this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2023
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Can I not say that there are real fascists on the right, that it's a very serious issue, and that I don't agree with some things the left strongly identifies with?
Why don't you go ahead and name some of those things then?
I've been called a fascist for pointing out the reality that the US left's emphasis on social rather than economic issues is alienating to a lot of blue-collar Americans who should be natural allies. Meanwhile I am an active member of my trade union and work with and talk to blue-collar people every day and know WTF I'm talking about.
I am literally a card-carrying member of organized labor and I get called a fascist for speaking the truth. It's not good. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail in this thread.
I don't think it is the left that is emphasizing social issues. They are defending Americans in response to the right's villainization of their next boogeymen to scare up more votes. The same right that then blames them for focusing on social issues. I implore those who are falling for this conservative ruse to start paying attention to what is going on rather than being taken by some of the dumbest tricks in the book.
I wouldn't say it's fascist, but the idea that we have to stop fighting for social issues to address the concerns of blue-collar workers is both insulting to blue-collar workers and deeply dangerous to the people we fight for social issues for.
The reason the American left fights for social issues primarily is because half the American left are neoliberals with no interest in economic reform of any serious kind, not because there is some arbitrary limit of how many votes can go towards socially progressive bills and economically progressive bills.
While I agree with you, your point is kind of ancillary. It's not now, nor has it ever been, my argument that the left is obliged to abandon social issues in order to court labor.
My point is that I made a simple observation of fact and was then called a fascist apologist for having done so.
I personally don't know how we reconcile the social conservatism of blue-collar Americans with the labor progressivism that so many of them obviously want.
I just think that it has to be talked about and that ignoring it or calling union activists, like myself, fascists, is not productive in any way shape or form.
There has to be a solution, and pretending like the problem doesn't exist and that people like myself are fascist-adjacent simply for having pointed it out, is complete bullshit.
I agree with that. There's no need to create unnecessary hostility between people with compatible goals.
In the US the right has: Banned abortion (SCOTUS) Banned books. Made it okay to discriminate against gay people (303 creative) Banned drag shows. Is thinking about banning contraceptives.
There is no debate here. The right is banning things. The left has no equivalent bans on social issues.
3 of the last 4 GOP presidents proudly cut taxes for rich people. To distract you from that, the right is doing culture wars or wars on woke.
This whole thing seems sus.
And while there's no way to know how true or not your statement it, it seems to me like you're one of these people that's economically left, but is either anti-trans, anti-muslim/immigrant or anti-some other minority group or a combination of all of them and at some point your got called out for that.
99% of the time that's about transphobia or some bizarre religious position, so yeah-- usually that's gonna make leftists think you're a bigot or a loon.