The Left to Right Pipeline (ft.

[@1DimeRadio]

Get access to The Backroom on Patreon, where you get an extra 1-hour conversation with Varn and me, plus over 40 exclusive episodes!: ⁠⁠www.patreon.com/OneDime⁠⁠

[@zainmudassir2964]

Yo it's varn. Hope his surgery goes well. Bless this man

[@1DimeRadio]

🙏

[@dethkon]

Top or bottom?

[@mattgilbert7347]

How does Varn remember all the details!? We must protect this incredible resource of a man.

[@1DimeRadio]

Hes a national treasure

[@gengar1187]

I have listened to Varn for probably 150 hours at this point, and it's like an endless fucking game show: DID HE READ IT?? And it's cool for a while, until you realize the answer is already yes lol. He's like a slate croissant ffs

[@blackphillip564]

I'm guessing he's not getting a lot of *action* he's probably childless. Also he's got no connection to any on-the-ground political organizations so gotta fill all that time with useless tid-bits.

[@kyledrums]

@@blackphillip564are you being serious? He’s married, teaches and is a union rep.

[@chrisoleson9570]

Love the discussion at the end about the necessity of being able to genially converse with those with whom your politics are quite divergent.

[@blackphillip564]

I love the irony of being in the same tribe talking to each other about the need to not keep talking to each other.

[@alexhubble]

1:03:17 guys, guys, guys... online 'fascist' means everything and nothing! It means anything you disapprove of and don't want to talk about. It means exactly what you want it to mean, without explanation. I thought everyone knew that...

[@democraticrepublican1917]

i love varn whenever he speaks i sit my white ass down and listen

[@gosplan1460]

I wonder if the MAGA-Communists would have gotten a "leader" if Caleb Maupin wasn't hit by a scandal in the early days of that movement, since iirc he was fairly prominent.

[@Evil_Satanic_Psychopath]

MAGA communism is literally a psyop

[@matthewmcree1992]

1:19:26 Varn is absolutely right when he says that you have to live in specific areas of the country to be completely able to avoid talking to people on the right. Like my family lives in Oklahoma, and even though most of my family members are Democrats (and my sister is a leftist like me, as is my cousin despite being overtly pro-Confederate when we were teenagers), but you can’t avoid conservatives and actual racists in Oklahoma. Here in Minneapolis, my friend group is obviously made up of pretty much exclusively leftists, but my coworkers are virtually all blue-collar cisgender straight men (and most of them voted for Trump), and while we don’t hang out outside of work, I get along pretty well with most of them (even as I clearly stick out as the only openly gay employee, an open Marxist socialist, and as a graduate of an elite liberal arts college). But despite my clear differences from all of my coworkers, I get along with them because I know how to talk to them and I choose not to get offended, a choice I had to make considering that so much of what I hear on a daily basis is genuinely offensive, inappropriate, insensitive, ignorant, conspiratorial, and/or reactionary. When I hear something especially egregious, I occasionally choose to speak up and respond, but for the most part, I just keep my mouth shut or laugh at it if it’s funny. Unlike me, most leftists in the US come from the middle class, and their lack of experience with how actual working class people talk is demonstrated by how easily they get offended by what actual working class people say. If we want the working class to rise up against capitalism and the state, we need to be able to talk to average working class people and convince them that our political project is actually beneficial and possible, and we can’t do that by using the sort of academic leftist/liberal activist language that is endemic to most of the left. Latinx is one of the best examples. I have Mexican heritage as my mom is an immigrant, but I have never said Latinx as anything other than a joke, even around other leftists, and I have made arguments against it publicly because I find it so fundamentally stupid and inconsistent with the Spanish that it feels like linguistic imperialism. In contrast, I really don’t mind the term Latine(s), because it is consistent with the grammar of the Spanish language and actually used in Latin America, but I typically just say “Latinos” in reference to people of Latin American descent because it is already inclusive of all genders, and if you REALLY want to emphasize your inclusivity of gender identity, you can use Latinos/as/es. But any native Spanish speaker will already know that you mean all people regardless of gender when you say Latinos, so I find it unnecessary to say more than that. If someone asks me to use a specific term for them, I will happily use it because I’m not an asshole, but it feels highly counterproductive to use the sort of language that leftist activists do when out in the real world, because it does nothing but mark us as culturally separate from the rest of society (which is sort of the intention when leftists go out of their way to talk like this, because they think (consciously or unconsciously) it marks them as culturally “sophisticated”, when it comes off to normal working people as foreign and elitist. But many leftists seem to want the left to be a weird subculture (and I guess I’m guilty of this too, because it feels sort of nice to have something big like ideology that makes you distinct from the rest of society), which shows up in so many of the maladies of the contemporary and past radical left. There are certainly some things of the contemporary left that I would NOT want to change culturally, like tolerance or acceptance of drug use when it’s relatively safe as well as sex work, preferences for walkable neighborhoods, and appreciation of sexual and gender diversity but the goal should be to convince others that our opinions and attitudes are correct, not to wall us off from the rest of society.

[@MrMungus]

definitely get haz or midwestern Marx on if you are going to give them some hard questions too while being respectful

[@1DimeRadio]

Yeah that would be the idea

[@Alexander-n1u4f]

@@1DimeRadioIt would be nice for us to build some dialogue or consensus to clear the air and help build a left TENT.

[@MrxstGrssmnstMttckstPhlNelThot]

Why would anyone give those idiots the time of day to be treated like "serious" interlocutors when they so very obviously aren't?

[@ludviglidstrom6924]

Haz is a funny guy, I very much enjoyed his presence at the Theory Pleeb channel! Really weird and fascinating philosophy.

[@ludviglidstrom6924]

@@MrxstGrssmnstMttckstPhlNelThot why should anyone care about you and your opinions?

[@RealProgressInAction]

Good talk

[@MrxstGrssmnstMttckstPhlNelThot]

Hell yeah for Varn!

[@Eliphas_Elric]

I'm a former anti war right winger that traveled through multiple ideologies from libertarian, to Bernie Bro, to shitlib, to Marxist curious to eventually a Marxist-Leninist. TBH while I'm skeptical it's going to go anywhere, the ACP I think has the best chance of actually communicating the vision of Marxism to the American working class, and in my experience, I've had an easier time getting my right wing friends and family to agree with marxist positions (as long as I don't use the M or C words) than I can my liberal friends and family. I think the big appeal of the ACP is that a lot of marxist curious people look at the clusterfuck of the jazz handing, identity politic driven petty grievance fest of the DSA and realize that there's zero chance that people who walk on eggshells about clapping could ever deliver material change for the working class and are tired of seeing cluster B personality type wreckers invading marxist orgs and demanding that they and their pet issues be centered above all else.

[@And3ru]

ACP is kinda wack tho. Infared Haz and Jackson Hinkle are clowns. I saw an interview in which they said they didn’t believe in abolishing private property. I mean you’ve already committed political suicide by calling yourself communist, you might as well own up to wanting to abolish private property.

[@And3ru]

Obviously the DSA also has its problems, especially with being kinda soft and idpol.

[@Sky-pg8jm]

I'd agree *in certain contexts* they can connect to the right wing working class but if they're not pushing them to abandon reactionary social politics in some capacity eventually you risk tailism as members of the party get riled up over right wing identity politics and abandoning class struggle. The other issue is that it risks alienating left-wing working class people especially marginalized people if there isn't this push to reject right wing identity politics.

[@noahlenten8360]

lol the cluster B part is pretty funny and real. I dont think you're right though, they might be agreeing with positions and in this way are for sure useful idiots. theres a deeper point about the kind of language and messaging coming from left people just being generally low quality. if you go back and look at the speeches, writing etc of more successful popular movements they're generally just more literate and effective communicators. you're not going to build real conscioussness with these maga people they're basically write off's (at least the qanon, antivax, crack boy laptop etc types). need better people

[@ludviglidstrom6924]

My favorite part was when they (the DSA) cancelled Adolph Reed as an evil racist class reductionist. That was really something!😂

[@aussieboy4090]

Must play at 0.50x speed to keep up 😢

[@guilhermeandradedaveiga5605]

One of the biggest left wing brazilian youtubers, Chavoso da USP, has a video describing the development of his political views, and it is elucidating how things aren't simply black and white... the guy went from monarchist to commie all in the space of his teenage years

[@Person_Lizard]

59:10 Fitting summary and characterization of Haz Al-Din.

[@jaybonny1954]

I agree code switching is essential, but I would argue standing out and rebellion should still be emphasized as well. Maybe I’m being screaming lib here but gaining market share and earning representation matters, rightist paradigms don’t have total monopoly on efficiency and exploitation.

[@uwayn9829]

Right to left = reason Left to right = emotion

[@zainmudassir2964]

and paranoia. It's incredible how much the old anti-communists hyped up supposed 'communist influence' and still usage old cliche like 'cultural marxism' in Western universities which are liberal capitalist and tied to Zionism and military industry

[@Tyron-v5w]

The Keft are the biggest losers in history

[@basstrip73]

⁠@@Tyron-v5w Yeah man fu*k the Keft, you show em how it’s done😂

[@JunkSock]

Virgin reason vs Chad emotion 🤲

[@AD-ln2xu]

Opposite as always

[@DaveE99]

You can basically script the psychological dynamics on some level along polyvagal state lines. Positive and negative ones

[@SorryStamin]

Does anyone have info on the people disappearing on a trip to the cominterm? 46:50

[@aussieboy4090]

The Australian Greens is a bit different from the other Green parties.

[@mattgilbert7347]

@@aussieboy4090 that's true.

[@pinkmatter8488]

Can't seem to find the Backroom of this episode anywhere on the Patreon.

[@1DimeRadio]

Its episode #42

[@theswoletariat3479]

Great chat

[@comradefreedom8275]

I've been saying this for a while, but I believe leftists really need to start warning about and talking about Third Positionist ideologies to people who clearly have populist and even leftist leanings. My reason for saying that is because it's clear that there's a trend among some disaffected people in the political scene who seem to gravitate towards Third Positionist beliefs, and it's kind of scary. Like, National Bolshevism seems to have gotten a number of people on its side thanks to the likes of Caleb Maupin and Infra-Haz.

[@calebr7199]

I completely agree with code switching to talk to conservative minded people however I still struggle with talking to conservatives. I have basically one conservative friend and we argue all the time and it sometimes even gets a bit heated although we don't personally insult each other but we will say that the others ideas are flat out wrong or that we strongly dissagree with each other. I guess that's just how political conversations go sometimes.

[@Eliphas_Elric]

Its funny, I have the opposite experience. I've had one of my rad lib friends absolutely go nuclear level apeshit on me for sicking to a firmly class first orthodox marxist stance instead of a liberal identity first argument, but I can have normal conversations about working class issues with my Trump voting family (including my brother in law who is a literally proud boy *barf*) and, as long as I don't start using the C word, they tend to agree quite readily with marxist positions. I'm trying to figure out how to teach them the principles of dialectical materialism because their understanding of what's actually happening in the world is do dogshit from a life time of propaganda and I want them to be able to have the philosophical tools to work their own way to class based politics.

[@serversurfer6169]

@@Eliphas_Elric Try to get them to focus on who actually sets prices and wages; it's certainly not the President, and CEOs are just servants like the rest of us. 🤞

[@sentientnatalie]

@@Eliphas_Elric They really don't like "class"?

[@Eliphas_Elric]

@@sentientnatalie communism bro, class is fine

[@sentientnatalie]

@@Eliphas_Elric Ofc lol, just that some don't even like "class" either, and it'd usually go without saying what "communism" would do to their amygdala. Imagine getting all bent out of shape over a single word. Also, do you call everyone you meet "bro"?

[@TylerChambers-yx2lx]

Here’s the thing about Haz Al-Din: he believes and understands absolutely nothing and EVERYTHING about him, from his supposed beliefs to his aesthetic, to the language he uses and is governed by his Macho stupidity half covered by conservative pseudo-philosophical gibberish.

[@Turdfergusen382]

One word explanation of the title: Liberalism.

[@1DimeRadio]

Thats total cope. If anything, what a lot of the former leftists who turn right have in common with Fascists is their anti-liberalism. Socialism that turns reactionary tends to abandon liberalism even before it abandons socialism

[@EmmsReality]

@@1DimeRadionice reply ✨

[@JunkSock]

Interesting to hear about the Trotskyist pipeline - from the DR perspective the Trotskyist’s didn’t actually change their minds or goals, just methods. Hence the modern hate for neocons from the right: don’t consider them right wing on the slightest

[@JunkSock]

31:30 haha very nice, glad I checked into this stream!

[@walterbiggenback4678]

Listen we should talk more about how bopping yer opening is and how every time I listen to it I feel the need to watch 90s anime and the matrix while I hop onto AOL

[@carterghill]

It's not at all a mystery how Mussolini - a socialist - developed fascism. His goal - as it is with socialism - was to hold all the means of production in common. His method was through trade-union syndicalism - worker organizations unified under a specific economic sector. When he saw conflict rise between syndicates, his socialist brain came up with the same solution it already had earlier: unify them - hold them in common. So, he and Gentile - who were both socialists whose primary philosophical influences were socialist - decided that while the workers would hold their work in common, the syndicates themselves would also be held in common. Left wing and right wing are not only meaningless terms, but they're clearly confusing you trying to reconcile them. You are trying way to hard to intellectualize what seems like a contradiction to you, when the reality is actually much simpler: you're just overthinking it. "I'm curious how much of this is a psychological phenomenon ... to what extent is people going rightward just a result of disenchantment?" "They might associate themselves with those [failed] political endeavours and what to erase that as a coping mechanism". I've seen this type of portrayal of Mussolini before: he gets arrested and disenfranchised, then says screw the whole ideology, I'm gonna start my own, and it'll be right wing instead! And abandons all his old principles and somehow this new radical belief system unlike anything else with any popularity catches like wild fire. But, how does that make sense? All of his peers were socialist. Everyone he worked with and converted was socialist. All private control was dampened, and industries were made to incorporate and work for the state. How was he able to cooperate with socialists yet acted antagonistically to private entities? Aren't his peers left wing, and aren't the people he's antagonizing capitalists, and therefor right wing? You're not wrong that Mussolini grew frustrated with syndicalist socialism, that's why he abandoned it. But the ideology that Gentile and him developed is very clearly an evolution of the principles they already shared, and neither of them had any thoughts about whether it was left or right wing, it was collective. It's no wonder they chose the Fasces as their ideological symbol - no capitalist would ever adopt such a thing represent their culture.

[@basstrip73]

When people get bored with endlessly analyzing the American left and start to focus on the left in their own countries… that’s when you know the western left is evolving and talking politics seriously again.

[@ContagiousChameleon]

Changing language comes into this conversation multiple times. This is why Noam Chomsky is a great explaner, still relevant, and never moved right, because he studied linguistics.

[@alexhubble]

My friend, I have no time for Noam Chomsky at all, but even I would say he did more than study linguistics. I studied chemistry back in the day, Chomsky.... blew past me early and kept running....

[@ludviglidstrom6924]

Trust me, his linguistics has exactly zero relation to his politics. That’s what’s so great about Chomsky, that he actually understands that not everything is political and has to be politicized, that there is science outside of politics. Most leftists seem to believe the opposite, which might be why they never get science.

[@ZhangWeiMenacing]

I AM HARDCORE MEXICAN AND NEITHER RIGHT WING NOR LEFT WING. I AM LIKE EAGLE: APEX PREDATOR WITH TWO WINGS

[@bb-wb8sb]

my comment got deleted. ill repost it with some modifications: It seems to me that any change from left to right, or right to left, is more so a change of tactics and strategy, than of values. Take *the leader of italy during ww2* for example, it's not like i have read his biographies or things of that nature, but i believe his objective really was to "make italy great again", rather than "elevate humanity to its next stage of development", which would be the objective of a socialist or communist. Once he started to believe that going right would accomplish his goal more efficiently, he went right. His values did not change, what changed was the tactics and strategy used to get at that same value. It's about a thousand times easier, and more common, to change the way of accomplishing X, than it is to stop caring about X and start caring about Y, especially so when Y is antithetical to X.

[@YoungGirlz8463]

The bad guys always think theyre the good ones.

[@tylersage4750]

Off topic, but i know ive heard that intro music before.

[@naweedock]

45:50 i've thought about this a lot. my previous stage of development had an aspect of trying to understand why this happens, just to avoid reactionarism for myself. this is not deep analysis or anything, just low lvl "philosophizing" with no grounded research (only extensive but surface level reading/synthesis of so many ideas i don't even know where to begin lol). but imo your take is the TLDR of it. that rwingers want to erase their part in that history/process of "progressivism". so if i bare myself a bit, as i was an "outsider" in this path of trying to understand the different parts of society. in trying to understand this "progressivism", i see that there's a push-pull within the whole leftist movement and within each individual, which creates in some a callousness in the analysis of "mistakes" of leftism, the callous tendency of neutrality in the face of violence and horror. this naturally pushes ppl away, both within and outside the movement. some of those "outsiders" can't really separate the resource extraction from global south to north and the "callousness" in how some leftists analyze it (at first glance seemingly a contradiction on our part, as if those have a connection and as if the left has anything to do with the act of violently extracting resources). it also conjures the false image that parts of humanity are just sacrificial lambs for a better future and it HAS TO be this way (as if the increases in productive forces has to happen violently, or a more direct example... as if AI can only further develop if israel uses it against palestinians, and so on). nonetheless this dynamic and false contradiction makes ppl go crazy you know. this is something i struggled with coming to terms with, the fear of becoming a callous "monster" too. but the truth is we're all thrown into this world and try to do what we THINK is our best, history is the final judge. sidenote: it also creates a game in the left of "what do you have to show for", in the aforementioned exploitation and extraction of resources, especially if one lives in the west. now i'm just being hyper explanatory: "if you have the resources, how come you're not good enough for the movement?". some bs like that. meanwhile the rightwing gets away with it, all the while they have become the new conductors of immense horrors. capitalism seems to have a tendency to make it hard for us to self analyze/critique and by extension taking in critique from other people, or we proactively try to avoid it. this preparedness does something to our psyche, maybe like a looming fear, no matter how silly that may seem. as i see it, this looming fear (of other ppl, of oneself, of whatever it may be) is a big aspect in becoming reactionary. that's where brooks' quote comes in: "be kind to people and ruthless to systems". my interpretation is to meet ppl at their level, because scaring ppl away is a potential way of creating a rightwinger. it's so bad. I should really reformat this better but i'm too lazy. thx for listening to my ted talk lol

[@EmmsReality]

I didn’t read all that but I’m proud of you

[@naweedock]

​@@EmmsRealityaww thx

[@apchsiri1156]

20:40 Incorrect. To Larouche, the British and Dutch empires were the creations of former Venetians (such as the Cecil family) in collaboration with Guelphs who share a (to Larouche) false ideological paradigm of Manichean Aristotelianism (with its usury and utilitarian ethics) contrasted to a supposed Platonic view shared by Cusa, Schelling and Alexander Hamilton. Larouche's dogmatic political moralism, I believe, can be attributed to his being a New England Yankee of the old school as much as any personal eccentricity.

[@justzephan2267]

I’ve meet a lotta leftists who were right wing before

[@thedissidentleftist6997]

Most of us had gone through rightwinger phases when teenagers to young men ages. Media always lies about that.

[@justzephan2267]

I do the same thing for Latin/Latinx

[@wvvwwvwvv]

Oh a neckbeard who loves socialism, classic 🤣

[@DRS659]

it was manix (not super sure how that's spelled lol) who criticized 1 dimensional man. Not a genius, just remember that from wikipedia

[@DRS659]

hahaha matticks, it was matticks not manix

[@aibrainlet8041]

I think the point about your audience not wanting you to "platform" certain people is a little bit naive. The fact is, your kind of a "yes, and..." type. It just feels unconstructive if you bring on someone you disagree with and only subtlety push back on disagreements. I get wanting to have a constructive conversation, but at the end of the day we as your audience want you to articulate your points that we agree with well and in a compelling way... That's why we watch. It seems like many leftists from an academic background are yes-and-ies to a fault. It works sometimes, but often it just leaves the audience wondering why you would have someone on just to let them steer the hour instead of commandeering the narrative. At a certain point we can ditch the "attempting to understand" stuff.

[@1DimeRadio]

It's called having social intelligence and not wanting to come off as a highly unlikeable leftist who is going to lecture you for not having the correct opinion. If you want to persuade a person, as well as their audience and/or people who share their opinion, you can't just dismantle their entire worldview. Usually, you can only win people over one idea at a time, and if you want to even do that, you have to acknowledge some of their perspectives or at least show that you understand where they are coming from. In some cases, you could even learn a thing or two from them. Because you aren't always right. Yes, Leftists can also be wrong about things, actually. A lot of assumptions we have and take for granted can, in fact, be wrong and can be the product of ideology adopted to conceal contradictions.

[@aibrainlet8041]

@@1DimeRadio You have no shot at winning these people over by and large. All you can do is discredit them publicly. Do you think Ben Shapiro is trying to win over leftists? No. He is demonstrating to HIS audience how to "dismantle their entire worldview". This is why "the left can't meme" is a thing. We need to puncture their confidence when they make bad arguments. This has a shockwave effect. To the degree that this is a needle to be thread, I would argue most academic leftists are not doing it well. This is why the right is winning. They tactically DESERVE to win, they are better at making us look foolish.

[@aibrainlet8041]

​@@1DimeRadio You have no shot at winning these people over by and large. All you can do is discredit them publicly. Do you think Ben Shapiro is trying to win over leftists? No. He is demonstrating to HIS audience how to "dismantle their entire worldview". This is why "the left can't meme" is a thing. We need to puncture their confidence when they make bad arguments. This has a shockwave effect. To the degree that this is a needle to be thread, I would argue most academic leftists are not doing it well. This is why the right is winning. They tactically DESERVE to win, they are better at making us look foolish.

[@aibrainlet8041]

I replied earlier but le goog apparently didn't like it. I completely concede that the left doesn't have a monopoly on "the answers". I am not asking you to jin up debate or disagreement where there is none. But consider that your argument is not (jimmy) dore-ian in nature. I am very able give the devil his due. But you are basically saying you choose to fight with a hand behind your back. The right directly admits they will not make foes of anyone to their right. This is what we envy in them, I think. To "yes and" even a centrist (on points where you obviously have discontent) is to signal right. They do not debate this way, which is why you shouldn't, if your goal is to meme successfully. When Dave Smith talks to Yarvin, he does not debate Yarvin's slavery advocacy, instead they discuss the heart of what Rothbart means to them both. This solidarity congeals their worldview to something impenetrable to us on the left. A libertarian is a monarchist, is a neocon, is a paleocon. What we need in these discussions is clear eyed pragmatic dogmatism. This will shatter their confidence amongst themselves. Do you think Ben Shapiro is aiming to win over a liberal college audience? No. He is demonstrating to his own followers how to "dismantle their entire worldview". This is why "the left can't meme" is a thing. So far as I can tell, the public left intellectuals have no desire whatsoever to meme. Instead, we naively think we can "convince" a shallow audience that is, to put it bluntly, too far gone. Instead I recommend you seek to shatter their confidence. This is what they use to win over us. In that sense, they deserve to win the battle of discourse. They are better at it. They are able to produce of shockwave of confident rhetoric that even the lumpen Tate or Ross can cling to. You should seek to make them look like fools. Discredit them. To me, this is obvious. History echoes this. In lieu of a seductive vision and fierce offensive arguments, any sane viewer will see us a half baked, less thoughtful losers. Your audience knows this, and so lacking this visionary righteousness we don't really see what effort a discussion with rightists is in service of. You think you are building bridges, but it's these these very bridges they use to storm our fortresses. Concede every point you believe they make that is true. Dismantle every other. If not that, their is actually no purpose you have which builds left futures.

[@sentientnatalie]

@@1DimeRadio Since when are right-wingers ever correct about anything? Their assumptions almost always rest upon the inherent inequality of people with traits said people can't help having, which is why they love capitalism, patriarchy, racism, Queerphobia, etc. Liberals are worse in ways, the conscious ones, anyway. They pretend to hate all those things but capitalism, and the last of which, they also lie about but not quite in the same way as they do their social policy virtue signalling. The unconscious ones romance the false ideals we're taught are what comprises real liberalism, when no-one but a handful of the so-called Enlightenment people ever believed in such. Let's not forget who we're dealing with... Also, I think he's incredibly deceptive to lie about what we really believe to people we're trying to win over. Bait and switch, pretending we're socdems or whatever when we're not.

[@ludviglidstrom6924]

Very interesting. I have to say, my biggest problem with the MAGA communists is their transphobia and anti-sexwork position. But to be fair, it doesn’t make them that different from the average left-wing feminist in my country, Sweden!😂 As Julian Assange said about Sweden - it’s the Saudi Arabia of feminism!😂 But I very much appreciate their hardcore tankie anti-imperialism, that’s a thing I really like about the MAGA communists.

[@basstrip73]

Fretting over trans and sex work sucks up way too much oxygen on the left. Very few people are trans or sell sex for a living and the left already has equal rights for all people built into it so spending an inordinate amount of time on these issues makes no sense. A successful left has to be big tent and that means making it all about "oppressed minorities" is a losing strategy. Identity politics is a dead end, let the centrist libs die on that hill. The right is surging because it is big tent and people don't need to pass a moral purity test before they are accepted. If the left is on the ball it can use the defeat of Harris and the coming right wing surge in Canada and Europe to revitalize itself by easing up on the hysterical moral scolding and focusing on bread and butter economic issues and calling out the right on its fake economic populism. It will be difficult though because upper middle class academic types steeped in cultural studies and minority rights issues are still prominent and will fight to keep the working class out of the left.

[@basstrip73]

You've inadvertently hit on a relevant point. You're Swedish and Tony (1Dime) is Canadian yet here you are talking about... politics from a very American perspective. And that's all everybody talks about even if they are not in the US because English language media defaults to American stuff (the US is 330 million people and owns all the social media platforms) and political podcasters default to US issues because they operate according to market logic and that's where the biggest audiences are. Podcasts are not politics, they are infotainment and they are not going to change the world or give rise to a new party or movement. Both producers and consumers of podcasts delude themselves into thinking they are more relevant than they actually are. The proliferation of left podcasts and Twitter accounts yapping away in English 24/7/365 about largely American political issues is a sign of impotence not strength. It's fandom and passive consumption.

[@naweedock]

@@basstrip73 i think that's too black and white. sure being online too much becomes a trap and it's directly parallelled to the rise of right wing power in europe, that's undeniable. but some of us need that space to develop and have some standards and principles to go by and not be a cluster B personality type of annoyance when you start going out in political groups. you can see that as weak minded for sure, personally i just view it as the process of building a movement. hyperfocusing that some ppl are online doesn't make it true that they're not out there actually getting involved in their own politics. i am in a communist party in sweden and it is in a sorry state with low nr of members during some of its meetings (not all), but that's like a small part of other radical groups in my city. there's plenty of others and together it can be a counterforce. maybe i'm too hopeful but let's also be realistic, there's still trauma and stigmatization of the last century, one can't expect a party that openly calls itself communist to attract members. that trauma is also def a huge part of the left eating its own, we've just needed time to shed it and become more sociable imo.

[@joelav91]

Grifting for cassshhhh its the pipeline

[@blackphillip564]

is there anything more useful in American politics than two powerless dude pseudo intellectuals discussing hyper-niche topics with the supposed goal of building a broad majoritarian movement of people who aren't ultra plugged into terminally online spit-swapping. hail thee, thou revolutionaries who haven't seen the sun in many-a fortnight; may G-d add more feathers to your wings as you liberate us all¡

[@YoungGirlz8463]

Imagine human rights. 😜😜

[@robertkalinic335]

Normally i look forward for ur videos but im half hour in and its exceptionally boring.

[@basstrip73]

Another four years of podcasters "diagnosing the left" talking about what fascism is or isn't and telling stories about their "personal journeys" is going to get awfully tedious. Listening to political podcasts and being politically active are not the same thing. Becoming bored with listening to other people talk about stuff is healthy and good. Boredom and restlessness are a precursor to change.