In hindsight, it was the most predictable thing in the world, yet it still somehow caught me by surprise.
No, I don’t support the guy. I don’t even live in the U.S., and I wouldn’t have voted for him if I did. But I do think the average person who identifies as “on the left,” particularly here on Lemmy, doesn’t realize how incredibly toxic the atmosphere becomes for true independents. We’re stuck enduring a firehose of insanity and hatred from both sides.
In my view, one of the main reasons we got Trump in the first place was the identity politics and wokeism on the left. For a while, I thought the pendulum was swinging back toward reason and balance, but now it feels like we’re back where we started. Honestly, I can’t even blame people for voting for him - it’s just a shame that the silent majority has to suffer because of the vocal minority.
Why is it that political discussions seem incapable of being conducted dispassionately? I can’t shake the feeling that this polarization is driving more people to the right, only worsening the issue. Hell, I’m probably going to be labeled a right-winger just for making this post. And then people wonder why the right is gaining popularity. Where else can centrists even go anymore when the left eats its own?
You can say that’s not the goal of the right, but it’s still an active movement to that end. Personally I think it’s just a tool the right is using to gain support by spreading fear about an issue that isn’t fully understood. They directly spread propaganda suggesting that trans people are coming for your kids, when most trans people just want to live in the body they choose.
For example why is supporting gender-affirming surgery for any person a bad thing? In reality, nobody is pushing gender reassignment on people who don’t want it. Regardless of who they are, their decision to have surgery doesn’t harm you.
These are just people who have different emotional or psychological needs than you do, and even if you don’t relate to it, that’s okay for them to feel that way. Why shouldn’t it be supported? What harm are they doing to you by being trans and having gender-affirming treatment of any kind? From that perspective, it’s hard to see opposition as anything but being against who these people are as individuals. And that’s precisely what transphobia is: opposing it for no reason other than that it’s different from what you know.
We should fully support people being or doing what they want, until it becomes a danger for others. And we have seen that anti-trans attitudes have led to trans people being harmed or sometimes killed just because they are trans.
The issue isn’t that identity politics aren’t well-intentioned. The issue is that when the left focuses so heavily on them while dismissing anyone not 100% on board as right-wing bigots, they alienate a significant portion of the population. You never get to implement meaningful change because the people fed up with all this end up voting the other way. It serves no one’s interests to alienate straight white men and treat them as the root of all evil - that’s more than a third of the population.
Take someone like Joe Rogan, for example. The guy hadn’t voted Republican his entire life. He grew up in San Francisco with two hippie parents - you don’t get more classically liberal than him. He’s even had trans guests on his podcast. And yet, look at him now. He’s endured years of relentless attacks from the left, often treated unfairly and having his views misrepresented. Can you really blame him for switching sides? I can’t. Elon Musk is no different.
The left did this to themselves. If you want to win elections, the party has to be something people want to vote for. Right now, the only thing the Democrats have going for them is that the other side is even more unhinged. Simply being “less bad” just isn’t enough anymore.
For one thing, I don’t think “many people in this minority are mean to me” is ever a good reason to turn against the entire group. To use the old comparison again, it’s not appropriate to say that you were bullied by black people, so therefore all black people should stay segregated. That excuse will never fly, and the same applies here.
Many trans people are angry at the way they are treated, and rightly so. While they may often lash out inappropriately, that doesn’t mean it’s right to dismiss all of them because of the angry ones.
As for those of us not part of the marginalized groups, most of us simply take a hard line stance on respecting people who can’t help the way they were born. Give people basic human respect for who they are, regardless of who you think they should be. If someone suggests that trans people are predators or perverts just because they want to be treated as the gender they feel, then yes, this person will be dismissed as a bigot.
As for Joe Rogan, he has come out on the wrong side of… Many scientific issues. He’s an idiot (and has admitted it occasionally), but he often forgets that, and takes strong positions that are go against the medical and scientific consensus. He’s not a doctor and he doesn’t have all the facts right about trans physiology, and he’s said some ignorant things in that regard. He is generally hated because he mixes up his ignorance with scientific analysis, whether it’s about trans issues, or about COVID, or anything else.
And I know some news articles have been happy to misrepresent some of the things he said, and that’s bad. Because the people who already don’t like him are more willing to believe out of context quotes. But he already says enough that is terrible at face value, and making things up doesn’t help anyone.
Now you are mixing some things up. “The Left” consists of a large group of people who are not Democrats. Most of the left didn’t particularly want Harris, they just understand the reality of the American two-party system. We are still critical of the Democrats because we want them to represent us more, but we support them because they are the most left viable group we have.
That said, the Democrats have a LOT more to the party and platform than “less bad than Republicans.” Historically, the Democratic administrations usually created a stronger economy for the middle and lower classes, while reducing the national deficit. They have made important strides for climate action. They continue to push for health care improvements. Harris’ campaign included specific issues and plans in her platform.
The trouble is that many people just ignore these things. A lot of Republicans just don’t believe that democratic policies often help them.
And the less politically involved people don’t even bother to read any of these things. They just see the news headlines about identity politics that are pushed by the media. These are the people who generally fall into the trap you are describing. But no amount of us bringing up the real political platform will ever be as memorable as the headlines saying that someone is mad at someone else about something.
As they should.
The reason I focus on the vocal minority is that, if those are the only voices someone hears from, I can’t blame them for feeling like everyone on that side is against them. It’s not an accurate perception, but it’s an understandable one.
I, for one, have to constantly remind myself that the views I see on Lemmy don’t represent the silent majority. Not everyone is able to make that distinction. If someone spends 8 hours a day debating politics on Twitter, there’s no middle ground - only the most extreme views get amplified. Anyone attempting a dispassionate, fact-based, non-partisan discussion gets attacked from both sides.
Abortion is a good example. Somehow, I’m a “blue-haired screaming liberal cuck” for thinking a total abortion ban is an indefensible position, but I’m also a “fascist bigot” for believing there should be a point after which abortion requires a legitimate medical reason, backed by a doctor - or even two.
This should be a reminder to you then: this is not a problem with “the Left” if you get it from the conservatives as well. Why does this somehow push you further right if you have extremists on both ends treating you this way?
Well, I mean, nowadays Lemmy is the only social media platform I spend time on, so naturally, all the pushback I get comes from the left, as right-wingers are practically non-existent here. Back on Reddit, I was getting it from both sides.
My point is that shunning people who are, or are perceived to be, even slightly on the right is a bad tactic. To win elections, we need these people to vote for our side. In my experience, the right is much more welcoming toward “ex-liberals,” whereas I don’t feel the same applies to the left. Take Joe Rogan, for example - he still holds plenty of liberal values but doesn’t get attacked from the right for it.