Online left-wing infighting seems to me to be about applying labels to people because they argue or have argued one thing on a particular topic, and then use it to discredit an unrelated argument topic or paint their overall character. I know there are pot-stirring trolls and compulsive contrarians, but I do witness users I personally judge to have genuine convictions do this amongst each other.

Within US politics, CA Gov. Newsom is an illustrative example (plenty of examples exist too for other countries and around Lemmy/Fedi). I don’t particularly like him, he has done things I think are good, some things I think are funny, something things I think are bad and some things I think are downright horrible. Yet I have encountered some users online who will say they can’t ever applaud a move of his if one specific other policy or set of other unrelated policies crossed a line for them. I’m not asking people to change their mind on what they think of a person because of an isolated good thing they do, but to at least acknowledge it as a good thing or add nuance describing what about it you like or don’t. I can accept saying “I don’t think this is a good thing in this circumstance”, “this person will not follow through with this thing I think is good thing because ___”, or “they are doing a good thing for wrong and selfish reasons” too. But to outright deny any support for an action because of a wildly extrapolated character judgement of the person doing it, when that user would support it otherwise, vexes me greatly.

I know this is not every or most interactions on Lemmy, but these are just some thoughts I have to get out of my head. You don’t have to agree with me. I’m using ‘left-wing’ because the definition of ‘leftist’ or ‘liberal’ is wide-ranging depending on who you talk to. And on the side of the spectrum I’m calling left to left-centre, we seem to let the fewer things we disagree with get in the way of the many more things we would agree with each other. That’s all, thanks for reading.

  • PugJesus@lemmy.worldEnglish
    7·
    3 days ago

    I have an overwhelmingly negative view of Newsom, and let me tell you: most of the people shitting themselves in fury over Newsom on here are the kind of people who celebrate their ‘principled’ advocacy of nonvoting in order to allow literal fascists to murder American minorities. They do not want to express approval of any good policy from ‘the Dems’, because that would weaken their argument that no one in the current system is capable of doing anything to improve anyone’s life, which justifies their total abstention and visceral hatred for participation in ‘electoral’ politics.

    And on the side of the spectrum I’m calling left to left-centre, we seem to let the fewer things we disagree with get in the way of the many more things we would agree with each other.

    The problem is the same issue that leads to right-unity, but in reverse.

    Most people do not make political allegiances based on policy opinions.

    The right doesn’t agree on anything, despite how it appears to many who are unfamiliar with right-wing discourse. But they define themselves as a community, largely defined in objection to modernity.

    The left defines itself as many communities, and what ends up being important is not policy, but in-groups and out-groups. It doesn’t matter what policy would help the working class, or minorities, or establish a more just or even more left-friendly situation going forward. What matters is the in-group being opposed to the out-group.

    There are people on here who literally and openly decry ‘turbolibs’ as worse than literal Nazis. There are many who equate liberals with literal fascists (and they would spare not an instant reminding you that Bernie Sanders is a liberal).

    They don’t care about the people they claim to champion. They don’t have actual policy concerns, though they might express opinions on policy in the abstract. All they care about is in-group and out-group.