Online left-wing infighting seems to me to be about applying labels to people because they argue or have argued one thing on a particular topic, and then use it to discredit an unrelated argument topic or paint their overall character. I know there are pot-stirring trolls and compulsive contrarians, but I do witness users I personally judge to have genuine convictions do this amongst each other.
Within US politics, CA Gov. Newsom is an illustrative example (plenty of examples exist too for other countries and around Lemmy/Fedi). I don't particularly like him, he has done things I think are good, some things I think are funny, something things I think are bad and some things I think are downright horrible. Yet I have encountered some users online who will say they can't ever applaud a move of his if one specific other policy or set of other unrelated policies crossed a line for them. I'm not asking people to change their mind on what they think of a person because of an isolated good thing they do, but to at least acknowledge it as a good thing or add nuance describing what about it you like or don't. I can accept saying "I don't think this is a good thing in this circumstance", "this person will not follow through with this thing I think is good thing because ___", or "they are doing a good thing for wrong and selfish reasons" too. But to outright deny any support for an action because of a wildly extrapolated character judgement of the person doing it, when that user would support it otherwise, vexes me greatly.
I know this is not every or most interactions on Lemmy, but these are just some thoughts I have to get out of my head. You don't have to agree with me. I'm using 'left-wing' because the definition of 'leftist' or 'liberal' is wide-ranging depending on who you talk to. And on the side of the spectrum I'm calling left to left-centre, we seem to let the fewer things we disagree with get in the way of the many more things we would agree with each other. That's all, thanks for reading.
Boy, it sure is good that we're talking about exactly that, and not some totally different scenario.
Sounds great. I think OP's point (my point certainly) would be that as a random example, these people seem to spend lots and lots more time shitting on Democratic or leftist politicians than they do on trying to find someone better. Gavin Newsom? POS. Graham Platner? War criminal. Bernie? Zionist. AOC? Genocide supporter.
So who do they support? Why don't we hear them trying to rally support for those left-wing people instead (except when it comes around to the general election and they suddenly get super-passionate about voting third party because the Democrats haven't earned my vote, red line, lesser evil, and so on.)
The anti-homeless and anti-trans policies of gruesome newsom are not easily distinguished from the fascists policies tbf
Did you read the very next sentence? I made the hypothetical intentionally extreme in order to make a point.
Sounds great. So you wouldn't vote for Newsom over Nick Fuentes? And you describe that somehow as choosing LBGTQ people over Newsom, even though they would suffer massively when Fuentes wins?
My point is that this whole framework for looking at the elections is extremely bizarre.
You are deliberately going out of your way to miss the point.
So you wouldn’t vote for Newsom over Nick Fuentes?
Most lefties with this viewpoint will eventually and begrudgingly agree that they'd vote for Newsome but of course spend the rest of their efforts sabre rattling against him while offering no one who meets their requirements.. shrug
Yeah, I mean I definitely do not like Newsom. He is sort of textbook of the modern neoliberal bullshit Democrat, and he's just "Gen Z" enough with all this social media crap that I could absolutely see him being the guy who gets trotted out so that the Democrats can avoid letting an actual progressive near power for another 50 years, and then get all confused when they lose the election. Literally my only criticism here is for the idea "... and that's why it's okay to let Republicans win over and over, until the Democrats get better all on their own!"
It is okay to influence your politicians and fight for better in Washington. It is vital, we're fucked without it, maybe even with it. Refusing to vote isn't that. People have been refusing to vote, in really amazingly high numbers, it has accomplished fuck-all.
Agreed. Newsome sucks and we can do better. I wish we had a system of more parties and less of a zero-sum game
I think the answer is mostly to do away with political parties completely to be honest. The best government I am aware of in history functioned more along the lines of individual people organized into unions and civic organizations fighting for their share in government (literally fighting, sometimes to the death). I don't think delegating power to an official class of people who specialize in accumulating and wielding it and then organize into clubs which you're supposed to vote for as a mass is ever going to lead to anything good (and, in fact, it has not).
This is again the really baffling thing to me about people who combine "The whole American system is rotten and we need to rebuild it mostly from scratch" (which is true), but somehow going alongside "And therefore just don't vote for Democrats! That is the most important element to execute in order to fix it!" Like, the whole idea of American governance is rotten. Letting the more rotten of the two parties win by default a bunch, in the hopes that somehow that will be what motivates the other rotten option to become less rotten and finally start representing the people, just somehow seems so cuckoo banana pants that I have a hard time taking seriously anyone who is super passionate about that being the strategy.
I'm going to not vote for Gavin Newsom even if you resurrect Hitler himself and tell me Gavin is the lesser evil.
And you're mad about it.