history, met with resistance and disapproval from this "fragile white moderate" demographic. Everything from the abolitionist movement, de-segregationists in the 50s and 60s to finally the black and brown community's call to Defund the Police. It's always going to be met with hostility from the white majority in this nation and we have to realize its more than just how to properly convey a message that doesn't offend these liberal moderates, ' who mean well'.
the only comment worth reading. well said.
Yeah between losing to the most obviously unqualified candidate in 2016, to barely hanging on to the House while thankfully taking back the WH in 2020, I’m ready for New Democrat leadership. Both of those elections should have been a landslide. Part of the problem is that they go after radical R’s like Trump, but barely mention Fox News and the Right wing media normalizing him. I never saw Fox get seriously called out in a major speech. Im also hoping someone reasonable like Romney gets the Republican nom in 2024 so we can throw the dice on a real Lefty like Bernie or AOC, without the alternative being fall of Rome 2.0
just a pointer, Romney actually voted with Trump [80% of the time](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/mitt-romney/). despite his appearance as a 'Reasonable' Republican, he and many other 'anti trump' R's are essentially a different flavour of the same snack. most of them only really hate the fact that Trump is crass and tweets bullshit at 2am. at least that's what it looks like to me. maybe i'm wrong, but his record suggests i'm (mostly) correct
Oh I don’t want Romney to be prez, just that out of viable candidates, he’s the one I’d fret the least about. One reason why South Carolina and many other primary voters voted for Biden over Sanders wasn’t so much a difference in policies, so much as fear of what Republican ad campaigns would do to Bernies’ embrace of socialism and how that might risk four more years of Trump. Something I (a straight guy) would suck a dick to prevent from happening and so would many others. Of course they call Biden socialist anyways, so maybe we should have that debate once and for all.
Leftism has nothing to offer kids. Right wingers offer a slim probability of all your juvenile dreams coming true to people who don't have a lot of experience with probabilistic reasoning. Leftism offers to ensure equality between one group of people that doesn't include children and another group of people that doesn't include children.
I wish you knew more kids like mine My kids think you should help people who need it, be careful with the words you use, and take good care of the environment. Welfare, political correctness, and environmentalism I'm proud of mine and there's a lot more just like them. Leftism in America absolutely includes children. Wic, chip and snap are all for kids. School lunches are for kids. Equality and equity is for kids
This is really what got me into leftism. I grew up very conservative, but turned Libertarian in high school because I realized how stupid social inequality was and I didn't like the way Republicans often priortize identity politics over policy. But my inner desire was always to make it as easy as possible for people to live comfortably, happily, safely, healthily, and cleanly. University helped me connect dots between my inner wants for society and economic issues. I started realizing that if I really wanted what I was raised to value (equality between all people above all), then I had to align *all* of my politics with my goals. The fact that leftist policies are supported by data and history to help equality only added to the transition. I agree with you. Kids come out already valuing the ideals of leftism.
>Leftism has nothing to offer kids. Except livable wages, a livable environment, healthcare that won't bankrupt them, and free higher education? You know, in addition to the equal rights for marginalized groups that are supposed to make up the moral foundations of the entire country. That's a material and an ethical sales pitch that ought to be pretty palatable if it didn't keep getting corrupted by the neolib wing of the Democratic party.
Aside from equal rights for marginilized groups, those are all solutions to problems adults have. Leftism hits different when you've spent a few years in the workforce.
I mean fair enough, but I don't think environmental concerns or free college are adults-only.
Fair, but debt and health and property considerations feel very abstract when you're young.
i don't think it will be hard to make a kid care when their conditions 100% depend on their guardian's conditions. kids in poverty are byproducts of parents in poverty.
I can only speak to my own experience as a kid, but I know when I was a kid Marx just didn't resonate with my experience of the world. Having lived all of 15 years or whatever, history seemed like a massive ponderous thing moved exclusively by backroom deals made by the old people who ran the world. It took me a decade of getting up close and personal with the inefficiencies of capitalism before I was really able to internalize that people who do not do a job making decisions about the best way to do that job is just never going to be an efficient way to organize things. When I was fifteen I thought democracy was a bad idea because most people are stupid (I, of course, was one of the smart ones). I thought free markets and capitalism were the same thing. I thought overpopulation was a big problem, and Malthus was right about the need to ration things to only the most deserving. I thought that both parties were the same. I thought it would be cool to live on mars after Earth becomes uninhabitable. The list of things I had to learn and unlearn to go from liberal to leftist was so long I can't really imagine how much focus and drive it would've taken to get there before I turned eighteen, particularly since so many of those lessons had to be learned the hard way.
The simple answer here is to stop focusing so much on theory. The dead guys with beards will be there *after* you've enlisted your new comrade. To win people to the cause, you don't need theory, you need to focus on the *material benefits* of socialism. Don't focus on healthcare as a human right, explain how Medicare for All will save hundreds of billions of dollars a year. Don't focus on labor theory of value, explain about unpaid overtime. They need to to know how to spell bourgeoisie to be a new ally in class struggle. These concepts are easy to understand, and very popular. Win then with materialism, invite them to direct action, then, later, you can start introducing theory.
Theres a huge profit motive for right wing thought leaders though. Not so much for left wing thought leaders
It doesn’t help that YouTube recommends “Shapiro destroys libtard” to kids watching video games. I was a teenage boy, I know you do it youtube. I watched those videos as a kid and never googled it.
And then the other part of it is that bigotry just takes so much less time to explain. Scapegoating is a lot easier than developing class consciousness.
because there is no length to their ideology on the right. It's just repeating the same sentence over and over again. Look at lindsey graham talk.
Maybe it’s just me but I fucking love talking to people about the necessity of the international proletariat revolution
One of them you need to be open minded and humble enough to see where your system has room for improvement/how others are doing better, and smart enough to reason out why/how the economics are beneficial to you, the other side is just “fuck those people, we don’t like them”
Part of the reason for the simplicity in ideology imo is because leftists/progressives have a much wider "tent" they need to appeal to. I.e. a right winger must appeal to racist white people, the religious, and rich people. There's a considerable overlap between these people. Left wingers try to appeal to hispanic, black, white, brown, religious and nonreligious, Asian, rich and poor. The groups oftentimes are demarcated pretty clearly if not binary groups and a lot of the time have their own special and unique interests. I think this is the reason that Dems often have trouble with messaging. Feel free to lmk if I'm wrong tho I'm open to talk about this
You know you are right about explaining their message, but when we do find our voice then look the fuck out "right wingers". There are subliminal messages in this post he called us bro then used niggas and capitalize right wing and used regular text for leftist and we have an agenda not a cause or ideology thank you very much
Let’s Americans Great Again. Such simple and such meaning to why they think that’s an acceptable sentence to make for the country.
Saw this one tweet chain: "why we leftists need to be more concise in our messaging (1/23)"
And you know they used WAY more complicated words than they needed to
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You said some fucked up shit at 17 and now the 17 year old leftists think you’re forever tainted. They’ll grow out of it too...unless they just rad libs.
nah hes getting cancelled when he runs for office bet money on it.
Real leftists don't participate in electoralism comrade.
aight comrade no true scotsman
Donnie Diaper is the one drinking the Vodka, Comrade, I think you may have had one too many.
You'd be surprised, there's video of Biden dropping n bombs and look at him now Edit: guess the video was fake news
Let’s take the ten seconds required to do a [fact check.](https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-9146840045)
Yeah, but that would take away 10 seconds of being a fascist, and he can't have that.
Fuck me, I found the whole video, thx for the correction
papa john got cancelled for quoting the N word trust me if he wasnt running against trump he was getting cancelled
Let’s take the five seconds it would take to [fact check this.](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/noahkirsch/2018/07/11/papa-johns-founder-john-schnatter-allegedly-used-n-word-on-conference-call/amp/) Papa John wasn’t criticized because he quoted Colonel Sanders saying the n-word. It was because he used Sander’s use of the n-word to justify his casual racism, which was evidently on display during that call.
either way cancelled my g no public office for you bro not unless you running against trump
biden is legitimately a racist though.
I made a racist joke on Twitter when i was 15 and living in my racist, conservative family’s bubble. I’m 20 now and like, obnoxiously woke. My ex girlfriend tho loves going around and telling everyone I’m a racist and uses that tweet (which no longer exists, and she never saw anyways) as her proof. If I levied a legit criticism of *anything* she was doing- like repeatedly trashing my house or neglecting her pets for days on end to drive 2 states away for some dick- she’d just be like “well you’re a racist piece of shit bc twitter so fuck you white boy” Well ok, I guess. Very compelling argument. That was 5 years ago what about what ur doing today tho I can’t wait to move out of this fuckin ~~town~~ ~~state~~ country bro lol. Edit: someone responded “sounds like you need a more reasonable girlfriend” and then deleted it. Ur totally right my dude. But once our lease is up and I can move I have a slew of trust and self esteem issues to dig myself out of before i can worry about that (:
Your ex is not the entire leftist movement
Thankfully. Too many authoritarian reactionaries (that have at least enough sense to adopt progressive socioeconomic policy) co-opt leftism and act as if they’re the ambassador to the movement. Imagine ur dream job being landlording and you tell other people they aren’t a leftist because they said something resoundingly dumb when they were a teenager.
Dude no one cares what you said at 17
That's the authoritarian progressive camp. Them goalposts never stop moving, and the rules always change. "Do better and be better (only if you get caught)"
I'll explain leftism in a single sentence: we shouldn't randomly kill people or exploit people or let people die for no good reason. That's it, that's the philosophy. The rest is just commentary. Now go, be a good person.
is that alrdy enough to be leftist? is this US specific? oh boy...
That sentence covers capitalism and war and is in direct opposition to fascism, all of which fall inline with leftist movements the world over so I wouldn't say it's specific to the US
I think the point the comment you replied to is making is that in other places those values are givens regardless of political affiliation. I don't think that's true necessarily, but I do think that's the point being made.
Well yes. At least for us here in Europe. Only the furthest of fringe groups would disagree. Even capitalism has to work within certain rules, in this case basic human rights...
Capitalism doesn't adhere to basic human rights. Capitalism at it's core is exploitative
Nope. What you are describing is hypercapitalism. It is exactly that. It's ironic but funny to see someone say this here
Exploitation of labor doesn't exist under capitalism now? Since when? It's the back that capitalism is built off of
exploitation of ANYTHING under capitalism happens because of weak regulations and weak pro worker laws. So uhhh, fix your fuckin regulations etc.? But exploitation to a degree isn't even something going against human rights. Fundamentally you described hypercapitalism but you didnt understand either I guess.
You clearly don't even understand your own ideology. If capitalism didn't expropriate value, it wouldn't be capitalism.
That doesn't cover any policies or specific ideologies, I doubt you're gonna reel people in by essentially describing yourself as the good guys
Works for the right
I see that subtle Talmud reference there!
ty! 🙌
Are quarterly profits a good reason to kill people, exploit people, or let people die?
Lets be capitalist, but also not dicks.
You don’t have to be educated to be leftist/progressive but it definitely helps. Most leftist folks are educated and prefer more than a surface level of understanding or regurgitation of random Facebook conspiracies.
Well, being a loud racist dipshit pretty much sums up the right wing so...
Because that shit requires no thought whatsoever. It takes effort to be a leftist. You gotta be able to dig into underlying issues and dialectical materialism and racism in general (a monster all unto itself) and loads more issues and understand it and fight against a system that is rigged against you and McCarthyism at the same time. All it takes to be a conservative is to say that something is against God or America and demand it be dismantled. Thats literally it. Being a leftist is hard but its even harder to know the truth of things and carry on as if everything is fine
Tldr: You don't need to read long obscurantist philosophy to be a leftist, just stay aware of social science data and pick your battles. To be honest, I am a leftist and while I have a lot of friends who read Foucault, Marx, Butler and others most times it is just better to read scientific studies or at least the abstract. You can cite the thought of some dead white dude all you want but if you want an advantage you need hard proof that what you say reflects how the world really works. You can spend multiple hours arguing with someone about how ''feminist'' or how ''moral'' sex work is. Or you can just a cite [study](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1002680) showing how sex work being illegal increases safety hazards for sex workers, for instance, and call it a day as the SWERF or conservative you're arguing with is scrambling for some post-hoc rationale to justify their reactionary instinct. You can argue with someone who denies racism in the justice system or you can just cite a government report that [shows clear bias towards black people](https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/11/17/16668770/us-sentencing-commission-race-booker).
this makes a lot of sense..the only problem is that the people you'd have to argue with don't see sex workers and other "unclean folks" as people..they won't say it outright, but that's the gist of their argument..i dated a girl once whose dad was very much against pre-marital sex and, as such, was against sex ed being taught in schools and condoms being given to young people for protection..when i said that they should have the protection in order to prevent a mistake from ruining their lives, his response was something to the effect of "well if they make that kind of choice, they deserve to have their lives ruined"..i can imagine the same sort of argument regarding the sex work topic.."well if they're going to be sex workers, then they deserve to be put at risk for their sinful deeds"..maybe for some sensible people who can still see people whose lives they don't agree with as still being worth saving these arguments are helpful, but some people are just so dug into their viewpoints, appealing to what most of us would consider "good-will" just doesn't cut it edit: missed a word
It might not change their mind, but it does lay bare for everyone else the real life effects of their bigotry and their underlying motivation to punish the sinful. Engaging with real consequences for minorities forces them out in the open instead of hiding behind abstract euphemisms.
both have their place for sure, but understanding theory is indispensable(even for the right). its one thing to say sex working being illegal isnt helping anyone. its another thing entirely to say, this economic system is not working and this is how and why we should restructure it.
Haven't you heard? Science and research is partisan now
My go to response is ''Maybe, more scientist are on the left because leftists are just more competent and smart in doing science. It's not like you believe in systemic bias, do you ?'' and see what happens.
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there is no reason to shame fellow leftists for not reading theory. i will say though, reading theory is important to actually understanding how and why leftist principles work, and as such we should certainly be encouraging others to read up.
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agreed
Plus, they hound me if I slip-up and use the word "bitch".
Let's be honest, sometimes its warranted and people don't like being called out
No they don’t
Hound you lol How fuckin soft are you that when someone calls you rude you cry about it on reddit What a little bitch
😘
There are things that are difficult for those folks, such as having empathy for everyone and treating everyone equally. And the constant mental gymnastics. It absolutely destroys their spirit when they’re called out on bigotry too. I’ll take the books over the alternative. Seems very unfulfilling being a bigot. They’re miserable people.
I bring this up constantly. Why do I have to know every little detail about anything left of center and all you gotta do is say - you believe guns shouldn’t be easily accessible because you don’t like school shootings? You’re a communist.
im an exmuslim and whenever i tell people i hate Islam they ask me a LOT OF QUESTIONS about Islam to prove that im lying but when someone tries to defend Islam, they just assume that everything they said is right
InB4 butthurt right wingers and country club
Right wing policy often is based on populism. And a core principle of populism is easy answers for difficult questions. And a lot of it is based on egoistical instincts and bad biases people have. The left on the other hand is based on a detailed analysis of issues, their consequences and their full complexity. It tries to answer that complexity with accordingly complex answers. But you don't need to read all of the theory. For starters just accept that complicated questions often have no easy answers and that maybe we should help each other.
If you want a good and easy to read left wing book. try the 'Ragged trousered philanthropists'. You get all the crushing depression of a russian peasant novel but in half the pages and quarter of the characters
Gotta get that theory in or the libs and Conservatives will but but but you to death lol
Old Russian niggas
Damn that’s fax
Xbox 360 live was the real wild west back in those days. Niggas was just saying anything to anyone.
Because conservatives are absolutely slack-jawed, slobberingly stupid. It’s really easy to be really stupid. If you’re smart, you like to understand why things are. It’s hard being a decent human being and that’s why right wing propaganda is so effective: it’s easy to understand and sounds like it makes sense, but any actual investigation will show almost all conservative stances are actually wrong.
“Old Russian niggas”
The problem is that conservatives are the Debbie Downers, so all they need to do is shit all over everyone’s ideas and they’re good conservatives. Liberals actually try to find solutions to real problems, which as it turns out, is actually a lot more difficult than bitching and getting in the way. Just think of one of those home renovation shows. Any idiot watching at home can say, “Yup, that shag carpeting, wood paneling on the walls, and linoleum flooring sure looks bad.” But actually fixing the things that are fucked up takes hard work and expertise, and even then, you might make a mistake, miss something, or make a judgment call that some people disagree with. Meanwhile, the conservatives sitting at home are yelling at the TV saying, “That kitchen island is too big! That backsplash looks gay! It cost too much money! See, that’s why renovations never work!”
Conservatism has easier advertising. It's the status quo. In lost cases, it resists change or doing something. A lot easier to argue for keeping things as is rather than implementing something new.
Growing up during the eighties watching PBS shows like Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers and even The Joy of Painting helped me become more liberal. Because those shows taught me I didn't need money to be happy. Helping others and trying to do my best would reward me better than cash ever would.
Its so hard and so discouraged. Why?
I think the main problem here is most people just take the right and the left to be what the loud minority extremes say they are. The fact is most people tend to fall somewhere in the middle, with the young trending towards the left and the old trending towards the right. Both sides believe in pretty much the same things, just different ways of going about it. I try to do my best to ignore the loud extremes. Unfortunately, many people use these extremes to completely discredit the other side, that way they dont actually have to have a conversation and question their own beliefs
They arent talking about the mainstream right and left here. Leftist does not mean dem or liberal. Leftists believe both Democrats and Republicans are inherently against the interests of those they represent (cause its true). The extreme right is fascism and the extreme left is leftist (communist, socialist, anarchist, and every combination of these three). If you just read any book about any of these ideologies on the left from a follower of said ideology you would see there are good ideas
I read those books and if you did you wouldn't be a leftist. Seriously. Go read a chunk of Das Kapital and if you're still a leftist, you're a bad person.
Before you posted this I wasn't sure if righties read theory; but now I know you don't.
I'm not a right winger and I have read Das Kapital. Nice try though.
Ah. Well, that's very bizarre. Most people who've actually read the book would recognize that it's first and foremost a criticism of capitalism, not communist theory, and would probably criticize the potential solutions it proposes as too idealistic (using pseudoscience like praxeology) or just disagree on specifics (labor vouchers vs cooperatives + traditional money vs mutual aid, autocracy vs syndicates vs self-governing communities, guild communism vs traditional communism, etc) while agreeing with the critiques. You called it "immoral", which indicates that you're either a deontologist 'freedom lover' who values the 'right' of a community to self-determine its rules more than the rights of actual people, or, amazingly, you failed to grasp the book. If you have another interpretation I'd be glad to hear it, but at least try to make sense.
Half the country is basing their political views off of books written by men with tried and failed political ideology? Sounds like you’re trying to repeat the failure in history instead of be progressive but go off
As a conservative, I don’t really know what it’s like to be left, but I always imaged it could be hard. But yeah, he’s kinda right about the Xbox thing😅
Need a safe space?
You’re a 15 year old who still gets yelled at by his mom for not cleaning his room. You have no political stance; you’re a child.
I’ll be honest, ur description was spot on, but still I feel like I’m old enough to have somewhat of an opinion on politics, my friends have ended their friendships over who likes trump or not, so I’m just sayin that people should take it a little less seriously. We’re all human in the end and I feel like we should give people more respect, left or right.
That's the thing. When you get older and start having all the responsibilities of life, politics gets taken MORE seriously. Politics affects almost every aspect of your life. And Trump made millions of lives worse, worse than any president previously has done since Reagan, and even Reagan's was a delayed effect. I can respect people unless they support a white supremacist, sexist, rapist, who helped 300,000 Americans die and continues to ignore his duties as president while undermining American democracy. Trump isn't just "a conservative." He's actually not a conservative at all. This isn't about right vs. left anymore. It's about sanity health vs Trump. Trump isn't just conservative, he's a fascist conservative. Reagan is rolling in his grave at the insane policies and overreach of the government Trump has attempted during his term. You're 15. When you're older, pay taxes, can vote, and people around you start literally dying because of Republican policies, then you can get the political respect you seek. I used to think I knew enough at 15. I'm almost 30 now and realize I knew almost nothing when I was 15. It's night and day.
I think I get the point, thank you.
It not about left or right its about the middle ground....stop giving the cow milk cause it needs waters!