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If I'm a standard Blue-Tribe American democrat or leftist I must be a weird one, given that I have literally never voted for a Democrat in my life and I regularly criticize communists. I swear, sometimes I feel like this site is becoming too much of an echo chamber where anyone who is not actually right-wing is assumed to have leftist sympathies or whatever. I hate the woke, but that doesn't mean that I want to support what seem to me like weird, ideologically fervent right-wingers who are displaying the same sort of authoritarian tendencies, tribal emotionality, and lust for conquest that the woke displayed.
Do you think the median American democrat supports Mao?
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For the record, I wouldn't consider you a leftist and I do enjoy seeing your comments, even if I sometimes disagree with them. I would consider myself generally aligned with classical liberalism as well and am not explicitly pro-Trump. It was never my opinion that the Trump administration would align with me on many or even most issues, and even if he and I do incidentally align on multiple points of contention, my support is primarily down to the fact that I hate his opposition more and want to see their hegemony in the opinion-setting parts of the media and academia wiped out, along with their lobby groups who exert influence over government and society through wholly undemocratic means.
I think there should be room for considered criticism of the Trump administration here, without accruing -2000 downvotes and accusations of being a bad faith troll. I do differ with you in that I don't believe the current changes being wrought are representative of an overcorrection to the right, however, nor do I think the woke have come anywhere close to drawing their last breath, nor do I think the Trump administration is even close to being as bad as the progressives. Their hegemony among the PMC is well-entrenched, and I consider them such a threat to my value system that I am willing to sustain a few short-term blows in order to root them out entirely. Trump might be a correction I don't 100% agree with on every front, but it's a correction that absolutely needs to happen.
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That's literally the same argument I always used for saying I'm not on the right (until very recently). How compelling do you find it in my case?
I haven't paid attention to your spectrum alignment, but regardless, your additions to conversation are always enjoyable and interesting to read.
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When I say you lean towards left-fronted framings, this would be among them. Neither communists or progressives have a monopoly on the broader category of leftism. You adopting their paradigm to try and distance yourself from them by disproof is not, in fact, a disproof of leaning into leftist paradigms. Fish and words for water, and all that.
And yet, there is more to being left than voting Democrat, or not criticizing communists or progressives. You are a contrarian, but being a contrarian is not a political identity, nor is a disproof of political inclination.
Which, in turn, is why you come across as a standard Blue-Tribe American democrat who, as much as any other American, love to appeal to the mantle of moderate centrist as a talisman of distinction rather than anything as base as non-balance regardless of consistency. Six months ago, it was the regular proclamations that Trump was fumbling the election to Harris because he wasn't doing your favored stance and [insert partisan framings], and now it is proclamations that Trump is fumbling into fascism and [insert partisan framings]. In another six months, it will be how Trump is fumbling into [totally not exagerated bad thing] and [insert partisan framings.]
To be honest, I don't understand where you're coming from. How am I left?
Are you a monarchist or a republican?
Or anprim?
All anarchisms are republicanisms, except for paleolibertarianisms, which are monarchisms.
Of course collapsing all of politics to one bit is absurd. But so is asking how you're left wing when you don't support Louis XVI and the Roman Catholic Church.
You may as well ask how Nikolai Bukharin was right wing. Dimensional political analysis is nonsense. Only coalitions matter.
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Why would you think you aren't? Just because you are in conflict with a spectrum notorious for internecine conflicts?
Because I disagree with the left on many crucial, definitional issues. If you think that I am a leftist, I think you should probably explain specifically why you think that I am a leftist.
When your own proof of not being a leftist is practically a cliche of leftist self-contrasting with other leftists, I'm inclined to just generally gesture in your direction.
You may really, really want to not be characterized as a leftists, but this is itself a common leftist trope- it's why many of the American leftists characterized them as liberals during the Democrats neoliberal era, while communists bitterly maintained they weren't real leftists.
Wait though... you're still not giving any actual specific reasons based on my writings to show that I am a leftist.
I mean, if I was a leftist it's not like I would be embarrassed by being a leftist. I would proudly wave a leftist flag high, since I am pretty straightforward as a person (sometimes too straightforward) and I would have no good reason to lie on this site. It just so happens that I am not a leftist, lol.
My reasons were that you adopt framings of leftists. I add to it that you adopt the tropes. These are both specific reasons.
Why not? In the American parlance, post-Cold War use of 'liberal' itself was a label of leftists embarrassed by the socialists on their flanks, and used to try and distance themselves from embarrassing ideological relatives.
Leftists being ashamed of the various leftist labels is why we have euphism treadmills where terms like woke replaced terms like SJW when SJW went from being a mark of pride to cringe, or how 'cultural marxism' went from an academic term to a rightwing slur that never existed.
Alternatively- you are a contrarian. And you are on this site, in this community, because the group you are a contrarian in contrast to are not the people on this site, but the people of your own information silo / social bubble, particularly those in positions of authority to impose things upon you that you dislike.
Which are not- and you can correct me if I am wrong here- Red Tribe rightists.
You defining yourself off the contrast to your political bubble context would both be honest, and would also not disprove anything.
You are still not giving any concrete reasons, based on my numerous writings on this site, to think that I am a leftist. As for "framings of leftists", that's highly subjective. As far as contrarianism, no, I am not writing these things out of contrarianism. Not sure what would convince you. You seem to be a smart guy based on some of your posts that I have read, so I don't know why you make these assumptions about me, but the assumptions are incorrect. To be fair, I am also a smart guy and I make unwarranted assumptions all the time. I'm just trying to let you know that you're not only wrong about where I'm coming from, you're on an almost flat Earth level of wrong in your mental model of me. If you insist on disbelieving me, well... you still haven't pointed out any of my writings that would show that I am a so-called leftist. Feel free to do so, but you will probably be disappointed, unless you think that because I am a social libertarian with some mild questionings of modern capitalism it means that I am a leftist.
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