The left in America has already been co-opted by multiple groups.
Personally I think the obsession with wokeness, political correctness and idpol is largely manufactured, and it seems to be doing a pretty good job of hurting leftism. When normies think of leftism they think of SJWs before they think of "seizing the means" or anything like that. They think leftism is a joke, just a bunch of delusional ineffectual college kids who only care about cultural issues. And guess what? That turns most people off. People who support universal healthcare and taxing the rich, who would otherwise be fine with identifying as leftists, but they don't want to because of the perception that they have of leftists.
And I don't think that perception is entirely justified, but it's sad that leftists aren't doing anything to change the perception, because it seems like most leftists are actively resistant to good optics.
Yeah, in hindsight this was an overly simplistic take from me. The same thing occurs with abuse of Lenin's rhetoric regarding electoralism and lesser evilism, justifying racism using the doctrine of "lumpenproletariat" etc. I suppose I was just frustrated because many of the anarchists in my onw life have an alarming tendency to get swindled by the likes of Jo Jorgensen who, to credit her rhetoric, criticize corporate power. Albeit she does this in a way which would only re-enforce capitalist hegemony if ever applied, and I think it is my anarchist friend's lack of theoretical basis which, again, is nothing unique to anarchism (citation: a billion "read theory" memes lol)
The left in America has already been co-opted by multiple groups.
Personally I think the obsession with wokeness, political correctness and idpol is largely manufactured, and it seems to be doing a pretty good job of hurting leftism. When normies think of leftism they think of SJWs before they think of "seizing the means" or anything like that. They think leftism is a joke, just a bunch of delusional ineffectual college kids who only care about cultural issues. And guess what? That turns most people off. People who support universal healthcare and taxing the rich, who would otherwise be fine with identifying as leftists, but they don't want to because of the perception that they have of leftists.
And I don't think that perception is entirely justified, but it's sad that leftists aren't doing anything to change the perception, because it seems like most leftists are actively resistant to good optics.
Yeah, in hindsight this was an overly simplistic take from me. The same thing occurs with abuse of Lenin's rhetoric regarding electoralism and lesser evilism, justifying racism using the doctrine of "lumpenproletariat" etc. I suppose I was just frustrated because many of the anarchists in my onw life have an alarming tendency to get swindled by the likes of Jo Jorgensen who, to credit her rhetoric, criticize corporate power. Albeit she does this in a way which would only re-enforce capitalist hegemony if ever applied, and I think it is my anarchist friend's lack of theoretical basis which, again, is nothing unique to anarchism (citation: a billion "read theory" memes lol)