this post was submitted on 14 May 2024
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You just punched left, lol. Telling leftists that extremely minor shifts within the context of a far-right system are good enough actually, minimizes the voice of leftists. You aren't going to convince a leftist that Biden is good, for leftists, continuing Capitalism and making no efforts to end it is already enough to not consider a candidate to be good.
If you want to move leftists to your side, it's far more effective to agree with them that Biden has been continuing liberalism and making no tangible leftist movements. Telling leftists that they should actually be celebrating less than the bare minimum further alienates leftists.
Never said that; in fact you'll find me several places saying that moving further than Biden would be a great idea, and pointing out that one of the big problems with Trump is that he will very effectively end some of the methods that currently exist whereby real leftwards progress can be made in this country.
So we're moving the goal posts so that Biden has to want to end capitalism before you'll support him, even against literal Hitler.
Sure, sounds perfectly sane and productive. Sorry for ever punching left by having a different opinion than that.
That's a funny way of spelling "I have no way to disagree with your factual rundown of good things Biden has done, so I'm going to demand that you agree with me, and in particular cease citing any objective facts for why you think what you think, as a precondition of 'moving to your side', because facts are punching left."
I mean I could be right or wrong on this or anything else. But I'm not planning on just agreeing with you on everything and ceasing hurting your feelings by arguing otherwise, so that you'll become open to "moving to my side."
You opened up with some unnecessary pro-Biden stances to attempt to make him seem better, no? As for leftward movement, it's already impossible electorally, which is why I am voting for Biden. That's my point, really, you would rather gas up a genocide supporter and enabler of fascism than simply take the correct approach and state that leftward change is impossible electorally.
If leftist change was possible electorally, you would be suggesting people vote for a leftist party, like PSL, but because PSL can't win we must agree that leftist change is impossible.
Yes, Biden indeed needs to be a leftist of some sort before I give any approval to him. I already said I am voting for him, are you telling me I need to also enjoy voting for a genocidal enabler of fascism?
Listing extremely minor concessions within the context of a country absolutely tumbling into fascism to make it seem like things are improving under Biden and not continuing to get worse is a form of punching left, because the purpose is to silence dissent.
So, I went back and re read your initial message carefully. I actually pretty much agree with it -- the Hillary Clintons and Nancy Pelosis of the world have been attacking leftists, blocking forward progress, and then blaming the voters when they lose elections because they are more or less even with Reagan politically. There's nothing really to vote for there, and not voting for open fascism when the alternative is screwing you left and right isn't really all that appealing.
The reason I responded the way I did is that Biden actually isn't at all the same as them. If you look factually at what he's done, he's a huge departure from the norm for corporate Democrats. You can believe that or not (or, you can say that abetting a genocide in Gaza makes it hard to like anything he might have done domestically -- and pretty understandable, I think, if you say that.)
But I don't get how citing facts of what's he done is "unnecessary" or "attempting" to make him seem better. I didn't like Biden initially, just because he's a rich white guy who's worked in Washington all his life. I didn't expect real good things out of him. Then he started doing all this good stuff, and I started liking him. Surely that's an allowed way to go about things? Responding to the reality of what someone's doing as a reason to like or dislike them?
This is a framing that usually comes out of conservatives. I am not silencing your dissent. I am disagreeing with you.
I won't tell you what to do, but I would politely ask that if you want me to take you seriously, stop saying that I am "silencing dissent" or "punching left" or whatever, just because I am holding a different opinion than you, and explaining why I hold it. Those are very different things. I'm allowed to hold a different viewpoint, and it's weird to me that you are so vigorous about the idea that it's violent or inappropriate for me to do so.
My take on that would be that it brings nuance and humanity to those that some auth-leftists want to hate and dehumanize. Pointing out that Biden is not a cardboard cutout of [insert chosen evil diety here] and that he has done good things makes it harder to rationalize digging in. To justify vilifying, "dunking on", and generally bullying those who would support him (even unhappily) rather than embrace accelerationiam that would load to extraordinary harm of LGBTQ+ people with no concrete data to suggest that it would cause net benefit or leftward motion, while claiming dialectics and opposition to silencing dissent, takes a good deal of cognitive dissonance as is. Being forced to acknowledge that ramps that dissonance up higher.
(Holy long sentence Batman! Sorry about that.)
Just to be clear to auth-left folks (though any state or corpo actors can get fucked), I'm not trying to be sectarian or talk shit. This is honestly how I perceive this. Dehumanizing other leftists (or people for that matter, or hell, even bourgeois dickheads) is not something that has led to positive societal changes in history. Generally, it's just used to justify unnecessary death and suffering. Suppressing or ignoring data (or lack thereof) is not conducive to making data-backed theses.
Yeah. There are people who are just straight-up evil and trying to hurt people on purpose (Trump is one), but it's actually very rare, I think, even in political leaders. Mostly I think the destructive stuff in the world comes from people who have a weird reality built up in their head where what they're doing makes sense.
I see this even in internet arguments. It's very common that two people will both be saying things that makes sense, but because they both have this caricature built up of the other person and the other viewpoint in their head, they can't even understand each other and keep talking at cross purposes.
Person A says "How DARE you say that genocide is okay, genocide is NEVER okay"
Then person B says "How DARE you say Biden and Trump are the same, Trump is obviously way worse and we need to vote for Biden"
"How DARE you vote for genocide"
"How DARE you refuse to vote against Trump's genocide"
And so on. I mean, neither one is really wrong, and yet they're all angry at each other and each seem genuinely convinced that the person they're talking to carries cartoonishly wrong views like "genocide is okay as long as it comes from my political allies," and then they get all bent out of shape arguing against those imaginary views that almost no one really actually holds. And they can't even listen to the other person for long enough to understand what they're saying, because I can't possibly sit here and listen to a pro-genocide person, when I am ANTI genocide, and I just need to fight against this pro genocide person right now.
Indeed. Very few people actively want to do what they think is wrong or "evil".