![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
My problem with the "Dirtbag Left."
Aug. 19th, 2023 01:21 amI know this will probably be an unpopular opinion with some people here, and posting this makes me a shitlib or whatever. But this just hit me like a lightning bolt and I feel like I need to get it down somewhere, so here goes.
Full disclosure: I like Bernie Sanders. I voted for him in the 2016 Primary (and for Liz Warren in the 2020 Primary.)
When he lost the 2016 Primary, I voted for Hillary Clinton because 1. to try and forestall the cultural fascist uprising which was very clearly taking place, despite all of the gaslighting that happened to try and convince us otherwise ("you're overreacting, sillybilly! Trump doesn't mean those things he said! This is America! Fascism can't happen here, that's unpossible! Stop being so fearful and overdramatic!") and 2. to prevent the GOP from stacking the SCOTUS, which they very clearly intended to do.
Here's the thing: I understand all of the younger millenials for whom 2016 was probably their first election felt burned when their guy didn't win. That sucks. Believe me, I know.
There were all sorts of conspiracy theories about why Bernie didn't win, and the same talking point repeated over and over, that I had heard since 2000 when I'd been trying to convince all the Leftists I knew to show up for Al Gore (because even back in 2000 some of us felt a premonition that the battle against fascism in America was already underway, and also that this might be our last chance to slow climate change:)
"Voting is stupid and it doesn't work. It doesn't actually create change."
To this day you still hear Leftists scoff at voting (specifically "those stupid shitlibs who think you can vote a dictator out of power.") Except we did. We did vote a dictator out of power, thanks mostly to the tireless work of Black and Brown women who worked in their communities to get out the vote.
Like the old saw goes: if voting doesn't work, why are the Republicans and Fascists (same thing at this point) trying so hard to stop us from doing it?
Seriously, Stacy Abrams in particular has not gotten the credit she deserves for almost single-handedly saving Democracy as we know it. And yet, so much of the time, "Bernie Bros" appear to be talking down to or over those Black and Brown women activists, and most of the other people doing the actual work. If you object, the misogynist language comes out. ("I'm an ally, you stupid shitlib bitch!")
But for me, the true implication of "voting doesn't work" is this: that real change can only come about through the autocratic seizure of power. And the astroturfing which has taken place within the Left virtually guarantees that the power-seizers will be straight, male, and white.
Indeed, there's a school of thought that the real reason so many dudebros gravitated to the Left from the Ron Paul movement is because they want to seem like allies while preserving what power and privilege they can, while they can. They want UBI and legal weed (and: fair, I also want these things) but they also want to make sure that white male voices. white male privilege, and white male power stays front and centered.
It's obvious. I don't know why I didn't see it before. It rings in every cry of "if Joe Biden is president, why don't the Democrats just *make* the Republicans do what they want?" after seeing Republicans ramrod through everything they want for the past twenty years.
And the answer is: Democrats perceive being elected as a peaceful transfer of power, and actually work to uphold Democratic principles for the most part. They still feel an obligation to try and "reach across the isle." Republicans, on the other hand, see every victory as a kind of autocratic seizure of power, and behave accordingly. The side that just got booted from power are not perceived as their colleagues and fellow statespeople, they're seen as defeated enemies and are treated as such.
Yes, it's so frustrating to see Liberals reach for the proverbial football over and over like Charlie Brown. Yes, it's maddening to see them assume that any Republican anywhere is acting in good faith at this point.
But why are Leftists seemingly advocating so hard for what sounds like authoritarianism? We know that Left Wing authoritarianism doesn't work any better in the long run than Right Wing authoritarianism. Ask the former Soviet Bloc countries how that worked out (maybe not Belarus, though.)
This really irks my inner Anarchist. We're supposed to be abolishing power structures and hierarchies that seize and maintain power through force and violence, remember? Not replacing them with new versions of the same old thing? "The master's tools will not dismantle the master's house," and all that. Except I guess if the actual goal is to eventually occupy the masters' house.
Hell, the "EVOL" branding which had been a part of the Ron Paul movement just got re-applied to the Bernie Sanders "Our Revolution" movement! It's like that Scooby Doo meme where Fred pulls the mask off of the ghost and goes, "let's see who you really are!" And the answer is: White Male Ron Paul Libertarians. That's who astroturfed the American Left.
Full disclosure: I like Bernie Sanders. I voted for him in the 2016 Primary (and for Liz Warren in the 2020 Primary.)
When he lost the 2016 Primary, I voted for Hillary Clinton because 1. to try and forestall the cultural fascist uprising which was very clearly taking place, despite all of the gaslighting that happened to try and convince us otherwise ("you're overreacting, sillybilly! Trump doesn't mean those things he said! This is America! Fascism can't happen here, that's unpossible! Stop being so fearful and overdramatic!") and 2. to prevent the GOP from stacking the SCOTUS, which they very clearly intended to do.
Here's the thing: I understand all of the younger millenials for whom 2016 was probably their first election felt burned when their guy didn't win. That sucks. Believe me, I know.
There were all sorts of conspiracy theories about why Bernie didn't win, and the same talking point repeated over and over, that I had heard since 2000 when I'd been trying to convince all the Leftists I knew to show up for Al Gore (because even back in 2000 some of us felt a premonition that the battle against fascism in America was already underway, and also that this might be our last chance to slow climate change:)
"Voting is stupid and it doesn't work. It doesn't actually create change."
To this day you still hear Leftists scoff at voting (specifically "those stupid shitlibs who think you can vote a dictator out of power.") Except we did. We did vote a dictator out of power, thanks mostly to the tireless work of Black and Brown women who worked in their communities to get out the vote.
Like the old saw goes: if voting doesn't work, why are the Republicans and Fascists (same thing at this point) trying so hard to stop us from doing it?
Seriously, Stacy Abrams in particular has not gotten the credit she deserves for almost single-handedly saving Democracy as we know it. And yet, so much of the time, "Bernie Bros" appear to be talking down to or over those Black and Brown women activists, and most of the other people doing the actual work. If you object, the misogynist language comes out. ("I'm an ally, you stupid shitlib bitch!")
But for me, the true implication of "voting doesn't work" is this: that real change can only come about through the autocratic seizure of power. And the astroturfing which has taken place within the Left virtually guarantees that the power-seizers will be straight, male, and white.
Indeed, there's a school of thought that the real reason so many dudebros gravitated to the Left from the Ron Paul movement is because they want to seem like allies while preserving what power and privilege they can, while they can. They want UBI and legal weed (and: fair, I also want these things) but they also want to make sure that white male voices. white male privilege, and white male power stays front and centered.
It's obvious. I don't know why I didn't see it before. It rings in every cry of "if Joe Biden is president, why don't the Democrats just *make* the Republicans do what they want?" after seeing Republicans ramrod through everything they want for the past twenty years.
And the answer is: Democrats perceive being elected as a peaceful transfer of power, and actually work to uphold Democratic principles for the most part. They still feel an obligation to try and "reach across the isle." Republicans, on the other hand, see every victory as a kind of autocratic seizure of power, and behave accordingly. The side that just got booted from power are not perceived as their colleagues and fellow statespeople, they're seen as defeated enemies and are treated as such.
Yes, it's so frustrating to see Liberals reach for the proverbial football over and over like Charlie Brown. Yes, it's maddening to see them assume that any Republican anywhere is acting in good faith at this point.
But why are Leftists seemingly advocating so hard for what sounds like authoritarianism? We know that Left Wing authoritarianism doesn't work any better in the long run than Right Wing authoritarianism. Ask the former Soviet Bloc countries how that worked out (maybe not Belarus, though.)
This really irks my inner Anarchist. We're supposed to be abolishing power structures and hierarchies that seize and maintain power through force and violence, remember? Not replacing them with new versions of the same old thing? "The master's tools will not dismantle the master's house," and all that. Except I guess if the actual goal is to eventually occupy the masters' house.
Hell, the "EVOL" branding which had been a part of the Ron Paul movement just got re-applied to the Bernie Sanders "Our Revolution" movement! It's like that Scooby Doo meme where Fred pulls the mask off of the ghost and goes, "let's see who you really are!" And the answer is: White Male Ron Paul Libertarians. That's who astroturfed the American Left.
