Jul 15Liked by Jack Mirkinson, Jack Crosbie, Samantha Grasso
One thing that I think is particularly important is articulating the ways community support and local organizing can provide an avenue for action in the current moment. The would be assassin, I suspect, viewed their action as the only or at least most effective way to affect the world around them. How would things have turned out if they hadn’t been isolated or propagandized to believe it was up to them singularly. Without community support, community action I think more and more people will fall into such nihilistic adventurism.
I agree, and an uncomfortable thing I have realized is that in some left/liberal spaces we do accidentally exclude some people by doing stuff like using "white male" or "cis man" as a pejorative to people not irony-poisoned enough to not take offense, or treating some people as lower status if they haven't caught up to our tier of progressive/leftist epiphany yet.
Some of the young men steered to reactionary anti-woke Nazi stuff could just as easily have been befriended early on by the people they've now been brainwashed into viewing as "other" and "degenerate," and become the outraged defenders of policies and marginalized groups, if someone met their understanding and the ignorance/privileged they carried where it was at.
Felix Biederman from Chapo Trap House loved to talk about "Based Libs" like Ron Perlman who came off as gruff and made the occasional problematic insult, but were undeniably formidable cohorts. We absolutely need such people in this time, more than ever.
Yeah personally I don’t think forming a community around Chapo Trap House or whether or not someone wants to listen to Ron Perlman is any significant part of building a local organization. If people want to argue about how tolerant their local spaces should or shouldn’t be they can do so but trying to form some hard and fast rule around tolerating racism for the entirety of left/liberal spaces is more of an online point scoring thing imo.
I don't agree with hard and fast rules, I just have seen some groups wherein calling out people for being problematic devolved from an enlightening thing to a power trip thing, or a way to project your resentment toward past bad experiences with say white men onto some new white guy who has nothing to do with it.
I'm gonna give the Dems a pass for their rhetoric as doing what they felt they needed to do to reduce the likelihood of shooting in the streets. It doesn't do them any favors electorally to be perceived as approving or cheering an assassin's bullet, and it would greatly increase the risk of a violent mob response. I'm actually stunned that there weren't roving gangs of fascists attacking leftists and minorities in American streets over the weekend.
I say this as someone who was been saying quiet imprecatory prayers to myself for awhile that both candidates would be incapacitated by causes clearly attributable to their advanced age/natural causes.
The first thing we need to start doing is to address our self-censorship out of genuine fear of conservatives harassing us with threats and tweet-ratioing rage. The right wing thrives on getting us to apologize to or condemn whomever they want through doing performative hysteria and trying to trap us with accusations of hypocrisy. They love ganging up on some individual journalist until the journalist either consciously or subconsciously decides to hold their tongue, lock their accounts, and be less inflammatory.
We fear wading into right wing spaces to argue against their most popular talking points and thought terminating cliches, we fear we will fall on deaf years and get ourselves unnecessarily dogpiled by vitriol. We may even fear that we'll read something triggering or an argument too potent in favor of racism/sexism for us to argue against. This kind of ignoring the most salient and fresh right wing arguments, rather than developing galvanizing rhetoric in parallel that sounds more convincing, this kind of exclusively trying to tell or own in-group some right winger is being appalling rather than clearly articulating why it is bad in a way that lets any layperson who scrolls by to enthusiastically agree, this is how we've kept losing ground to the right since Gamergate.
What is our future vision as described in positive terms that get the least politically engaged person to start dreaming with us? Did you all know that the only prominent person who unapologetically defended drag queen story hours to right wing media at the height of transphobic hate this year was Chase Oliver the libertarian candidate? Did you guys know that the most effective and unphased-by-threats dismantlers of popular redpill/incel arguments online are evopsych people and educated Christian female bloggers? We are not facing our opposition head-on in any sense of the term.
What if all prominent anti-Trump people said some form of "Trump is still a dictator except now with an ear piercing?" Sure if one person says this they'll get mobbed, but if everyone says it and does not recant it, it will exhaust the right wing outrage machine, get them to hit their ceiling of rage generated and force them to concede to not being able to phase us. Most of us are too scared of and triggered by the fascist outlooks in right wing spaces to make regular direct challenges to their spread and corners if the internet where they recruit. And if we're hiding from that we have no chance to take on real-world violence.
When was the last time conservatives were genuinely intimidated by a ideological movement or politician on the left side of the political spectrum? When the left side NOT felt intimidated by a right wing ideological movement or politician?
The left needs to pack up, and start preparing together for whatever happens in November, against whoever will be coming to attack us.
That means a new, loose, coalitional left party at best; to contest elections in 2026. At worst, it means organizing our own defense against any measures our enemies put on the table.
I had the same feeling as you when I saw the news. Somehow, I have come full circle though.
I have thought for a while now that another four years of Biden would just maintain the status quo. As we all know, more of the same is only marginally better than another Trump term. Isn't this where Trump derives his power? He is worshiped by his base because they see him as anti-establishment. He is the most likely candidate to change a social and political trajectory they can not abide.
If I'm being honest, I kind of feel the same way. The difference is that I dislike completely different aspects of our society than the average Trump supporter. IMO, most of us waste our lives trying to maintain or obtain imagined social positions in a machine that destroys the environment and mostly benefits the elite. I can't see how Trump could change this fact without making it much worse.
Too many people are content within our seriously flawed system. We all know they'll vote for what they see as a lesser evil. If Trump wins and our system erodes at an accelerated pace, we should be prepared to fix and improve it. We should also be prepared to resist a return to the status quo. I realize that this opinion will only appeal to the most frustrated among us, but these ideas are the only way I can handle the prospect of what may come.
I hate to say it, but letting Trump break the system (beyond what he has already) might actually motivate the people who are too comfortable to support true and meaningful change. We need this change to happen across most aspects of our society and culture if we want to secure a better future for life on this planet. This might get me put in a list somewhere, but we need a revolution. I hope it is peaceful. My plan is to watch the situation closely and protect the people I care about by preparing for the worst.
One thing that I think is particularly important is articulating the ways community support and local organizing can provide an avenue for action in the current moment. The would be assassin, I suspect, viewed their action as the only or at least most effective way to affect the world around them. How would things have turned out if they hadn’t been isolated or propagandized to believe it was up to them singularly. Without community support, community action I think more and more people will fall into such nihilistic adventurism.
A vital point brilliantly expressed!
Thank you! This was also a very well needed, and well timed, argument in this current moment.
I agree, and an uncomfortable thing I have realized is that in some left/liberal spaces we do accidentally exclude some people by doing stuff like using "white male" or "cis man" as a pejorative to people not irony-poisoned enough to not take offense, or treating some people as lower status if they haven't caught up to our tier of progressive/leftist epiphany yet.
Some of the young men steered to reactionary anti-woke Nazi stuff could just as easily have been befriended early on by the people they've now been brainwashed into viewing as "other" and "degenerate," and become the outraged defenders of policies and marginalized groups, if someone met their understanding and the ignorance/privileged they carried where it was at.
Felix Biederman from Chapo Trap House loved to talk about "Based Libs" like Ron Perlman who came off as gruff and made the occasional problematic insult, but were undeniably formidable cohorts. We absolutely need such people in this time, more than ever.
Yeah personally I don’t think forming a community around Chapo Trap House or whether or not someone wants to listen to Ron Perlman is any significant part of building a local organization. If people want to argue about how tolerant their local spaces should or shouldn’t be they can do so but trying to form some hard and fast rule around tolerating racism for the entirety of left/liberal spaces is more of an online point scoring thing imo.
I don't agree with hard and fast rules, I just have seen some groups wherein calling out people for being problematic devolved from an enlightening thing to a power trip thing, or a way to project your resentment toward past bad experiences with say white men onto some new white guy who has nothing to do with it.
This is really great!
thanks josh ❤️❤️❤️
If HamNo was here he'd be all "Join a goddamn Union!" Which is, y'know, correct.
I'm gonna give the Dems a pass for their rhetoric as doing what they felt they needed to do to reduce the likelihood of shooting in the streets. It doesn't do them any favors electorally to be perceived as approving or cheering an assassin's bullet, and it would greatly increase the risk of a violent mob response. I'm actually stunned that there weren't roving gangs of fascists attacking leftists and minorities in American streets over the weekend.
I say this as someone who was been saying quiet imprecatory prayers to myself for awhile that both candidates would be incapacitated by causes clearly attributable to their advanced age/natural causes.
The first thing we need to start doing is to address our self-censorship out of genuine fear of conservatives harassing us with threats and tweet-ratioing rage. The right wing thrives on getting us to apologize to or condemn whomever they want through doing performative hysteria and trying to trap us with accusations of hypocrisy. They love ganging up on some individual journalist until the journalist either consciously or subconsciously decides to hold their tongue, lock their accounts, and be less inflammatory.
We fear wading into right wing spaces to argue against their most popular talking points and thought terminating cliches, we fear we will fall on deaf years and get ourselves unnecessarily dogpiled by vitriol. We may even fear that we'll read something triggering or an argument too potent in favor of racism/sexism for us to argue against. This kind of ignoring the most salient and fresh right wing arguments, rather than developing galvanizing rhetoric in parallel that sounds more convincing, this kind of exclusively trying to tell or own in-group some right winger is being appalling rather than clearly articulating why it is bad in a way that lets any layperson who scrolls by to enthusiastically agree, this is how we've kept losing ground to the right since Gamergate.
What is our future vision as described in positive terms that get the least politically engaged person to start dreaming with us? Did you all know that the only prominent person who unapologetically defended drag queen story hours to right wing media at the height of transphobic hate this year was Chase Oliver the libertarian candidate? Did you guys know that the most effective and unphased-by-threats dismantlers of popular redpill/incel arguments online are evopsych people and educated Christian female bloggers? We are not facing our opposition head-on in any sense of the term.
What if all prominent anti-Trump people said some form of "Trump is still a dictator except now with an ear piercing?" Sure if one person says this they'll get mobbed, but if everyone says it and does not recant it, it will exhaust the right wing outrage machine, get them to hit their ceiling of rage generated and force them to concede to not being able to phase us. Most of us are too scared of and triggered by the fascist outlooks in right wing spaces to make regular direct challenges to their spread and corners if the internet where they recruit. And if we're hiding from that we have no chance to take on real-world violence.
When was the last time conservatives were genuinely intimidated by a ideological movement or politician on the left side of the political spectrum? When the left side NOT felt intimidated by a right wing ideological movement or politician?
The left needs to pack up, and start preparing together for whatever happens in November, against whoever will be coming to attack us.
That means a new, loose, coalitional left party at best; to contest elections in 2026. At worst, it means organizing our own defense against any measures our enemies put on the table.
We must start forming communities built on love, kindness, sharing, and caring💕
I had the same feeling as you when I saw the news. Somehow, I have come full circle though.
I have thought for a while now that another four years of Biden would just maintain the status quo. As we all know, more of the same is only marginally better than another Trump term. Isn't this where Trump derives his power? He is worshiped by his base because they see him as anti-establishment. He is the most likely candidate to change a social and political trajectory they can not abide.
If I'm being honest, I kind of feel the same way. The difference is that I dislike completely different aspects of our society than the average Trump supporter. IMO, most of us waste our lives trying to maintain or obtain imagined social positions in a machine that destroys the environment and mostly benefits the elite. I can't see how Trump could change this fact without making it much worse.
Too many people are content within our seriously flawed system. We all know they'll vote for what they see as a lesser evil. If Trump wins and our system erodes at an accelerated pace, we should be prepared to fix and improve it. We should also be prepared to resist a return to the status quo. I realize that this opinion will only appeal to the most frustrated among us, but these ideas are the only way I can handle the prospect of what may come.
I hate to say it, but letting Trump break the system (beyond what he has already) might actually motivate the people who are too comfortable to support true and meaningful change. We need this change to happen across most aspects of our society and culture if we want to secure a better future for life on this planet. This might get me put in a list somewhere, but we need a revolution. I hope it is peaceful. My plan is to watch the situation closely and protect the people I care about by preparing for the worst.