#performative leftism

[autisticmysticsarah]

My mom has atypical trigeminal neuralgia, non-stop pain in the face caused by damaged nerves. She still wears a mask in public. Every time she gets sick it feels like she's being stabbed but you don't wear a mask because you don't want to get weird looks.

[cazort]

i absolutely hate how much people in our society tolerate a certain type of "performative leftism" in which people use progressive buzzwords and ways of framing statements to advance right-wing viewpoints.

Like when you start talking about environmental issues and climate change, people try to shut down your argument with "but poor people can't afford..."

You try talking about reforming or gutting a deeply racist and classist "school choice" system, people try to defend the system by cherry picking one odd charter or magnet school that happens to serve a mostly-black population.

Sometimes people's arguments don't even make sense. For example my area has a dire housing shortage right now, and both the price of renting and buying a home has become astronomical, an an area that was cheap to live in until about 5-10 years ago. But if you ask them why they oppose new housing developments that would add more apartments or townhouses, in higher-density development, to increase supply, they say "because prices are too high and we need more affordable housing". So they end up voting for blocking any sort of housing development, or they only allow low-density luxury housing, and either outcome is one that is exactly opposite to the effect that the "objectors" say it will have.

So much progress is held back because people don't actually listen to and think about (and pick apart) the content of what people are saying. They get tricked or fooled by the superficial way in which the response is framed.

If someone frames the objection to a progressive policy in terms of "but this would hurt marginalized people", a lot of people will give in to the objection and back down with their level of passion or enthusiasm for their original point.

We can't keep doing this because if we do this it allows people to grind progress to a halt.

We need to engage with what people are actually saying, deeply, and when people's argument is bullshit, we need to respond by becoming 10 times as strong behind our original point. We need to take 80% of that effort and dedicate it towards patient, respectful education and explanation of why the response is wrong and the other 20% towards pushing for the original thing.

Yes, there will be some times when people have a valid objection, like something REALLY WILL hurt marginalized people and it's a bad idea because of it. And this is yet another reason why it's important to delve deeply into objections.

Some objections are more valid than others. The valid objections need to be considered and sometimes our goals need to be changed or even abandoned. But when the only objections are just repackaged or reframed old right-wing bullshit like racism or classism or NIMBYism, we really need to put our foot down and stamp that shit out.

[randomnoteforfuturereference]

Casual reminder that many leaders who were opposing the Nazis in 1939 were also turning away Jewish refugees like the ones on the MS St. Louis.

So no, it's not enough to dislike and meme about punching nazis past and present solely on the basis of their fascism (not to mention it shows intellectual laziness that you can't bring up other fascist leaders).

And reminder that the Soviets only got pissed at the Nazis when they themselves got invaded.

So yes, if you've parrotted antisemitic tropes recently, it's really gonna call into question how much your objection is because you actually care... and how much is because now you are gonna be affected (or alternatively it's just because you have a new low-hanging fruit pet cause).

[irrepressible-domovoy]

The performative community of the majority of leftists is fascinating to me.

Most leftists will talk about needing to support each other and help their community and then do nothing of substance. If you ask them what they're actually doing to help, most of the time you'll just get a stuttered variation of sharing posts, talking to people, etc. It's all verbal performances.

Excuses range, but a lot of them are usually some variation of "well, how do I know they're not scamming me?" and let me tell you this: If you are actually active in your community, you will see exactly where you can help that isn't a scam.

I guarantee you have a neighbor who needs diapers, someone who needs help mowing their lawn, a freaking food pantry for goodness' sake!

It's horrifying that my household has gotten a thousand times more help (of all kinds) from MAGA morons than leftists because of this false superiority.