These are all people who formed an identity around leftism before learning anything about it. They want to stand up with who they perceive as the "little guy"
Well-meaning libs have had their conscience hijacked to serve imperialism.
Russiagate broke their brains and convinced them that fighting Russia is fighting right-wing influence in America. The image portrayed of Iran parallels that of lunatic US evangelicals, so similarly for them. Chinese capitalism resulted in very poor working conditions in special economic zones, so opposing them must also be "left-wing"
Western media has constructed a world view in which supporting imperialism is the only left-wing option. They've been tricked into opposing everything necessary to achieve the idealist outcomes they supposedly desire. This elaborate rouse requires no outright lies, only a media regimen of simple, consistent framing.
To them, it geopolitics isn't US & European imperialism vs. these powers & the global south. It is right wing / authoritarian forces vs. left wing / libertarian forces. Big vs. little. Frame everything in these terms and you have a lib indistinguishable from frothing fascists in terms of geopolitics.
They can denounce "both sides" and posit a Scandinavian alternative because they have no clue how Imperialism and unequal exchange work. They cannot fathom that colonized countries cannot merely adopt social democracy, and it is their fault for not doing so.
Media can reframe any measures as "authoritarian" and the western left will not bother to contextualize them or do any sort of analysis, lest they become sympathetic with authoritarians.
The right wing will intuitively and correctly understand these "authoritarian measures" (i.e non-free-market for US finance capital) as left wing, so they will oppose these actions by default. But they also love triggering the libs, so they will tacitly support US adversaries when they do right wing stuff, reinforcing libs perception of them being right-wing and Imperialism as left wing.
This is why these libs hate "tankies" with so much fury. By siding with the colonized, we indirectly attack their identity as "leftists" and to surmount that cognitive dissonance, they must make serious efforts to empathize with and understand those colonized (and brown) "authoritarians" they see as responsible for the effects of US imperialism.
To them, it geopolitics isn't US & European imperialism vs. these powers & the global south. It is right wing / authoritarian forces vs. left wing / libertarian forces. Big vs. little. Frame everything in these terms and you have a lib indistinguishable from frothing fascists in terms of geopolitics.
Same as it always has been. Colonizers have always had a white savior mentality that they are bringing civilization and culture to the barbarians to eliminate primitive tribal attitudes we would call reactionary. The Iraq War was justified with "we are spreading democracy and human rights" yes, but even further back the white nations were justifying the colonization of India and Bangladesh by saying the British were building ports and railroads and raising standards of living. They were only building railroads between the resource extraction points and the ports however, and only the comprador minority have raising standards of living.
They see South Korea, Taiwan, Ukraine and Japan as successfully done colonization, where they are made honorary aryans after they fully submit to "Western values" ie white supremacy and imperialism. The Liberals think they can repeat this process, and this is the Liberal "permanent revolution". These are not well intentioned soft-hearted lefties, these are self-interested chauvinists who are actually even more bloodthirsty than your standard paleo-conservative Liberal who tends towards isolationism.
Radlibs who were obsessed with Rojava were, in my experience, a lot more imperialist in their online presence and the policies they pushed for than disinterested "normie" liberals who didn't know anything about Syria besides "I guess Assad is like a dictator or something?". They were extremely rabidly anti-Assad, anti-Hezbollah, anti-Iran and would make endless excuses for Kurdish compradors becoming an American military base. They protested against Trump cutting off the funding to FSA!
Sometimes these radicalized pseudo-leftists are more dangerous than just a generic apolitical liberal. This is how the trot to neocon pipeline formed, this permanent revolution urge is channeled to serve imperialism because the radlib has the fury and anger of radicalization, with just enough of the latent chauvinism to just believe whatever they hear about the people they've been primed to hate. They're in that sweet spot to be an earnest crusader for "western values".
These are all people who formed an identity around leftism before learning anything about it. They want to stand up with who they perceive as the "little guy"
Well-meaning libs have had their conscience hijacked to serve imperialism.
Russiagate broke their brains and convinced them that fighting Russia is fighting right-wing influence in America. The image portrayed of Iran parallels that of lunatic US evangelicals, so similarly for them. Chinese capitalism resulted in very poor working conditions in special economic zones, so opposing them must also be "left-wing"
Western media has constructed a world view in which supporting imperialism is the only left-wing option. They've been tricked into opposing everything necessary to achieve the idealist outcomes they supposedly desire. This elaborate rouse requires no outright lies, only a media regimen of simple, consistent framing.
To them, it geopolitics isn't US & European imperialism vs. these powers & the global south. It is right wing / authoritarian forces vs. left wing / libertarian forces. Big vs. little. Frame everything in these terms and you have a lib indistinguishable from frothing fascists in terms of geopolitics.
They can denounce "both sides" and posit a Scandinavian alternative because they have no clue how Imperialism and unequal exchange work. They cannot fathom that colonized countries cannot merely adopt social democracy, and it is their fault for not doing so.
Media can reframe any measures as "authoritarian" and the western left will not bother to contextualize them or do any sort of analysis, lest they become sympathetic with authoritarians.
The right wing will intuitively and correctly understand these "authoritarian measures" (i.e non-free-market for US finance capital) as left wing, so they will oppose these actions by default. But they also love triggering the libs, so they will tacitly support US adversaries when they do right wing stuff, reinforcing libs perception of them being right-wing and Imperialism as left wing.
This is why these libs hate "tankies" with so much fury. By siding with the colonized, we indirectly attack their identity as "leftists" and to surmount that cognitive dissonance, they must make serious efforts to empathize with and understand those colonized (and brown) "authoritarians" they see as responsible for the effects of US imperialism.
Same as it always has been. Colonizers have always had a white savior mentality that they are bringing civilization and culture to the barbarians to eliminate primitive tribal attitudes we would call reactionary. The Iraq War was justified with "we are spreading democracy and human rights" yes, but even further back the white nations were justifying the colonization of India and Bangladesh by saying the British were building ports and railroads and raising standards of living. They were only building railroads between the resource extraction points and the ports however, and only the comprador minority have raising standards of living.
They see South Korea, Taiwan, Ukraine and Japan as successfully done colonization, where they are made honorary aryans after they fully submit to "Western values" ie white supremacy and imperialism. The Liberals think they can repeat this process, and this is the Liberal "permanent revolution". These are not well intentioned soft-hearted lefties, these are self-interested chauvinists who are actually even more bloodthirsty than your standard paleo-conservative Liberal who tends towards isolationism.
Radlibs who were obsessed with Rojava were, in my experience, a lot more imperialist in their online presence and the policies they pushed for than disinterested "normie" liberals who didn't know anything about Syria besides "I guess Assad is like a dictator or something?". They were extremely rabidly anti-Assad, anti-Hezbollah, anti-Iran and would make endless excuses for Kurdish compradors becoming an American military base. They protested against Trump cutting off the funding to FSA!
Sometimes these radicalized pseudo-leftists are more dangerous than just a generic apolitical liberal. This is how the trot to neocon pipeline formed, this permanent revolution urge is channeled to serve imperialism because the radlib has the fury and anger of radicalization, with just enough of the latent chauvinism to just believe whatever they hear about the people they've been primed to hate. They're in that sweet spot to be an earnest crusader for "western values".