#the people who advocate the hardest for violent revolution are those most convinced they will live through it

[is-the-fire-real]

'Reminder that "punch a nazi uwu" leftists utilize Nazi rhetoric to justify punching Jews.

It was never about punching Nazis; it was about getting social permission to punch.'

It was this very mentality that drove me away from considering myself a liberal anymore (I AM VERY MUCH LEFT LEANING, I DIDN'T DECIDE TO BECOME CONSERVATIVE JUST TO BE CLEAR. I just don't feel like those spaces have any intrinsic safety any longer). It feels like so much of western leftism has become about "punching up". I don't think it's about compassion or concern anymore, it's about finding the "right" targets. And so often that was just used as a way to excuse bigotry. I'm a goy but I noticed this on a personal level plenty with people identifying as feminists, they'd be perfectly okay saying something unquestionably sexist, as long as "white women" was attached onto the front. It's very much the same with shaming people over physical features that others may have, as long as the individual person is "bad enough" it doesn't matter if wide foreheads or big noses or acne are features many people have and would feel hurt by seeing them used as an insult, because they're only "really" directing it at "one of the bad ones"

So, I'm going to link to this piece again because it's been embarrassingly useful, and explains why I say things like "pretending to believe" despite their clunkiness. For new material, I hope you don't mind that you have accidentally triggered a massive unskippable cutscene, but you tapped into a few things I have been pondering and I'd like to take advantage of your observances to add my own.

Part of what you're discussing here, which I agree with, is that toxic slacktivists pretend to believe that they are Good People Doing Good Work. They are Bad People and their work is Bad Work, but if they all get in a group and pretend together that it's Good, then that's almost the same as being Good, right?

Another worthwhile aspect of what you're discussing is something I became aware of in the aftermath of the collapse of Occupy Wall Street. One commenter on a liberal blog I still follow lamented that mass protest never seems to accomplish anything, and how the millions of people who turned out for OWS protests should have affected more political change. Considering most of them could also vote, write to representatives, etc., something other than littering and arrests could've been done.

Another commenter pointed out that he had personally been at most of the anti-Iraq War protests, including the largest worldwide protest on 15 February 2003 (6-10 million estimated participants). But most of those protesters did not agree with each other. There were at least four major coalitions of antiwar protesters showing up then and thereafter. The ones he listed were:

"Just war" advocates who believed the Iraq War was unjust.

Total pacifists who believed all armed conflicts are unjust, and therefore the Iraq War is as well.

Right-wing bigots who believed a war might potentially benefit those they thought of as religiously or ethnically inferior and subhuman.

Xenophobes, both left- and right-wing, who believed "the US can't be the police of the world" and that any action taken outside USian borders was immoral.

Imagine four people with these beliefs in a room talking about the Iraq War... then bring up the war in Ukraine to them and see how fast the coalition falls apart.

"Well, the war for Ukrainian liberation is a just war," says the just-war advocate. The pacifist starts to scream "HOW COULD YOU DEFEND ANY ACTION THAT MIGHT LEAD TO CHILDREN DYING, YOU MONSTER!". The right-wing bigot says they support the war, too--on the side of the ethnically and religiously superior Russians. And then a left-wing xenophobe says we're wasting money that should be supporting American workers and uplifting Americans out of poverty instead of buying new bombs for Ukraine.

And your "antiwar" coalition collapses, with the pacifist wandering off to agree with the xenophobe while the just-war liberal and the right-wing bigot scream at each other pointlessly and without resolution.

This is one of the wisest breakdowns of human behavior I have ever discovered:

Any coalition of people is made up of many sub-coalitions who only temporarily agree on a single aspect of a single issue. Making sure the group does not collapse prematurely is the true, unsung labor of movement maintenance.

To be real, it's much easier to let one's coalition collapse and scream about how The Menz, or The CIA, or Greedy Capitalists, or The Jews artificially forced your group's collapse than it is to admit that one might just suck a big one at coalition building. This is especially true among leftists, who are sometimes anti-hierarchy and frequently fall for populist, anti-expert nonsense. Having a leader means you're suggesting someone should have authority, and a lot of leftists are allergic to that suggestion.

Moreover, though, a lot of "leftists" are "leftists" but only agree with one or two aspects of leftism.

To use your feminism example: I have absolutely seen feminists who think they can be misogynists so long as they say "white" before they say "woman". I mean, who can even argue? I have also seen feminists who think they can be gender bioessentialists so long as they're doing it towards "men" (a category which includes a lot of people who neither look like men, nor live as men, nor benefit from male privilege). I have seen feminists who think they can call themselves "trans allies" while consistently ignoring, degrading, and dismissing the concerns of anyone who isn't a binary trans woman. Etc.

The thing is, they are all feminists. What makes someone a feminist, at bottom, is the acceptance of and opposition to patriarchy. That's it. It's similar to how what makes a person a Protestant Christian is the acceptance of Jesus as their Lord and Savior--you might need to do one or two things to be considered a part of a specific branch of Christianity, but all you need is that one specific belief about that one specific idea. There's a lot of bunk about how "you can't be a REAL Christian unless you do X" just like there's bunk about how "you can't be a REAL feminist unless you do Y", and it's all bunk.

There are people who might be really bad feminists or Christians, but that's not the same as not being feminists or Christians.

So, the coalition of leftism has several sub-coalitions who actually despise each other. Here is my proposal for the sub-coalitions. (Please keep in mind that I am not defining groups by how they define themselves, but by the far more useful metric of their actions.)

Liberals who agree with leftist economic thought, but strongly disagree with leftist conclusions regarding violent revolution. Liberals do not have time for online arguments and superficial action. They are generally participating in protests, running for office, writing postcards to advocate for candidates, informing voters, and working within the system for positive change that alleviates suffering. They are pro-expert but opposed to a vanguard party due to its inherent authoritarianism.

Tankies, whose primary interest in leftism is authoritarian. They oppose capitalism and support violent revolution because they imagine themselves as the vanguard party who gets to control everything when the revolution comes.

Anarchists, whose primary interest is opposing hierarchy. They want to burn down the system because it is a system, and frequently become angry and defensive if you try to ask them any questions about what would be built out of the ashes.

Progressives, whose primary interest is opposing liberals. They also oppose capitalism; they are, like tankies, positioning themselves as the vanguard party because they are already in political power. What makes them Not Tankies is that they care more about sticking it to "the Dems" than they do about actually being the vanguard, opposing capitalism, or achieving anything of worth or meaning politically.

"Red fash", who used to be called "beefsteak Nazis". They say all the right things regarding violent revolution and economics/capitalism, but they only believe what they believe for the sake of their specific ethnic group and nation (frequently, white and USian, but this is extremely popular in Europe too). IOW a red fash wants the vanguard party to only have whites of a specific ethnicity in control of the revolution; they only want universal health care for "their" people, that sort of thing. Some red fash are actual Nazis cosplaying as leftists, but some are just really, really, REALLY bigoted leftists.

Whether we like it or note, the acceptance of armed, violent revolution as a Good Thing means that leftism has always regarded punching up and violence as a necessary component of leftist thought. This is not a perversion of Real Leftism. This is leftism. If you think revolution is good and necessary instead of a terrifying possibility, then you also think punching up is okay; it's just a matter of who is Up and who gets to punch.

Of the five sub-coalitions I described, only one has rejected violent revolution--and it's the one all the other leftists accuse of being right-wing. And interestingly enough, only liberals are habitually accused of secretly colluding with the right... when red fash are natural allies to the right, and when all other forms of leftists openly ally with right-wingers so long as they say the right things about economics. (See under: "After Hitler, us" leftists, left-wing Trumpistas who think they'll rule the ashes after Trump burns down the current system.)

And if you believe in violent revolution, then (let me be facetious for a second) what's the problem with making fun of your political enemies for being ugly? If we believe Steve Bannon is a Nazi, aren't we obligated to stop him by any means necessary, and doesn't that include mocking him for his alcoholism? Isn't mocking someone for their appearance and intrinsic characteristics mild compared to, say, threatening them with exploding cars covered with hammers? Or retweeting pictures of pitchforks and guillotines?

If we believe Ben Shapiro is an opponent to the revolution we accept is necessary and vital to the movement, then what's a little antisemitism in the name of the people? Don't we have to be bigots to oppose bigots? And--

--oh. There's that horseshoe bending round to the right again.