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.

  • Dagwood222@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    20 hours ago

    And that’s what’s so funny about you.

    You can’t just say that I made a valid point and move on. You’re so consumed with “winning” that you keep repeating exactly what I said telling me I am wrong.

    As long as we keep agreeing, I’ll keep pointing it out.

    • anarchiddy@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      0·
      19 hours ago

      Lmao, sorry, FD’s writing is so loud I can’t hear your sealioning over the sound of his righteous fury

      The American people have this to learn: that where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither person nor property is safe

      Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.

      • Dagwood222@lemm.eeEnglish
        0·
        16 hours ago

        And where exactly does he say that the only thing we should do is lash out mindlessly without any sort of strategy? If you show me somethign where he advocated barreling along without any sort of plan, I’ll concede the point.

        • anarchiddy@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          0·
          16 hours ago

          The point isn’t that we must always chose agitation, the point is that you cannot blame the presence of tension on those who agitate for justice, because the tension was already present. Those who agitate against injustice are merely bringing that tension into the light.

          You cannot set the timeline for another’s liberation.

            • anarchiddy@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
              0·
              15 hours ago

              Lmaooooooooo

              Nope. MLK is saying it doesn’t matter what strategy you think is best, because the privileged and the unaffected cannot dictate to the oppressed and the dis-privileged what strategy they ought to take to achieve justice owed to them.

              The people who agitate are the sole arbiters on what strategy is justified and what timeline is acceptable in the pursuit of justice. If you find that to be inconvenient and ill-timed, that is the entire point.

              Lol “Oh, so you agree with me then?!?” lmfao get out of here

                • anarchiddy@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
                  0·
                  12 hours ago

                  Look man, I think I’ve covered this pretty well, I’m not sure I want to keep beating a dead horse. MLK and any other agitator for justice can pick their own timeline for justice. Telling someone else that now is not the time is what MLK is criticizing. You’re free to withhold your own agitation to the proper time but you can’t tell someone else to wait. I feel like that’s pretty clear.

                  • Dagwood222@lemm.eeEnglish
                    0·
                    12 hours ago

                    So, again you agree with me.

                    Everyone is in the fight against Trump, and we need to listen to the smart leaders and not run off like idiots.