this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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I'm arguing against the idea that the left hasn't been preaching working class solidarity for decades. You're acting like it's a novel concept to tell them rich people are the enemy. It's not. It hasn't worked because they are more interested in identity politics than actually helping themselves. Do you think those rather be Russian than a democrat shirts were a joke? It's not about their actual interests, it's about not being woke. They are willing to get covid or measles or bird flu and die to prove they're anti-woke. They aren't interested in hearing about how the wealthy hate them, because they're too interested in hating minorities. If you wanna chat with them, enjoy, but the only way society deals with this kind of thing is by ensuring their bs never gets acceptable. We spent too much time talking to nazis and not enough time punching them and now they have the government.
I mean, I have literally turned more people than I can count, family members, friends, strangers, simply by making the fucking effort to talk to them without being an entitled dick just because I'm smarter. Things like quietly discussing the state of politics and how the economy works, the scale of deep-time and how it makes biblical stories more fantastic, not less, how biology and sexuality work and how many people are different than they've been led to believe, and just talking about their own personal insecurities. I have had people who identify as incels and nazis follow up with me years later thanking me for saving their lives because they were dumb and not thinking clearly. You don't have to believe any of this, but I know you can change people one-on-one, and our challenge is to do this larger-scale WHILE still trying to make more effective political actions.
As individuals most of these people are NOT "more interested in hating minorities" that's what they do, not what they are, we are giving many of them way too much intellectual credit, the racism has always been just the wallpaper that's been plastered over their simple insecurities and fears, and providing a better story and giving people a chance to feel heard and express their insecurity and addressing it, that does far, far more to change the world than thinking that some magical revolution is going to purge the nation of everyone who clings to stories that are appalling to you because you know better. A lot of people don't know better.
Granted, we cannot treat individuals the same way we treat populations, but you and many other people seem to be forgetting that WE STILL WILL HAVE TO SHARE OUR COUNTRY WITH THEM so we need to be better about our feelings of resentment and desires for atonement and "justice." Our goal should be finding a way to do this, otherwise we start getting talk about "rounding people up" and "reeducation camps" and "revolutions" and I kinda don't want to see America's left become the next Israel. (Not that we could ever organize a large enough movement without it breaking down into seven hundred different forms of infighting progressive groups.)