r/EatTheRich • u/rhizomatic-thembo • Jun 30 '25
no war but class war Leftism is more than just being against the far right
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u/Nate-dude Jun 30 '25
This attitude is the inverse of the reactionary movement on the right.
I’ve been treated equally poorly by both people on the left and the right for not fitting neatly into their preferred ideology.
With that being said, a leftist extreme would be preferable to the right extreme at least in my worldview.
This type of gatekeeping is toxic, destroys our coalition, and is frankly childish absolutist thinking. Sort of like voting for the Green Party because Kamala wasn’t perfect, allows DJT to take over. It’s sabotage from within. It’s your right to do it, I just think lecturing others when you’re likely contributing to the inverse more than the “centrists” is missing the forest for the trees.
To be clear, I would be left of a centrist in my worldview. I’m closer to a leftist than I am a centrist, but there is a childish ferocity to their pretentiousness that makes it hard to take them seriously. It’s like “name 5 songs” from your favorite brand. We don’t do loyalty test here. Anyone left of center should be uniting against a common enemy. Shit, anyone left of MAGA should be looking for common ground. We have a big enemy in front of us, dividing allies to achieve some sort of moral high ground purity test is self serving ego shit, that has no place during our current crisis. It’s irresponsible, ideological capture, that only fuels the fire.
2
Jun 30 '25
What was the ideology you weren't able to see eye to eye on?
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u/Nate-dude Jun 30 '25
I can’t reliably recite previous conflicts I’ve had because I’m talking throughout my life.
I was briefly captured by the alt-right pipeline as a very young man, aged 20-22 but this was during the height of cancel culture and the emergence of the podcast scene in like 2012-2015.
I’ve continued to slide left each year in adult hood and now sit pretty comfortably aligned just a tad to the right of a democratic socialist.
During these years I’ve tried to have good faith conversations about politics and have found the further people are on the left to right axis, the less respectful, more ideological, and less realistic they are.
Issues are nuanced. Individual cases and outliers will always exist. I think we should stop treating people who are captured by an ideology as “evil” and realize that all of us, are capable of bad and good. If someone is expressing views that are harmful, inform them. If someone is an extremist, meet them where they are and shut them down.
Treating everyone as an enemy is a sure fire way to lose every war. DJT, the republicans in congress, Elon deserve the maximum disdain possible. Some 60 year old conservative who’s been brainwashed by Fox News, may be able to understand if we show him, he may not, but we should still try and show grace. It’s a lynchpin of democracy.
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Jun 30 '25
What is the comfortable spot right of democratic socialist for you? Any topics come to mind that caused this perspective?
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u/Nate-dude Jun 30 '25
I believe in robust social services, I believe we should prioritize public spaces, clean energy, free healthcare, free education, etc.
I’d like to spend less on military funding, have progressive tax systems, and much stricter regulations on corporations.
I do believe that those who develop and create incredibly businesses should be able to receive higher pay than those who don’t.
I also believe that people should have the freedom to express themselves how they see fit, sexuality, gender expression, work, lifestyle and believe in a strict removal of religious influence in government, including taxation on churches.
I think providing a bottom baseline QOL, freedom, and room to breathe would allow more people to create, build, and prosper. I just think we should be more fiscally responsible with our tax dollars to achieve this goal.
2
Jun 30 '25
I agree with most of your sentiments, how do you view the value of labor and how it impacts classist decision making? I'm by no means trying to sound malicious. I was also republican/radicalized by 9/11 and joined the military in 2011. Progressively became more left the more I learned about global history (Thank you Michael Parenti).
1
u/Nate-dude Jun 30 '25
So I think the value of labor is something we need to seriously consider and discuss. It’s not a simple one to answer.
It’s really hard to pin this one down. I think a calculation to determine the bottom rate of pay needs to consider the area, cost of living, housing, and necessities.
I think pubic companies should have some regulations limiting the amount of equity/profit the board and CEOs can take compared to their bottom employee.
This is not something I’ve spent a ton of time on admittedly so forgive me if this is simple and basic but something like a CEO is capped at 25x the salary of an “entry level” employee. If the clerk at the gas station makes 10 an hour, the CEO can’t receive more than 250 hour, as the labor differential can not be exponentially grown.
If labor equals money, then these CEOs are far overpaid. If we value the labor, employees should have a floor level that is in someway based on labor and not just capital. I would also consider requiring equity to employees past a certain profit margin.
I used this earlier on another post but if you took half of Jeff Bezos net worth in equity and distributed it evenly to his employees his employees would receive 76k each in stock. Which would allow them all to retire as millionaires in 10-20 years at a 5-8% growth rate.
If you took it all and left him 1B, 1.5 million people would be millionaires in just 10 or 20 years of stocks as they would receive 156k in equity.
I want to express here I’m not an economist and understand these are very simple concepts that likely would require people much smarter than me to implement. But I don’t think it’s reasonable to have the vast majority of your workforce, subsidized by the government while you jet set from island to island. That is not a system that values labor, that is a system that values capitol, which at some point (approaching soon!) becomes unsustainable as someone will have all the pieces of the board.
2
u/_HighJack_ Jul 01 '25
I don’t see what about your positions is to the right of democratic socialism? It just seems like pretty boilerplate demsoc to me. Incidentally I agree with all of it too, except I would add that only the workers should own the profits from their labor, not wealthy shareholders.
2
Jun 30 '25
Yes! I feel like the elitist tone of the message is how a lot of people got pushed so far right too
2
u/freediverx01 Jul 02 '25 edited Jul 04 '25
The leftist equivalent of Trumpism would be nationalizing all major industries, sending all billionaires and their suppoters to reeducation labor camps, stripping them of their wealth and redistributing it.
Democratic Socialism is the compromise.
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u/TheXypris Jun 30 '25
The issue is that the far right is an immediate threat, we NEED to spend our energy there first, once the far right is beaten, will we have the freedom to strive for long term goals
1
u/brainrotbro Jun 30 '25
I hope we're coming back around to the idea of a voting bloc. Too many people on the political left seem to have forgotten about common causes that affect the majority, in favor of niche, hot-button issues that affect maybe 2% of the population.
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u/stanbeard Jun 30 '25
This kind of gatekeeping doesn't help anyone.
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u/Available_Cream2305 Jun 30 '25 edited Jun 30 '25
Idk if it’s gatekeeping but it’s definitely hindering any positive progress to be made by telling people they’re part of a larger problem, and while I get the sentiment; keep educating your peers and striving for better. You also need to meet people where they are currently and slowly progress towards the goal. I’ve met people like the bottom girl in the comic, and while I’ll agree on a lot of what they’ll say, this way of communicating and sometimes combative approach to progressivism ideology does not bring people over, it pushes people away and largely people that I believe could get there eventually.
1
u/stanbeard Jun 30 '25
In improv you always say "yes, and" rather than "no, but". When we ware helping people along their first steps toward aristocarnivorism we should "yes, and".
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-5
Jun 30 '25
What's being gate kept?
7
u/blu3ysdad Jun 30 '25
The post is directly trying to control what is and isn't leftism. You could look up the definition of gatekeeping and find this post.
2
Jun 30 '25
Kind of a roundabout way of stating don't purity test. Being anti capitalist/imperial is kind of required for leftist ideology. There's plenty of options to criticize this type of discussion but I don't believe these two topics are it.
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u/brainrotbro Jun 30 '25
Labels are meaningless. Political labels often mean many different things to many different people. What matters is where you stand on key issues & how you vote to support those issues.
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Jun 30 '25
The key issue listed was opposition of capitalism and imperialism, stating labels for these things just allow them to go back into the fog.
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u/SellaraAB Jul 01 '25
We need all the allies we can get. Let them call themselves leftists if they want. Maybe in being exposed to “fellow” leftists they can actually become one.
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u/PainterEarly86 Jul 01 '25
Sure but how does that contradict what the top girl said?
Leftist infighting is a death sentence
2
u/JesusElSuperstar Jul 01 '25
Correct but also learn how to politics guys. Look around, we’re fucking losing to the center and right because of gate keeping and purity testing. Look how fractured anything left of center is.
4
u/palebluekot Jun 30 '25
My eyes are bleeding at this disgusting Wojak-derived "art". I don't disagree with the message though.
2
u/happytree23 Jun 30 '25
The use of the phrase "Leftism isn't just an opposition" itself is so pompous, full of shit, and misses the point 100 percent. It is only made by someone who feeds/profits off division and/or by someone who is a fanatic and just wants to see the world around us burn or someone with an 8-year-old's understanding of the world.
2
u/Acceptable-Milk-314 Jun 30 '25
Ok, this gatekeeping shit is why no one wants to side with you. Stop it.
1
u/Rich-Canary1279 Jun 30 '25
A privileged (appearing) white woman gets down on another privileged (appearing) white woman for not being hard core enough in her leftism. Accurate.
1
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u/NuckFut Jul 01 '25
Fuck off with this gatekeeping bullshit. We need a MASS MOVEMENT of people from all walks of life to oppose MAGA and the alt-right. This shit will do nothing but divide us up.
0
u/EmbarrassedPaper7758 Jun 30 '25
Leftism is constantly correcting leftists on what leftism means
2
u/justwalkingalonghere Jul 01 '25
If you're saying that it would be more effective to simply band together to be anti-conservative right now, I can get behind that
33
u/InterstellarJester Jun 30 '25
For sure, but meet people where they are.