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.
Dunno, ask them.
I do remember a few brave souls encouraging people to vote Green during the last election, but they were mostly drowned out and hounded by enraged Dems for "throwing away their vote" or for "effectively voting for Trump". But no rational analysis of the voting patterns from the last election suggests that leftists were responsible in any way for the election loss.
Criticisms of the Democratic Party, the DNC, and the broken two party system are valid and need to be heard. If the Dems keep losing elections, that's on their terrible candidates, rigged Presidential candidate process, terrible policy choices (e.g. wrt Israel), uninspiring election campaigns, and (mostly) because they are a party of the corporations and for the corporations.
I don't care if you vote or don't vote, because it won't make any difference to where the country is headed unless major political reforms are made to address poverty, break up the two-party system, and stop corporate abuses. And major reforms like that are simply not gonna happen via the shambles that is the existing US political system. As I said before, nothing is gonna get better in the long run under a system that is designed to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. And the Democrats are just as responsible for that system as the Republicans. Making the rich richer and hating on leftists are the only two things they can both agree on.
Yes, absolutely. Anything to break the stranglehold of the two party system would be good. While I don't think Bernie is perfect, I would totally be enthused to vote for him (if I lived in the US) because he is consistently on the right side of most issues. I'd support Mamdani too. That fact that neither of those people are "acceptable" representatives of the Democratic party from the perspective of the DNC is very telling though. They did everything they could to stop Bernie's campaign, and are still doing everything they can to stop Mamdani. Anything to stop the Overton window from moving left an inch or two, right?
people like this are going to get JD Vance elected in 2028
Yeah it definitely won't be the fault of the Dems for putting forward yet another corporate stooge up for election, and sticking with their unpopular policies, no matter what their own voter base actually wants. They will be blameless, as always.
By "no matter what their own voter base actually wants", you mean "some bizarre envisioning of the Dem voter base as far-left"
https://www.newsweek.com/democrats-want-party-move-right-poll-2030713