It's possible that people can actually be former leftists/socialists/communists/etc and have "left the left" so to speak. I've been noticing here that the common response to this will be "they were never really leftists/socialists/etc. anyways" or "they were never really serious to begin with." It's possible that it could be the case, or maybe they actually were on the left, but they just didn't have the stomach for the real shit I guess.
I think we shouldn't be too quick to jump to using the "no true scotsman" fallacy in these cases. For those who don't know, it's basically saying "you weren't REALLY a leftist, cuz otherwise you never would have left." The same argument is used by religious people when someone leaves the faith: "oh they were never a REAL christian, otherwise they wouldn't have become atheist/agnostic."
To give some concrete examples, take Eldridge Cleaver. He actually was a Black Panther, radical, communist, etc. but then later in life became a Reagan conservative. Or Angela Davis. She actually was a radical but now she tells people to vote for Biden.
TL;DR: People can and do change, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.
It's more like, the things these "left the left" sort always end up saying demonstrate that they don't have a clue what they're talking about. I just had one tell me the other day that Marx said we have to execute anyone with wealth, but what about electricians? They have wealth are we going to execute them too???
No, you were never a leftist. You clearly never read ANYTHING Marx wrote if you don't know the difference between wealthy and bourgeois. It goes this way every single time I interact with one of these types. Usually they drop the pretense at some point and quote atrocity propaganda.
How do you explain Angela Davis, then? It’s kind of hard to argue that she’s not familiar with the theory or the praxis.
I don't know who that is