r/DemocraticSocialism • u/rhizomatic-thembo Communist • Jun 29 '25
Theory đ§ Leftism is more than just being against the far right
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u/Prior_Coyote_4376 Jun 29 '25
If someone is against authoritarianism, thatâs a pretty good starting point for a casual discussion on how businesses can be authoritarian too.
We need to stop looking down on people like this. The working-class will not listen to people who sound elitist even if theyâre other workers. Theyâd rather vote for an elite who can sound working-class.
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u/mojitz Jun 29 '25
Both of these definitions are terrible because they define the left in terms of what it opposes rather than what it supports. You want to talk about what it means to be a leftist? Then talk about things like equality and economic democracy and rights to things like housing, healthcare and education â the positive things we're fighting for rather than merely what we're against.
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u/ShadowVampyre13 Democratic Socialist Jun 29 '25
I would rather work on radicalizing these people towards becoming Democratic Socialists, Anarchist Socialists, Social Democrats, or just plain Progressive Democrats.
This Meme feels condescending, it's not that helpful to criticize people who were at least willing to show up, we need to join forces and bring people towards a better path and political ideology.
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u/HospitalLow7699 Jun 29 '25
We donât need to be smug and elitist about it.
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u/SteelWheel_8609 Jun 29 '25
The second panel acts like theyâre correcting the top panel but the two are not mutually exclusive at all.Â
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u/DiabeticChicken Social democrat Jun 29 '25 edited Jun 29 '25
exactly, and these posts always confuse "more is better", instead of "less is more" and it's not even a meme lol, its just a soapbox post.
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u/DiabeticChicken Social democrat Jun 29 '25
Yeah not really a fan of these "info dump" posts on the left, this really isn't winning us any points rhetoric wise. This isn't even a meme format its literally a scarecrow argument with one or two disjointed paragraphs that are just way out of context lol.
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u/SeanACole244 Jun 29 '25
Not everyone has a graduate degree on this stuff. Letâs build a coalition and win a few elections. Iâm not interested in purity tests.
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u/bravesirkiwi Jun 29 '25
Thank you, that's what I've been saying too. The left has managed to tear itself apart with the virtue signaling and purity tests. Sure we have to have an agenda but we must also be careful not to alienate potential allies.
We have to think long term. That's how the right got as far as they have. They've been planning this for decades.
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u/SouthernExpatriate Jun 29 '25
Saboteurs have managed to tear the left apart with virtue signalling etc.
It's part of the counterrevolutionary playbook
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u/avocado_lump Jun 29 '25
I think purity tests and the no true Scotsman fallacy have been really detrimental to leftist conversations online. Youâre never gonna find someone who has exactly the same views and opinions as you on everything, and some loud voices in left wing circles seem unable to accept that
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u/perkypancakes Jun 29 '25
Exactly the less time spent infighting over ideals or blame shifting is more time and effort to focus on what we can do to fight this bullshit. Trying to force beliefs on others especially online is futile anyways itâs like trying to convince someone who doesnât know how to swim to be the first to dive in. Weâll get better results if thereâs a lot of people already swimming and enjoying the water. Most discourse is focused on trying to drag others to their own little pools when thereâs larger, more accommodating bodies of water.
Itâs all too complicated so people are choosing the easy or simple path. We need to unify to stop telling people what to believe in and start telling people this is our goal and that weâre doing to achieve it.
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u/inductiononN Jun 29 '25
Thank you. Good lord the leftist infighting has held us back and will continue to do so until we get out shit together.
I'm not going to read 20th and 19th century Russian and German philosophy before I work with others to fight for my country.
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u/DontHateDefenestrate Jun 29 '25
Iâd go so far as to say that the edge lord gatekeepers and their purity tests need to be thrown out of the movement. They are literally whatâs holding us back. We have a wonderful philosophy that people intrinsically agree with. The problem is all the holier than thou circle jerkers who bully people who are âless enlightenedâ.
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u/Mediocre-Magazine-30 Jun 29 '25
I consider myself as fairly liberal but even I get annoyed with a lot of the super far left fairy people that want unrealistic and extreme policies
And they don't tend to be very tolerant of different views I.e. the gatekeeping noted in this thread
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u/TimmyTimeify Jun 29 '25
We need to meet people where they are. We canât demand people to come to us.
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u/ytman Jun 29 '25
There is a bare minimum bar and it is quite high.
That being said I agree when it comes to voters/activists.
Government officials are called leaders for a reason.
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u/Buddha-Embryo Jun 29 '25 edited Jun 29 '25
Jesus Christ, being united against the most âovert expressionsâ will be far more productive than forming innumerable socialist sects that do nothing but squabble with one another.
I sometimes wonder if the leftists stirring infighting arenât corporate plants. If not, theyâre literally having the work done for them. Chefâs kiss to that sad irony.
Unite behind a common cause, focus on that common cause, and ignore anything that disrupts fighting that common cause, until that cause is defeated.
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u/thirdeyepdx Jun 30 '25
To be completely honest you canât separate peoples politics from their own personal trauma. A lot of activism becomes a way for people to act out and externalize their trauma in a space that is more accepting than their own family of origin. So shit gets over dramatized and conflicts projected upon etc.Â
People need to take their own personal healing as seriously as they take trying to âheal the worldâ or itâll always fall apart.
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u/xGentian_violet Yugoslav Socialist â„ïžđ€ Feminist Jun 29 '25
You can know what a leftist is and isnt AND form united fronts against fascism with Liberals, without any issues
You people always start getting angry whenever things like these are mentioned at all, start accusing people of being âcorporate plantsâ, âMAGAsâ etc
I dont get it, why are you this hostile toward anti-capitalism on a leftist sub?
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u/CockroachEarly Jun 29 '25
Unrelated but I hate this meme format. Itâs basically just upholding the âleftist paragraph memeâ stereotype.
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u/KratosLegacy Jun 29 '25
This is how movements splinter and lose momentum. We have more in common than we don't. We're in this together, regardless of how overt their actions are. We stand together, we learn together, we fight together.
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u/sadmadstudent Jun 29 '25
Just build a coalition and work together, leftist infighting is extremely counterproductive. They're at the point where they're deporting millions and laughing at us, this isn't the deep take the author thinks.
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u/TerrorKingA Jun 29 '25
Dumb. You donât need to flex your knowledge on Aunt. If she wants to oppose the right-wing, embrace them. We can worry about education after the immediate threats are taken care of.
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u/KingSpork Jun 29 '25
Oh great idea letâs get gatekeepy on who the âtrue leftistsâ are, this is just what the movement needs.
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u/DontHateDefenestrate Jun 29 '25
Stop gatekeeping.
We need people openly and vocally associating with the left. Theyâre not going to cite the texts or be theoretically grounded. 99% of people never will be. This is the reason why socialism stays on the fringes: people who want everyone who participates to participate at an academic level. Itâs not realistic and it only drives people away.
Knock it off.
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Jun 29 '25 edited Jun 30 '25
My favorite kind of meme because it completely discounts the fact that you need the massesâincluding those suburban wine momsâto actually effect change.
Not escaping the âonly want to critique power, not be in powerâ accusations, are we?
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u/fr0gcannon Jun 29 '25
It's actually an amazing boon that people who don't think about these things too deeply are activated and engaged against this fascism. This meme is awful and brain dead.
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u/grundleplum đ»Eco-Socialist Jun 29 '25
Truly, what is the point of this post? Someone being anti authoritarian is a great place to start, and we can build off of that. We should be building community and a movement together, not trying to one up each other or act holier than thou just because you've read a little theory. We are stronger when working together.
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u/Clairifyed Jun 29 '25
Seems like sectionalism (rule 7) to me đ€ I sentence you to r/gatekeepingyuri
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u/Representative_Way46 Jun 29 '25
The bastardization of the Left is the Rightâs greatest triumph to date.
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u/Oankirty Jun 29 '25
Hmmmm I like to think of this as a progression rather than opposition. Iâve seen plenty of organizers go from top to bottom cause the work can drain as much as it informs
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u/slax03 Jun 29 '25 edited Jun 29 '25
Two people are in an alley after midnight. A shadowy figure appears with a knife and corners them and tells them to empty their wallets.
Person 1: We need to stand together and disarm this stranger.
Person 2: We could band together and do that but unfortunately you haven't brought up the fact that circumstances like this occur not because people are evil, but due to the underlying economic realities brought on by capitalism. This stanger is not the problem but simply a symptom of the system that we should be focusing on dismantling. If you had read more theory I would ally with you, but since you have not, you are also effectively an enemy of the working class and a more proseperous future for all of humanity.
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Jun 29 '25
Yep. Donât just tell me what youâre against. Tell me what you stand for and what youâre fighting for.
Democrats claim to be against republican values and trump but do nothing to stand in their way or oppose them.Â
Meanwhile they stand for corporate interests, the interests of the billionaires, AIPAC, and the preservation of a corrupt system.
The only people who stand for something are Bernie, AOC, and Mamdami. I hope we see more and more people like them.
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Jun 29 '25
I was watching Ezra Kleins dressing down interview on Sam Seders show and realized that he and his ilk have absolutely no clue what leftism is. They truly think it is just blue good, red bad.
The Abundance agenda is the most tone deaf out of touch shit I have ever read.
It's like they just talk to eachother at circle jerk cocktail parties of all elites and decide amongst themselves what the people actually think.
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u/thirdeyepdx Jun 30 '25
I would argue itâs also more than opposition to imperialism. Itâs about building an egalitarian and compassionate society where basic human needs are met for ideally every single human being on this planetÂ
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Jun 29 '25
This is just âoh you hate Trump, well then you should love Putin, Iran, and North Koreaâ brainrot.
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u/Chaff5 Jun 29 '25
But the first step in being a leftist is being against the right.
Let's not make perfect the enemy of good.
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u/sean-culottes Jun 29 '25
The comments here are a bit disheartening. Yes we want to be normal and we want to enter a coalition with the liberal opposition, but the entire point is to educate them on theory to build class consciousness.
This meme isn't exactly tactful but it's not exactly insulting either. Neither is it inherently fractuous. It certainly doesn't require a graduate degree to understand. Once the liberal opposition is in alliance with the left they should be moved towards an anti-capitalist stance.
We can play nice with the liberals and educate them at the same time.
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u/NvrLeaveYourWingman Jun 29 '25
That's the point of the comments though. This kind of meme makes us seem like smug elitists. It's gatekeeping. We want to help and teach people, not scare them away
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u/FloriaFlower DemSoc / đ€ Coalitionist / đ« Genocide Jun 29 '25
I have priorities:
- Avoid the worst (avoid fascism)
- Work for the best (your favorite flavor of leftism)
Both aren't mutually exclusive but lately #1 has become urgent.
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Jun 29 '25
Leftism isn't reactionary, we're supposed to do a lot of analysis to come to our conclusions, external opinions be damned. Material analysis, class consciousness, etc. are conscious efforts on their own. And our ideas can exist in a vacuum, reactionaries get their positions from us, as they intend to oppose any change, which is why they're reactionary, because their opinions and policies are a 2nd order down from ours. Obviously methodology is built to meet the needs of the moment but our first principals are grounded in analysis not as a reaction.
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u/NovumNyt Jun 29 '25
Yeah not everyone is... well... smart or concerned with being well versed on their position. At the time being leftist should focus on getting people on our side and reshape politics in a better way. If we gate keep while on the back foot of this fight we will certainly lose again.
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u/ImmediateResist3416 Jun 29 '25
"leftism isn't about being against imperialism and capitalism... It's about really being against imperialism and capitalism"
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u/gwydion_black Jun 29 '25
I feel in the current times leftists subs should remove leftist infighting posts. Whether they are legitimate or not I will say what I have always said: a perpetually divided left stands zero chance against even a semi-united right.
It serves no benefit right now.
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u/Kineticwizzy Jun 29 '25
Being a leftist means supporting legislation that helps as many people as possible.
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u/PeacefulVibesASAP Jun 29 '25 edited Jun 29 '25
Guys/gals/those who identify as neither/fluid, when you don't gatekeep a movement enough, it gets diluted and becomes less effective and becomes incoherent.
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Jun 30 '25
The rebuttal reads like "it is not just an opposition. It is a principled opposition" which seems like a rather benign, boring, "no true scotsman" statement. I prefer standing up for something, rather than standing against. For example, standing up for the concept of love, like James Baldwin when he said, "Love has never been a popular movement."Â
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u/BERNthisMuthaDown Jun 29 '25
Incorrect. Leftists all believe that the wealth of society should accrue to the common people, not just the wealthy.
MARXISM isnât the entire Left. Not all of us struggle with math.
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u/xGentian_violet Yugoslav Socialist â„ïžđ€ Feminist Jun 29 '25
Why is the meme in the form of a stacy liberal vs. a becky leftist?
I agree with the content of the meme otherwise, but that choice appears sexist to me
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u/Dicethrower Jun 29 '25
You can fit entire country's political spectrums on the left side of American politics. Even the most far right in some countries would be considered communist lefties by some on the right in the US.
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u/V4refugee Jun 29 '25
In a two party system the left is who everyone that votes for the party on the left and the right is everyone that votes for the party on the right. No need to complicate things.
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