this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2024
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[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Is the left listening to the working class?

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago

The left, as in die Linke definitely does. It has great approaches to make life better for the working class. Unfortunately their foreign policy is so terrible they are unvoteable for me. A party that is against delivering weapons to Ukraine cannot get my vote.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The center left hasn't been listening much for a few decades, which is why the far right has been steadily rising from a 20% ceiling to this 35% ceiling just now. But the alliance that won today is not center left - it has some legit left. You can tell because the center and the media have been working overtime to prop up the most divisive figure as Literaly Worse Than Hitler that needs to be stopped at all cost, even by electing literal Nazis.

But this new left is also an alliance, and the current fear is that some of them will jump ship to side with the center right when we all realize that we really can't form a government, because no one has an absolute majority. Even with those potential defections, the center will likely still not get a majority back. Worst case scenario is the left breaks, no one can govern, and Macron uses an obscure law to take over 100%, best case scenario the left holds and Macron can't even do that and we have a chance of getting at least SOME improvement.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (3 children)

The socialists haven't been communicating with the working class for decades. Just sitting around complaining about liberals not listening to them.

The socialist sentimentality around the imagery of red flags, hammers and sickles, photos of Marx and Che Guevara means the working class is going to ignore everything you say. These are imagery associated with the failures of socialism. No matter how many excuses you make about how it wasn't socialism's fault the previous iterations failed, you're the ones putting yourselves in that position by insisting on associating yourselves with those failures.

Liberals are the left side of where the will of the people is at. Because it's a democracy and not being anywhere near where the consensus of the people are at isn't going to win an election. You're just sitting to the left of where liberals are at laying down judgement as if that's going to influence the people of a country which is the only thing that's relevant.

Liberals will always be the left side of the will of the people. If you influence the people to move further left, liberals will move further left. But communicating with the working class isn't what socialism is about in the 21st century. 21st century socialism is all focused on waving red flags to get attention and complaining about how politicians that follow the will of the people aren't following your will instead.

Fake ass socialists just whining on the internet instead of talking to the working class.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

imagery of red flags, hammers and sickles, photos of Marx and Che Guevara

Name one French politician who uses that?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Jean-Luc Mélenchon leader of La France Insoumise which is the biggest party on the left in France.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Don't watch far right propaganda. Even the communist party removed the hammer and sickle over a decade ago.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It's not the politicians, it's the people that the working class ignores do that. ie. Solcialists. Since the voters aren't influenced by that bullshit, the politicians aren't going to influenced by it either.

Socialists are incapable of influencing the will of the people because of sentimentality over symbols of the past. And really why should anyone be influenced by people nostalgic for past failures and just sit around making excuses for those failures?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (2 children)

? ? ? Sir this is Europe, you're in the wrong part of the world, you don't know what socialists are.

[–] SuddenDownpour 5 points 1 month ago

American exceptionalism was already cringe enough, but now they're trying to extrapolate their own politics to everywhere else in the world? Holy shit they're hopeless.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 month ago

Oh I'm sorry thought it was global ideological movement, not a religious movement with different sects in different parts of the world. Sorry for the confusion.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You are whining about a vocal internet minority, that's why they're not doing anything. Just because you see someone complaining about "the man" and calling themselves socialists on lemmy or some other internet forum doesn't mean they're representative of the left in general.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Nah fam, I vote in every election I'm eligible for. I choose who to vote factoring in which platform is closest to what I want along with the probability of that party actually being in a position to implement it. I phone bank so politicians will owe me and I can influence them to go further in the direction I want.

None of the text you type on this site influences anything a politician will do. Actually participating in the process does. Typing up essays about how liberals are bad because they aren't socialists is just useless whining. If you fail to convince the working class that socialism will make their lives better (and if you did that the politicians would fall in line) then you're accomplishing nothing.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Most "center" "left" parties in Europe nowadays are just Neoliberals (pro-business, pro-privatisation, pumping up asset bubbles and generally bough and paid for by moneyed interest) and hence not really Left and often not even Center.

However all countries in Europe still have real Left parties (even the UK with it's highly rigged First Past The Post voting system has the Green Party), though judging by the one in my own country (of which I am a member) there's often this messy mix of people whose leftwing thinking is basically slogans from the Soviet Union (these being mainly people in their 60s and older) and people who grew up in the post ideology neoliberal age for whom leftwing is basically greed but for-the-group instead of the individual (hence you end up with Identity Politics which is a twisted subverted charicature of the Fight For Equality that far too often is dominated by people who are members of a group they were born into demanding shit for their group - instead of a broad push for Equality done on the basis if need an independent of the "group" people were born into, we have competing pulls for getting shit per group, with people said to be deserving or undeserving based on the genetics they were born with, thus far too often rewarding some people who are priviledged but have the "right genetics" whilst not helping those who have real need and yet were born with the "wrong genetics").

I don't really know if the present day Left can find a modern ideology and vision that's not just a "branch of neoliberalism that doesn't talk of Economics", though the victory of the NFP in France, lead by Melenchon and his party rather than the old "moderate" mainstream party - called Socialist but not in any way form or shape so, but rather just neolibs plus performatice leftwing talk - gives me hope.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

WDYM?

The left will always deliver better quality of life for the working class.

The right likes to blame migrants and taxes which resonates with the working class.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I don't understand the first line because I'm not a native English speaker, and acronyms sometimes confuse me.

I agree with you, and I am very happy about this victory in France. I was referring to the fact that the working class prioritizes certain issues that the left doesn't always place at the top of their agenda.

I think it's time to show that advocating for minority rights doesn't mean neglecting measures in favor of workers. I believe this is true, but we need to demonstrate it now; otherwise, when the vote happens again in France, no coalition will be able to stop fascism.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Sorry, wdym is "what do you mean?"

In Australia, the centre left has very strong ties with employee unions. They will always advocate for better terms for employees.

Sadly, much of the "working class" votes on the right because they think of themselves as something better than the working class, despite being poor. There's a phrase "temporarily embarrassed millionaires".

Further left we have the greens, and indeed they prioritise environmental issues over employee terms.