In Defense of Punching Left

I'm a liberal. I've always been a liberal...

[...]

"Don't punch left" is the core tenet of Solidarity, a new book by Astra Taylor and Leah Hunt-Hendrix. In a laudatory interview with the Washington Post, Hunt-Hendrix said the book was aimed not only at progressives in general but also specifically at liberals who criticize the left, naming me and newsletter author Matthew Yglesias as "falling into the right's divide-and-conquer strategy."

I read a couple more paragraphs and I had to stop. I forgot what a terrible writer he is. The article is like reading a textbook that lectures you.

r/neoliberal thread

  • Wertheimer [any]
    ·
    7 months ago

    It would surprise any liberal to learn we have no desire to redistribute wealth, tackle climate change, or advance social justice and care only about corporations and the status quo.

    Then what are you doing?

    When every cause is framed as a matter of absolute moral urgency, which is the lingua franca of protest politics, then no compromise can be brooked.

    yes-comm

    • InevitableSwing [none/use name]
      ·
      7 months ago

      When every cause is framed as a matter of absolute moral urgency, which is the lingua franca of protest politics, then no compromise can be brooked.

      That was also quoted in the r/Enough_Sanders_Spam thread. What a odd sub that is. It's like I put on "They Live" glasses and all the comity and civility and the rest of the superficial façade of liberals is stripped away and I can see who they really are.

      • Wertheimer [any]
        ·
        7 months ago

        Compromise fetishists, with their Henry Clay shrines or whatever, never seem to grasp that if you're not at the table you're on the menu. They like to bring up environmentalism vs. construction, as if the compromise is merely between supporters of the Nature Team and the Development Team, rather than, say, communities who don't want be poisoned and the corporations that want to poison them.

    • Gosplan14_the_Third [none/use name]
      ·
      7 months ago

      Wealth redistribution is socdem nonsense designed to have a better capitalism.

      Tackle climate change

      While wanting to preserve the market economy. They probably think it's doable, but if you understand capitalism and the bourgeois state you know it's not.

      advance social justice

      What does this mean? They can move the goalposts as far as they want and claim they achieved it. Useless category.

      care only about corporations

      Yes, I know. You like the petty bourgeois too! How nice of you. Fuck off.

      and the status quo.

      See "social justice" above. They do like the state, capitalism and everything that entails. You are the status quo. The only reason you claim not to be is to differentiate yourself from other supporters of capital.