Why is the both sides mindset becoming so prevalent?
Liberalism is used, cynically (imo), as a cudgel, to vote against real progressive politics. We can’t have healthcare-for-all because we have to pick the side that isn’t insane or else we get the insane group. And so on, and so on…
Look at how the Biden admin endorses genocide in Gaza. They completely ignore the masses of protesters calling for a ceasefire. How can they get away with this? “The other side is worse.”
A truly responsive party would not stick its thumb in the eye of the people. It’s not that both sides are equally awful. It’s that both are awful and one uses the other to retain power.
Yes but the problem is despite all their blustering online, people only actually engage at the endgame stage of politics. All these “ideologically pure” leftists are doing jackshit to either ensure progressive leftist ideals win out over liberal ideals in the currently viable sorta left-presenting party or to support independent leftist political parties and groups in down-ballot, local elections, and community policy projects. No, instead these oh-so-great morally-superior “real leftists” instead want to bitch and moan about futility and then opt-out on big voting day while spouting virtues as if their behavior doesn’t prevent real progressive change for the better, incremental though it may be.
And to very clear, I’m not taking the “fall in line or get out of the way” democrat bullshit stance here. If you really believe in the policy and values of a third party, please vote for them. I will never accuse an involved voter of throwing a vote away. I’m specifically talking about the large chunk of the left who are only left in theory, not practice, the ideological cosplayers who pretend anything less than absolute is not worth fighting for but who don’t put in any effort to ensure that what they want even ever has a chance of ending up on the ballot in front of them.
It’s easy to stand on virtue and say you won’t support the lesser of two evils, but unless you’re actively working on an alternative, the simple fact is that your abstained position enables the worst-case scenario which will have real-world impact. If we believe in leftist ideals, we should believe in reasonable harm reduction where possible. Same applies here.
I see this as a terminally-online thing personally. The folks who walk the walk at a local level don’t tend to spend the time arguing with folks about it on Twitter because they’ve got real outlets for political action. Therefore, their reach is far lower - if you’re not in that local community, you probably wouldn’t know they exist at all.
A lot of the most annoying castigating on Twitter imo comes from people who are overwhelmed by big problems, or are genuinely marginalized/traumatized in some way, but don’t have an outlet IRL to take action and therefore the Internet takes its place. It’s formed like an attempt at online political action, but really it’s venting. And considering that social media platforms are incentivized to widely spread ideas that make people angry - because that boosts engagement - it’s worth considering their reach online is much, much wider than people posting about measures on their local ballots, or organizing locally, etc.
I think of my friend Val, who teaches self-defense and organizes for collective defense of queer folks and their families. She’s just about the most sincere lefty I’ve ever met, and she’s not even remotely online because she has no need to be - her people are around her. I aim to take a page out of that book tbh.
I don’t really have a sense for how common they are across the board - but ofc lots of folks are. I was myself at one point, and still am to some extent but in a much healthier way I think. It’s certainly something that can change over time and I think more and more people are experiencing social media burnout. I try to be optimistic because if there’s hope for me there’s hope for everyone else.
And it also means that I’m constantly surprised at the number of people I meet near me who are engaged and doing things for the community and I just wouldn’t have seen em online.
Liberalism is used, cynically (imo), as a cudgel, to vote against real progressive politics. We can’t have healthcare-for-all because we have to pick the side that isn’t insane or else we get the insane group. And so on, and so on…
Look at how the Biden admin endorses genocide in Gaza. They completely ignore the masses of protesters calling for a ceasefire. How can they get away with this? “The other side is worse.”
A truly responsive party would not stick its thumb in the eye of the people. It’s not that both sides are equally awful. It’s that both are awful and one uses the other to retain power.
Yes but the problem is despite all their blustering online, people only actually engage at the endgame stage of politics. All these “ideologically pure” leftists are doing jackshit to either ensure progressive leftist ideals win out over liberal ideals in the currently viable sorta left-presenting party or to support independent leftist political parties and groups in down-ballot, local elections, and community policy projects. No, instead these oh-so-great morally-superior “real leftists” instead want to bitch and moan about futility and then opt-out on big voting day while spouting virtues as if their behavior doesn’t prevent real progressive change for the better, incremental though it may be.
And to very clear, I’m not taking the “fall in line or get out of the way” democrat bullshit stance here. If you really believe in the policy and values of a third party, please vote for them. I will never accuse an involved voter of throwing a vote away. I’m specifically talking about the large chunk of the left who are only left in theory, not practice, the ideological cosplayers who pretend anything less than absolute is not worth fighting for but who don’t put in any effort to ensure that what they want even ever has a chance of ending up on the ballot in front of them.
It’s easy to stand on virtue and say you won’t support the lesser of two evils, but unless you’re actively working on an alternative, the simple fact is that your abstained position enables the worst-case scenario which will have real-world impact. If we believe in leftist ideals, we should believe in reasonable harm reduction where possible. Same applies here.
I see this as a terminally-online thing personally. The folks who walk the walk at a local level don’t tend to spend the time arguing with folks about it on Twitter because they’ve got real outlets for political action. Therefore, their reach is far lower - if you’re not in that local community, you probably wouldn’t know they exist at all.
A lot of the most annoying castigating on Twitter imo comes from people who are overwhelmed by big problems, or are genuinely marginalized/traumatized in some way, but don’t have an outlet IRL to take action and therefore the Internet takes its place. It’s formed like an attempt at online political action, but really it’s venting. And considering that social media platforms are incentivized to widely spread ideas that make people angry - because that boosts engagement - it’s worth considering their reach online is much, much wider than people posting about measures on their local ballots, or organizing locally, etc.
I think of my friend Val, who teaches self-defense and organizes for collective defense of queer folks and their families. She’s just about the most sincere lefty I’ve ever met, and she’s not even remotely online because she has no need to be - her people are around her. I aim to take a page out of that book tbh.
I don’t disagree with you, but I do think it’s worth considering that there might be vastly more chronically online people than you think.
I don’t really have a sense for how common they are across the board - but ofc lots of folks are. I was myself at one point, and still am to some extent but in a much healthier way I think. It’s certainly something that can change over time and I think more and more people are experiencing social media burnout. I try to be optimistic because if there’s hope for me there’s hope for everyone else.
And it also means that I’m constantly surprised at the number of people I meet near me who are engaged and doing things for the community and I just wouldn’t have seen em online.