Too Much Purity Is Bad for the Left

These articles need to start specifying in the header if they mean the left wing of politics or the left wing of fascism.

The United States is relatively rare among democracies in that it has long lacked a far-left party with legislative representation, a distinction that has something to do with the peculiarities of its political system.

I don't want to be a dick to the author but I think this might be due to the US being the wretched beating heart of western imperialism and it's ability to turn all it's forces of counter-insurgency and counter-revolution inward, encompassing military, intelligence, business, religion, education, and propaganda, rather than the way the US has fake political parties.

And, while this dork is saying that refusing to collaborate in genocide is an example of leftists being prissy moral purists who can't stop letting the not-doing-genocide be the enemy of the doing genocide, people sure do like to tell leftists that the reason we don't have guns, nukes, money, armies, propaganda, and branded juice boxes is because we get mad when people cuss. Really getting sick of the "actually you losers would be able to overcome all the powers and resources of international capitalism if you just let people yell slurs" crowd.

What an insufferable read. The argument is that the left doesn't hold power in the US because the dsa doesn't want to endorse Biden.

The dsa isn't all that left and it conveniently ignores the hundred years of violent repression this country has directed at the left.

they are likely to support the center-left Socialist Party, roughly the Portuguese equivalent to Biden’s party

These ghouls will do anything to avoid acknowledging that in the right situation publicly rejecting a centrist mainstream party can do much more material good by pushing them left than joining them with no critique.

I agree that too much purity is bad for the left. I do not agree that excluding genocide supporters counts as "too much purity."

the left in countries such as France, India, and Japan

Hey kids, can I interest you in careers as toothless socdems?

In the first half of the 20th century, the United States actually had a powerful leftist force in the form of the Socialist Party of America.

Then it all crashed because the left ranted about purity and no other reasons. The End.

And this is true despite the fact that the left in countries such as France, India, and Japan is a formidable force, boasting organizations with millions of members and sending delegates to serve in legislative and executive office.

Is my reading comprehension off or is he really saying what I think he's saying?

Oh I should know better of course he is. "The left" holds no real meaning to these people.

"Left"

Is my only comment here

I wish liberals would learn wtf the left is. And they ain't in it.

it's just a little genocide Jack, I'm still cool!

democracy and civil rights with aesthetics

At moments like these, the American left could stand to learn from the experiences of its international counterparts.

We have. Learning about President Hindenburg's coalition building is quite instructive as to how well it turns out.

CTRL + F

"COINTELPRO"

Phrase not found

When some in the DSA’s leadership suggested that the organization could at least call on its members in swing states to consider voting for Biden, the majority voted down the proposal.

The organization lacks a united political program even on such basic matters as whom to endorse for president.

Yeah that is a unified political program for basic matters like whom to endorse. Just because the members voted in a way you don’t like doesn’t mean there’s no system there.

America’s youth-led social-protest movements petered out by the end of the 1970s, however, and the left came to place itself outside the political system, condemning itself to marginality.

First off, most of that youth-led protest movement was petty bourgeois white kids whose interest was not being shipped off to war, with some hedonism thrown in. So a liberal movement. Second, way to overlook the legacy of McCarthyism pushing leftists out of political and labor organizations.

In Israel, a left-wing coalition with Arab and Jewish members decided to join Zionist parties of the left and the center in endorsing the centrist Benny Gantz for prime minister, with a goal of ousting Benjamin Netanyahu, seen by the group as a menace to Israel’s democracy.

Okay now he’s just embarrassing himself.

In Israel, a left-wing coalition with Arab and Jewish members decided to join Zionist parties of the left and the center in endorsing the centrist Benny Gantz for prime minister, with a goal of ousting Benjamin Netanyahu, seen by the group as a menace to Israel’s democracy.

despite his backing by a coalition that included Bernie Sanders, Angela Davis, the DSA’s own Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, most major trade unions, and, implicitly, The New England Journal of Medicine.

Really not making the point they think they are there

Is it inaccurate to say that these types of people are just the """left""" wing version of stupidpol/ class reductionism:

Class reductionists (assuming they are not just plants) say we need to be lenient on the working class bigotry to not alienate them and that women, lgbtq and minorities are just a 'distraction' for the working class. What they ignore is that 'distraction' does not mean ignorable. Even if you don't give a rat's ass about minorities you still have to get your own neo-nazi base to stop using minorities as punching bags, if only for them to not be distracted. The result is that their new nazi base pulls them right, class reductionists fail to make any good progress and minorities get driven away and back to liberal idealogies due to those being 'safer' to them in the short term, a behaviour that capitalists are happy to exploit.

Liberals insists that socialists/ communists etc. should join democrats and anticommunists in order to make 'progress' or push democrats left later on. However they condemn all attempts at trying to get democrats to something decent. What is actually happening is that democrats are pushing them right (as shown by them victim-blaming disappointed arabs and accusing anti-genocide trans folk of lying about their queerness) and their more mask-off reactionary and condescending attitude pushes people away from them.

Tldr liberals and class reductionists claim to push the reactionaries they coddle left but don't actually do it and as such said reactionaries push them even further right.

Listening to a self-proclaimed North Atlanticist rag is bad for the left

I had a look at the writer's Twitter account.

Abstract debates about antisemitism?

I was at a Jewish friend’s tonight, a home I often visit, and couldn’t find the apartment door. I realized they had taken down the mezuzah by the door. I realized they were afraid to be openly Jewish in New York City in 2023.

Crushed me

8:27 PM · Oct 30, 2023

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I wonder what he has to say about the genocide in Gaza.