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The American left is one of the most impotent political entities. The only purpose they seem to serve is strengthening the far right by imposing counter produc

The American left is one of the most impotent political entities. The only purpose they seem to serve is strengthening the far right by imposing counter productive purity tests and pushing people to vote for the far right options over more centrist ones.

otterdude 1y ago
until people starting giving a shit to form alternatives, they're the only option that exists. Were not in a college classroom debating ideals, this is a real life triage situation
adrr 1y ago
And what purity tests are those?
- recursive 1y ago
  Probably the identity politics stuff if I had to guess.
  - flkiwi 1y ago
    Identity politics. Rejecting identity politics for economic justice. Rejecting economic justice for economic revolution. It goes on and on. There are so many overlapping and contradictory purity tests among the various branches of the left, that meaningful opposition from the left is more of a coincidence than anything one can plan for.
    - adrr 1y ago
      Name a purity test. Stop dancing around the question.
      - flkiwi 1y ago
        Name a meaningful victory of the American left's approach in the last 25 years. Stop dancing around the question.
        deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
        adrr 1y ago
        The conservative masquerading as an independent blaming the left for fake issues of why as you can't support them. Trope is as old as time. Strongest economies are from blue states. Poorest are red states. Same with crime. Health out comes(Life expectancy, infant. mortality). Who was the only president to run a surplus in recent history.
        flkiwi 1y ago
        Ha, I'm neither conservative nor independent nor particularly moderate. I'm firmly, vigorously left in ideology. It's delightful that your conclusion upon receiving criticism of the left's approach is that the speaker must be a conservative. Thank you for illustrating the purity test issue! Anyway, instead of being dedicated to achieving change, the American left CONSTANTLY gets distracted, e.g., complaining about those successful Democratic presidents (or candidates) who drive meaningful change as "incrementalist", "too moderate", or, my absolute favorite, "liberal" as if the European use of the word has ever mapped to the American use. I've even seen people on the left criticize AOC for selling out, when what she is doing is practicing effective politics.
      - recursive 1y ago
        This is a setup to fail a purity test. We'll skip the formalities and you can just preemptively consider this a failure.
- tyleo 1y ago
  A visible example is the ACLU questionnaire which covers support for transgender medical care with state resources for detained immigrants. Harris’s written support was turned into an ad campaign for Trump. You can agree or disagree with the policy but it isn’t a great hill to die on if you want to win elections. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/harris-gender-surgeries-jail/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/harris-gender-surgeries-ja...
  - hiddencost 1y ago
    [flagged]
  - SamoyedFurFluff 1y ago
    Frankly it read to me more like Harris had a totally moderate response that was blown up by the right as something she is a die hard believer in. No one is dying on the hill of trans rights except for trans people as far as I see on the political stage. Republicans talk way more about trans people than democrats. Republicans pass way more laws about trans people than democrats. Republicans raise way more money on trans people than democrats. Democrats literally don’t seem to stand for anything as a unified force: government shutdowns over roe v wade overturn, start reading Epstein files into congressional record, refuse to cooperate with a single republican bill until they get some red meat for their base. I haven’t really seen anything and I’m not even particularly leftist. I just can’t imagine a single time democrats threw a massive shitfest for red meat, but I hear it nonstop in republican spaces.
    - tyleo 1y ago
      I agree that she had a moderate response. I think it appeared that she was dying on the this hill because she didn’t address it in her 2024 campaign yet it received so much air time in Republican ads. I also agree that it feels like Democrats don’t stand for anything. But I think by leaving that space open they let ads like this paint what they stand for.
      - SamoyedFurFluff 1y ago
hypeatei 1y ago
You're referring to very far left circles that definitely don't represent liberals or more moderate Dems. I agree though, those circles consist of single-issue voters (e.g. palestine) that harm actual progress.
- DrewADesign 1y ago
  Yeah the centrist dems— the vast majority of currently elected democrats— are really knocking it out of the park. It’s the tiny handful of actual progressives that snuck through the DNC’s fortress walls that are messing everything up with their pesky fringe principles… that also poll extremely well with the general public.
  - hypeatei 1y ago
    > tiny handful of actual progressives ... that are messing everything up I never said that. There were many far-leftists who sat out in 2024 due to Palestine, proclaiming that Kamala would've been just as bad or worse than Trump on that issue which is ludicrous. Needless to say, I'm not opposed to progressive ideals but the reality is that they're more focused on principles than getting elected. > that also poll extremely well with the general public If that's the case, why don't we see more candidates like Bernie/AOC/Mamdani being elected across the country? I can probably guess your next is answer is that the DNC and/or billionaires suppress their campaigns?
    - DrewADesign 1y ago
      … did you see how many mainstream popular national politicians came out of the woodwork to support Cuomo despite being the less popular candidate by a significant amount? Did you catch the coordinated drop-out/endorsement of Clinton in 2016 which killed Sanders’ lead? Did you see all of the people in the party rushing to make an issue of Mamdani supporting Palestine in a race for mayor of NYC which is definitely not near Israel or Palestine, physically or through policy, and legally can’t even interact with those countries as a delegate of the US? Yes there is resistance to progressive candidates from the DNC leadership. No, it’s not a conspiracy theory. And you don’t have to look for second order effects to see how progressive issues poll — look at recent polls on Palestine, single-payer health care, housing affordability, and plenty of other progressive policies, by reputable non-partisan sources. Centrism is just as much of a political perspective as being anywhere else on the spectrum and can color political perspectives just as easily — it just biased in favor of the status quo so it’s got a much easier job. Blaming individual voters for voting ‘wrong’ is the first line of defense for people unwilling to take a hard look at the efficacy of the people that are supposed to be mobilizing and representing those voters. If your politician doesn’t represent the voters’ values enough to gain their vote, the problem is the politician. The mainstream dems have just run out of leverage to coerce people into candidates they don’t align with using the “vote blue no matter who” tactic.
cogman10 1y ago
This is hogwash. The american left by and large is simply unrepresented. Democrats have represented center right positions since clinton. If anything, it's those centrist democrats that use purity tests as much as possible to eject the left from the party. As a good example of that, consider the case of Al Franken vs Andrew Cuomo. Franken was pretty progressive, so when it came out that he had a picture in bad taste where he mocked squeezing boobs, gone. 24/7 news about how he's really a monster and the worst person in the world. Meanwhile, Cuomo has multiple credible allegations of sexual harassment and who does the party STILL back even after he lost the primary? He literally got endorsements from Democrats who shed tears because of the Al Franken photo. The same thing happened to Bernie Sanders. The centrist dems and media started circulating garbage about how he was sexist over a comment he didn't make.
- cardamomo 1y ago
  I agree with this assessment, and Mamdani's popularity in NYC provides some credence to this. Voters have wanted the Dems to move left since at least 2016, but the Democratic establishment routinely punishes those who aren't moving rightward.
  - adrr 1y ago
    Party has moved been moving left since Clinton. Clinton was more conservative than George W Bush. Balance Budgets(fired a bunch government workers), welfare reform,NAFTA etc.
    - cogman10 1y ago
      The base has been, the representatives have been sclerotic. A good number of them came in with clinton and have had essentially the same politics as clinton. Biden had a decent representation of left cabinet picks. But otherwise, the party has been pretty slow to change. Obama, in particular, gets remember as being progressive yet he truly was not. He took some antiwar stances and then failed to deliver on those promises. That was about the end of his left leaning policies.
mschuster91 1y ago
At least our "purity tests" don't end up with dead people. By the current state of information, the CK killer was a Nick Fuentes follower. And hell, just look at how first the Tea Party and then MAGA managed to yeet a lot of what used to be "moderate" Republicans out of the party alright.
softwaredoug 1y ago
“The Left” as educated elites clustered in cities has and will always be fairly impotent (at least electorally, maybe not culturally) “The Left” as defined by a broad, working class based coalition independent of urban/rural has historically been formidable. But as the closest example of this in recent history - Obama coalition - erodes, and GOP eats into working class voters, it becomes less formidable. Really The Left (the Democratic Party) needs to rebuild an electorally successful coalition. The leaders that could lead that aren’t obvious to me yet.

otterdude 1y ago

until people starting giving a shit to form alternatives, they're the only option that exists. Were not in a college classroom debating ideals, this is a real life triage situation

adrr 1y ago

And what purity tests are those?

recursive 1y ago
Probably the identity politics stuff if I had to guess.
- flkiwi 1y ago
  Identity politics. Rejecting identity politics for economic justice. Rejecting economic justice for economic revolution. It goes on and on. There are so many overlapping and contradictory purity tests among the various branches of the left, that meaningful opposition from the left is more of a coincidence than anything one can plan for.
  - adrr 1y ago
    Name a purity test. Stop dancing around the question.
    - flkiwi 1y ago
      Name a meaningful victory of the American left's approach in the last 25 years. Stop dancing around the question.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
      - adrr 1y ago
        The conservative masquerading as an independent blaming the left for fake issues of why as you can't support them. Trope is as old as time. Strongest economies are from blue states. Poorest are red states. Same with crime. Health out comes(Life expectancy, infant. mortality). Who was the only president to run a surplus in recent history.
        flkiwi 1y ago
        Ha, I'm neither conservative nor independent nor particularly moderate. I'm firmly, vigorously left in ideology. It's delightful that your conclusion upon receiving criticism of the left's approach is that the speaker must be a conservative. Thank you for illustrating the purity test issue! Anyway, instead of being dedicated to achieving change, the American left CONSTANTLY gets distracted, e.g., complaining about those successful Democratic presidents (or candidates) who drive meaningful change as "incrementalist", "too moderate", or, my absolute favorite, "liberal" as if the European use of the word has ever mapped to the American use. I've even seen people on the left criticize AOC for selling out, when what she is doing is practicing effective politics.
    - recursive 1y ago
      This is a setup to fail a purity test. We'll skip the formalities and you can just preemptively consider this a failure.
tyleo 1y ago
A visible example is the ACLU questionnaire which covers support for transgender medical care with state resources for detained immigrants. Harris’s written support was turned into an ad campaign for Trump. You can agree or disagree with the policy but it isn’t a great hill to die on if you want to win elections. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/harris-gender-surgeries-jail/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/harris-gender-surgeries-ja...
- hiddencost 1y ago
  [flagged]
- SamoyedFurFluff 1y ago
  Frankly it read to me more like Harris had a totally moderate response that was blown up by the right as something she is a die hard believer in. No one is dying on the hill of trans rights except for trans people as far as I see on the political stage. Republicans talk way more about trans people than democrats. Republicans pass way more laws about trans people than democrats. Republicans raise way more money on trans people than democrats. Democrats literally don’t seem to stand for anything as a unified force: government shutdowns over roe v wade overturn, start reading Epstein files into congressional record, refuse to cooperate with a single republican bill until they get some red meat for their base. I haven’t really seen anything and I’m not even particularly leftist. I just can’t imagine a single time democrats threw a massive shitfest for red meat, but I hear it nonstop in republican spaces.
  - tyleo 1y ago
    I agree that she had a moderate response. I think it appeared that she was dying on the this hill because she didn’t address it in her 2024 campaign yet it received so much air time in Republican ads. I also agree that it feels like Democrats don’t stand for anything. But I think by leaving that space open they let ads like this paint what they stand for.
    - SamoyedFurFluff 1y ago

hypeatei 1y ago

You're referring to very far left circles that definitely don't represent liberals or more moderate Dems. I agree though, those circles consist of single-issue voters (e.g. palestine) that harm actual progress.

DrewADesign 1y ago
Yeah the centrist dems— the vast majority of currently elected democrats— are really knocking it out of the park. It’s the tiny handful of actual progressives that snuck through the DNC’s fortress walls that are messing everything up with their pesky fringe principles… that also poll extremely well with the general public.
- hypeatei 1y ago
  > tiny handful of actual progressives ... that are messing everything up I never said that. There were many far-leftists who sat out in 2024 due to Palestine, proclaiming that Kamala would've been just as bad or worse than Trump on that issue which is ludicrous. Needless to say, I'm not opposed to progressive ideals but the reality is that they're more focused on principles than getting elected. > that also poll extremely well with the general public If that's the case, why don't we see more candidates like Bernie/AOC/Mamdani being elected across the country? I can probably guess your next is answer is that the DNC and/or billionaires suppress their campaigns?
  - DrewADesign 1y ago
    … did you see how many mainstream popular national politicians came out of the woodwork to support Cuomo despite being the less popular candidate by a significant amount? Did you catch the coordinated drop-out/endorsement of Clinton in 2016 which killed Sanders’ lead? Did you see all of the people in the party rushing to make an issue of Mamdani supporting Palestine in a race for mayor of NYC which is definitely not near Israel or Palestine, physically or through policy, and legally can’t even interact with those countries as a delegate of the US? Yes there is resistance to progressive candidates from the DNC leadership. No, it’s not a conspiracy theory. And you don’t have to look for second order effects to see how progressive issues poll — look at recent polls on Palestine, single-payer health care, housing affordability, and plenty of other progressive policies, by reputable non-partisan sources. Centrism is just as much of a political perspective as being anywhere else on the spectrum and can color political perspectives just as easily — it just biased in favor of the status quo so it’s got a much easier job. Blaming individual voters for voting ‘wrong’ is the first line of defense for people unwilling to take a hard look at the efficacy of the people that are supposed to be mobilizing and representing those voters. If your politician doesn’t represent the voters’ values enough to gain their vote, the problem is the politician. The mainstream dems have just run out of leverage to coerce people into candidates they don’t align with using the “vote blue no matter who” tactic.

cogman10 1y ago

This is hogwash. The american left by and large is simply unrepresented. Democrats have represented center right positions since clinton. If anything, it's those centrist democrats that use purity tests as much as possible to eject the left from the party. As a good example of that, consider the case of Al Franken vs Andrew Cuomo. Franken was pretty progressive, so when it came out that he had a picture in bad taste where he mocked squeezing boobs, gone. 24/7 news about how he's really a monster and the worst person in the world. Meanwhile, Cuomo has multiple credible allegations of sexual harassment and who does the party STILL back even after he lost the primary? He literally got endorsements from Democrats who shed tears because of the Al Franken photo. The same thing happened to Bernie Sanders. The centrist dems and media started circulating garbage about how he was sexist over a comment he didn't make.

cardamomo 1y ago
I agree with this assessment, and Mamdani's popularity in NYC provides some credence to this. Voters have wanted the Dems to move left since at least 2016, but the Democratic establishment routinely punishes those who aren't moving rightward.
- adrr 1y ago
  Party has moved been moving left since Clinton. Clinton was more conservative than George W Bush. Balance Budgets(fired a bunch government workers), welfare reform,NAFTA etc.
  - cogman10 1y ago
    The base has been, the representatives have been sclerotic. A good number of them came in with clinton and have had essentially the same politics as clinton. Biden had a decent representation of left cabinet picks. But otherwise, the party has been pretty slow to change. Obama, in particular, gets remember as being progressive yet he truly was not. He took some antiwar stances and then failed to deliver on those promises. That was about the end of his left leaning policies.

mschuster91 1y ago

At least our "purity tests" don't end up with dead people. By the current state of information, the CK killer was a Nick Fuentes follower. And hell, just look at how first the Tea Party and then MAGA managed to yeet a lot of what used to be "moderate" Republicans out of the party alright.

softwaredoug 1y ago

“The Left” as educated elites clustered in cities has and will always be fairly impotent (at least electorally, maybe not culturally) “The Left” as defined by a broad, working class based coalition independent of urban/rural has historically been formidable. But as the closest example of this in recent history - Obama coalition - erodes, and GOP eats into working class voters, it becomes less formidable. Really The Left (the Democratic Party) needs to rebuild an electorally successful coalition. The leaders that could lead that aren’t obvious to me yet.