I want to draw attention to the elephant in the room.

Leading up to the election, and perhaps even more prominently now, we’ve been seeing droves of people on the internet displaying a series of traits in common.

  • Claiming to be leftists
  • Dedicating most of their posting to dismantling any power possessed by the left
  • Encouraging leftists not to vote or to vote for third party candidates
  • Highlighting issues with the Democratic party as being disqualifying while ignoring the objectively worse positions held by the Republican party
  • Attacking anyone who promotes defending leftist political power by claiming they are centrists and that the attacker is “to the left of them”
  • Using US foreign policy as a moral cudgel to disempower any attempt at legitimate engagement with the US political system
  • Seemingly doing nothing to actually mount resistance against authoritarianism

When you look at an aerial view of these behaviors in conjunction with one another, what they’re accomplishing is pretty plain to see, in my opinion. It’s a way of utilizing the moral scrupulousness of the left to cut our teeth out politically. We get so caught up in giving these arguments the benefit of the doubt and of making sure people who claim to be leftists have a platform that we’re missing ideological parasites in our midst.

This is not a good-faith discourse. This is not friendly disagreement. This is, largely, not even internal disagreement. It is infiltration, and it’s extremely effective.

Before attacking this argument as lacking proof, just do a little thought experiment with me. If there is a vector that allows authoritarians to dismantle all progress made by the left, to demotivate us and to detract from our ability to form coalitions and build solidarity, do you really think they wouldn’t take advantage of it?

By refusing to ever consider that those who do nothing with their time in our spaces but try to drive a wedge between us, to take away our power and make us feel helpless and hopeless, we’re giving them exactly that vector. I am telling you, they are using it.

We need to stop letting them. We need to see it for what it is, get the word out, and remember, as the political left, how to use the tools that we have to change society. It starts with us between one another. It starts with what we do in the spaces that we inhabit. They know this, and it’s why they’re targeting us here.

Stop being an easy target. Stop feeding the cuckoo.

  • t3rmit3@beehaw.orgEnglish
    0·
    22 hours ago

    This is not talking about an attack vector in the abstract. You and Philip directly asserted that users in this post are part of this group, and even went on a little self-congratulatory rabbit-hole trek deciding that they’re probably AI as well.

    There are examples, to be sure, but pointing them out or accusing them of working for anyone in particular would be counter-productive.

    You already did that, the second you asserted that some people here in this thread are part of this group. Hiding behind, “oh, I’ll say they’re here in this thread, which means their usernames are here to see and speculate upon, but I won’t explicitly name them in my comment, so I can pretend that this is only abstract discussion” is just being evasive.

    I’m seeking to illustrate the behavioral pattern, the weakness that it exploits, and the damage it can do, which I expect to have much more efficacious results.

    You’re using terms like “behavioral pattern” to lend your post an air of scientific truth, but this is literally nothing more than rank aspersion. The list of behavior you laid out is rife with strawman positions and imprecise, improvable propositions.

    How precisely do you define “Dedicating most of their posting to dismantling any power possessed by the left”. “Most” is a vague, moving target. What qualifies as “dismantling… power possessed by the left”? That’s an assertion of outcome, so are you asserting that you have some evidence tying posts here to a reduction in Leftist political power? Obviously not, but it’s a useful claim to use for attacks since you’re now working off a much worse impact than just political disagreement.

    You haven’t shown any damage, but you certainly seem happy to use the mere claim of damage and “abstract discussion”, to call for direct exclusion or expulsion of people from Left spaces.

    That’s why this is a witch hunt, and not an appeal for moderation rule changes.

    • Maeve@kbin.earth
      0·
      4 hours ago

      What this thread demonstrates to me, not more and more clearly, is:

      https://www.theroot.com/in-his-own-words-martin-luther-king-jr-on-white-privi-1831933703

      I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councillor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time; and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.”

      It applies to third party voters and our valid criticisms of the Democratic party, as well.