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Being online as of late, I've grown ever frustrated with the state of modern political discourse, especially when it comes to the label of "leftist," and the fact that it means literally nothing. What does "leftist" mean? If you say it means against the establishment or having anti-capitalist or anti-imperialist sentiment, why do an overwhelming number of these so-called leftists unequivocally support the system the minute someone with a good PR team is running for office? Kamala Harris fundamentally represents no leftward direction from the policies of the Biden administration, in fact, she’s taken a harder right turn than any democratic party candidate has in recent memory. The “leftists” who were against Biden in the face of even a Trump presidency have all flocked to Kamala in the past few months, but over what? A brat meme? Making fun of Trump online? Harris is a militarist (1) and genocide apologist (2) who is taking a harder stance on Trump than the border (3), further contributing to environmental degradation (4) and leaving queer people in red states behind to the mercy of conservative legislatures (5). What is “leftist” about that?
I don’t want to hear about “lesser-evil” or “harm-reduction” voting when the “leftward” mainstream candidate rejoiced about Dick Cheney’s endorsement. In 2000, liberals said to “just vote for the lesser evil” with Bush and Cheney’s admin, but when Cheney, a figure on the right, fully supports your candidate, what does that say about her stances? What makes Cheney a good figure today when he was the bogeyman of the Bush admin before? And on Trump’s policy, millions of people are already living under “mini project 2025s,” with abortion rights and trans/queer rights having been going down the drain for years, and the democrats don’t care. I am a trans person in Florida, for the last 3 years, DeSantis has launched an attack on every facet of my life, from education, to healthcare, and to my legal status. Kamala’s statement of “following the law” on trans rights does nothing for people like me, in fact, it only emboldens republicans on the state level to make things worse; every measure that has beat me down in Florida is perfectly legal, and the democrats truly do not care. If things are to get worse for everyone under a republican presidency, that’s the fault of the democrats for not doing something about it when they had the chance. My lack of support for the democrats comes from the fact that they have the ability to repeal the actions of the republicans, yet they only delay them. If they wanted my support, they needed to have ended the support for genocide long ago, and to actually have taken measures to prevent the onslaught of anti-queer and anti-abortion legislation across the entire country.
Those who are actually on the left—communists, anarchists, what have you—need to reject the label of “leftist” because a “radical” liberal will never be able to co-opt the program of the communist. Being principled and having an exact program is something the liberals and so-called leftists will never have, so use it against them, and proclaim it proudly. If you want to vote, vote. But vote with what represents your actual values. The Marxist-Leninist position on bourgeois electoral processes is not to work inside the establishment parties, but to represent working-class interests through a separate party. If now is not the “right time” to vote for third parties, when is? I have my own reservations with the likes of Cruz, West, and Stein—mostly for the fact that they will speak together as separate parties but won’t form a front—but if you keep participating in the two-party system, it won’t go away. A democrat won’t advocate for the fall of the democratic party. A third party, no matter how milquetoast in its program from the perspective of a communist, can bring people closer to our side, or, at the very least, create a further lack of confidence in the political system.
American decline is here. The liberals will concede and are already conceding to fascism. No meaningful change will be made within the corporate duopoly, it will only concede further and further to the right to maintain its power, and it will continue to uphold capitalism, imperialism, racism, and sexism. Vote, don’t vote, I don’t care. Be principled and reject “leftism,” do something that matters outside of election cycles.
"The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions."
- Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto, 1867
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpZ2XYEVmZU
2. https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/us-elections-kamala-harris-biden-gaza-israel-war/3. https://www.npr.org/2024/07/30/nx-s1-5055670/harris-trump-border-immigration-georgia
3. https://www.npr.org/2024/07/30/nx-s1-5055670/harris-trump-border-immigration-georgia
4. https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news/kamala-harris-fracking-ban/
5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbVPee2UdJk
Comments
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thir☣︎teen {autoplay}
Its the realest blog ever, it literally summarized up all my thoughts and im so glad. And I knew oh but i knew that Kamala wasnt that "better" actually, I mean for sure between trump and her i see why ppl would choose her cuz they had no choice but lets not forget her positions and privileges
Demetrian Lux
Literally a leftist meme
Insert wall of text here
by hxlloketty; ; Report
SlimeyAndGross
No gods, no masters. Forever and always, no compromise. If anyone is interested, I can link to and share some very helpful and informative anarchist/direct action/group organization zines and literature!
i would love to see those! please do reply with the links <3
by ⛧⸸vixxie⸸⛧; ; Report
⛧⸸vixxie⸸⛧
i love this thank you for this
G1rl_Fa1lure (fall edition
)
So in other words, we’re fucked
celeste
my stance on things like this tends to be that in a two way binary system, you're not actually getting two different options. when you don't have that space to move around like a spectrum all you're left with is two sides of the same coin. you see the same thing happen with capitalism and communism, two evils that at some point just become the same. the argument against communism was always that everything would look the same. and here we are in a capitalist society (at least where i lived) and everything is the damn same. (note: i'm not comparing the two party system to capitalism and communism, i'm just pointing out a pattern)
at the end of the day, two party systems, they have the same end goal. keep themselves at the top and benefit off of the people who support them. this is never a 'for the people' scenario because otherwise both parties wouldn't be letting wars happen continuously. they would be saving lives, not ending them.
an example that i like to give is how the u.s.a spends 35 billion usd annually on the fishing industry, when just 30 billion could solve world hunger for the year, in every country. why don't countries come together and donate the money to stop people from starving? because it doesn't make them money. protecting our rights doesn't make the money.
two party systems use people for their goals and their power. its about them, not us.
can you tell that i love coalitions? cause that's what we all need, a non-polarised view when it comes to human lives. #morecoalitions
note: sorry if that doesn't make sense
Noel
I agree but the people who support Harris outside of voting for her because she's not trump are not leftists. They are liberals. Democrats aren't even left wing at this point.
Also having a president who is actually left wing would be nice but it's probably not going to happen soon. Apparently being to the left of republicans is too much for Americans. We should be protesting that, but that shouldn't include not voting because the better candidate isn't 100% good. Harris wasn't great, but trump is way worse.
by Noel; ; Report
Body25
i said this before the election: in an ideal world, people would vote democrat with one hand and storm government buildings with the other. if we are voting for a lesser evil, we have no moral obligation to uphold it
Lillllllllllllllllllllith
Sooner or later, we all see the the Chase Oliver side of things…
☆Lucky☆
fr. I'm not American so I can say with certainty that what is considered left in mainstream American politics would be considered centre/right-leaning centre literally anywhere else. it really sucks how politics have shifted more and more right in the past years, also in Europe. it's really scary
also, it's odd as a whole that liberals are considered left considering liberalism is the same thing as conservatism just without the focus on maintaining traditions
Literally!
I've tried to get it into people's heads that there is no "left" in mainstream American politics, but it usually goes over people's heads. Liberalism lost its radical flair when it came to set the status quo around the world.
Also yeah, the situation in Europe has been concerning as well, I did a small study on it earlier in the year and it's incredibly unfortunate.
by April :3; ; Report
jimmy urine stan (alex)
i mostly disagree but good job typing that all out
merkury
ah yes. politics on a myspace revival
as sum1 who rlly enjoys 2000s internet culture. myspace WAS like this. with barely any moderation and a shit ton of ppl left with a computer screen in front of them ppl could do wuteva they want. so this is just wrapping the MYSPACE in myspace all together
by boywithabigheart2; ; Report
still doe itz laughable lol
by merkury; ; Report
IKRR XD
by boywithabigheart2; ; Report
rubisdubis
really liked your blog! i wish i could say smth intellegent but cant think of anything rn
TY!
)
I liked ur page too, esp ur comment about GenAI and all that :3 (I've been meaning to post a rant about that for like months
by April :3; ; Report
GEN AI IS SO STUPID DUDE. Its literally killing the enviroment to steal from artists and create stupid ass images.
by rubisdubis; ; Report
LITERALLY
then everyone says they hate it until a new trend with it comes along and everyone forgets that its awful (cough cough AI minecraft cough cough)
by April :3; ; Report
TRUE
by rubisdubis; ; Report
Time_Keeper
This has been a historic W for people that pay for bills, gas and groceries.
爪卂ㄒ
This is why trump won, by the way.
Rejecting the idea of picking the “lesser evil” made democratic voter turnout the lowest it has ever been.
Trump didn’t won because of his allies, but because he got no resistance.
Don’t speak on politics after only reading karl marx and having no further research background. It’s embarrassing. It’s a university level research field for a reason. You are simplifying a system that is hundreds of years old.
Kamala lost because she thought she would win with the "vote blue no matter who" crowd alone. First, she said that she would not deviate that far from Biden's policy, which nobody wanted, and then she flew rightward on the issues of immigration and "defense" while embracing republican war criminals like Dick Cheney. She thought people would vote democratic no matter what, so she refused to commit to an arms embargo on Israel. What happened is that people refused to vote for a politician who hadn't earned their vote.
People are losing faith in the American political system, it doesn't take a degree in political science to realize that. I know not one person who isn't in the Trump camp that was satisfied with the candidates this year. Is a healthy democratic system one where you mark your vote with an exhausted sigh and go home to drink? It's been decades since we've had good voter turnout, most people have stopped caring for a system that isn't working for them.
If now wasn't the time for wanting an alternative, then when? "Strategic" voting only further legitimizes the establishment.
by April :3; ; Report
Democratic voting turnout lowered with 18%, republican vote turnout lowered with 4%. (In comparison to the last election, which already had lower turnout than 2016).
So people just dont vote in general. Even with different options.
by 爪卂ㄒ; ; Report
✰ deadstar ✰
This is a good point, but as an anarchist, there will never be a candidate that actually reflects my ideals and also has a chance of winning, being radical, or actually standing for things will never matter because the status quo is always the more centralized idea, the only thing we can do is sit and beg like a dog, voting for candidates that I fully support will never win in a country where the elections are rigged to only two parties.
sleepebit
if you ask me, a lot of ideas that were considered "leftist" are mainly common sense. loving the environment, being skeptical of certain companies' actions, unity etc. why? because if these were considered leftist ideas, most of us are leftists except we aren't and a lot of us have the near same optimistic goal with different approaches. so that leaves us with mainly collective (government) production and private production. but from where i get these, leftists would argue about capitalism in a not so capitalist system like fascism/corporatism (ie companies and government working together, fallout series technically counts as one), mercantilism (this is what they meant by a zero sum game), and corporatocracy (lego movie/final fantasy 7). not to say leftists were cooked but most likely desperate.
the only leftist thing that i like is mostly center left thing and going beyond that is wishful thinking.
Silly
My concern is that none of the lefter aligned politicians have a chance to gain office , on top of that what if the votes that go to them allow for the republicans to win ?
On another note have you seen the image of this person holding up an anarchist flag but the red half of the flag was replaced with the brat album cover looking at that genuinely set my brain on fire it was so bad .
Elizabeth♥
Honestly, I tended to look on the bright side of things. Maybe with Harris pivoting a little more right than other politicians, she would be able to rally more people on her side like the centrists, undecided voters, and Trump-hating Republicans. Instead, people on the right are calling her communist, boarder czar, etc just because her name is on the Democrat ticket. It doesn't even matter that she supports some of the exact same things as conservatives. They'd much rather stick sexist and obscene edited images of Harris so they can support a man who has broken the law and constantly lies. Even if she does win though, will she actually be all that different from a Republican? So much for feminism. At the end of the day, people will still be dying preventable deaths because politicians don't want to help them.
❥ antwke
I may not agree with all your points, but I genuinely respect the depth of your perspective. It’s refreshing to see someone think critically about these issues instead of just following along with the typical stance.
One thing, though: most people supporting Harris aren’t necessarily motivated by anti-capitalist or anti-imperialist values. Harris is fundamentally a capitalist figure, and only a small percentage of voters are true communists. While it’s fair to critique radical leftists who compromise their beliefs, I’m not sure it makes sense to judge the average Harris supporter in the same way. They generally align more with moderate or loosely left-leaning values, which aligns more closely with Harris’s stance. Political beliefs fall on a spectrum; most people don’t sit on the extremes. It would be like saying someone with a slight right lean is automatically an extremist.
On the topic of DeSantis and similar issues in red states, it’s worth remembering that a new president won’t necessarily solve state-level problems. The president can’t change state laws directly unless we’re talking about a major constitutional overhaul, which is unlikely. For example, California has strong protections for trans rights due to state-level policies, not federal ones. While I think many Democrats would like to support certain issues, the U.S. system gives states significant control—sometimes this is beneficial, sometimes it’s not. So, it might make more impact to focus on state elections if you want to see change locally. Voting at the state level could be more effective than focusing only on national elections.
I also wanted to mention something about this line: ‘Those who are actually on the left—communists, anarchists.’ While communists and anarchists are part of the left, so are Democrats, just not as far left. Plus, issues like genocide and imperialism aren’t exclusive to the right. You can be left-leaning and still support imperialist policies—think of historical examples like the USSR or modern-day China. So, it might be useful to consider the broader range within the left, as there’s no single, unified stance against imperialism across all left-leaning groups.
In the end, Democrats, including Harris, are part of the left, and supporting them doesn’t inherently contradict being a leftist. However, it’s definitely fair to question supporting her if you want an end to the very issues she claims to care about.
Just to be clear, I’m not endorsing her either
I'm glad your response isn't like most people on the internet (aggressive and abrasive) but I do have some comments still.
I'm aware that most of Kamala's base isn't anti-capitalist, my frustration is with the people who claim they are, and then jump right back into the establishment the second a capitalist that is younger and has a good PR team is the frontperson.
I didn't mention the importance of local elections in the post, but I agree with you on that point. There are some important things on the ballot in FL right now with abortion access and it's important to use what little direct democratic potential is given to us. My frustration in that section is that democrats say almost nothing about the anti-trans laws being passed, and Kamala's new position on trans rights only shows complicity with that.
I have major issue with the statement about democrats being on the left from an objective sense. In the US, maybe (though anymore they're further right than ever), but when looking at the political spectrum in-full, the "left" starts at anti-capitalist or at least social democracy (which is just nicer capitalism). Liberals are on the right of that spectrum because they support and enshrine the rule of capital (in reality, both parties are neoliberal parties since the 80s). The most left-leaning figure really allowed into the running was Bernie, he's only one of few people in the government on the "left" in the US.
But this is where my whole argument stems from. People are calling themselves "leftists," which should imply that they reject the current establishment, as well as the systems of imperialism and capitalism, but they rush to support the establishment the second it's convenient for them. That's my issue with so-called leftism, by being so broad, it has no principles to really follow. By being principled and having a coherent ideology, these issues are reduced. I hate labeling to an unnecessary degree, but such a broad label as "leftism" does so much more damage than having separate labels like "socialist," "communist," and "anarchist," because at least the people in those discipline can be kept in check if they compromise their values for convenience, but with "leftism," there's nothing!
by April :3; ; Report
I'm curious about the source of your definition of "the left," as nearly every resource I've found agrees that Democrats are left-leaning. Here are some common points I've found to support this:
Contextual Shifts: What’s considered "left" or "right" varies by country, culture, and time. For instance, certain economic policies that are viewed as centrist or left-leaning in the U.S. might be considered conservative in Europe. Are you using a European definition? If so, I'd like to know why that definition takes precedence over others.
Multidimensionality: Political views aren’t limited to a single left-right axis; they span multiple dimensions, like social and economic policies. For example, someone might support conservative economic policies (like free markets) while holding progressive social views (like LGBTQ+ rights). I mentioned this in my original response.
Policy-Specific Differences: On specific issues—such as healthcare or foreign policy—the terms "left" and "right" reflect a range of approaches rather than a strict binary. Some Democrats may take centrist positions on certain issues, while some Republicans may hold moderate or even progressive stances.
Internal Diversity: Both major U.S. parties encompass various ideologies. Within the Democratic Party, you’ll find moderates, centrists, and progressives, each advocating slightly different policies, which further complicates any strict dividing line.
Most people I know consider Democrats to be on the left, though not extremely so. It doesn’t seem a stretch to place Democrats on the left side of the spectrum in the U.S. If your perspective is based on European definitions, I'd like to understand why. It's odd because I agree with you on liberals being center/right, so it does feel like your basis is in American politics?
Aside from that, I completely agree about the lack of conviction some people on both sides of the political spectrum have when it comes to voting. I've seen neo-Nazis support Trump even though he’s pro-Israel. It seems to come down to people getting attached to labels.
You clearly know a lot about communism, but it’s true that many who call themselves communists don’t actually understand what it entails. I think some leftists say they’re communists as a way to stand out or seem different. I recently had an exchange on this website with an "anarcho-communist" who hasn't read a single book on the topic. It's even worse when it's someone you can actually see contradicting themselves.
For example, I have a friend who voted for Bernie and claimed to be a mild communist back in 2020. I remember her telling me about working as a waitress and sweet-talking elderly customers for bigger tips. While I don’t see an issue with it because tipping culture is extreme, she’d then spend the money on things like Zyn and vape pods. She was also a big consumer, always buying name-brand items. It just goes to show that genuine, informed communists are rare. The same could be said for some people on the right.
by ❥ antwke; ; Report
I guess I could simplify my definition of "left" and "right" further. The origins of the term came from the French Revolution, where those on the left were against the monarchy, and those who were loyalists were on the right. So in simple terms, those who opposed the status quo were on the left, and those who upheld it were on the right. I could also frame this issue in the context of that time, if someone said they were in support of the revolution, but came to the side of the monarchists when it was convenient, were they a "leftist?"
Leftist in the modern sense is opposition to the status quo of capitalism in all of its forms, and just because the democrats are more "progressive," they represent the status quo alongside the republicans because they uphold the system they created; they are both right-wing parties. "Left" starts at opposition to the current way of things in that view. There are a lot of ideologies within both the left and right, and they shift with time given their relationship to the current status quo. Liberalism and Republicanism were once very radical ideologies in the face of feudalism and monarchies, but since they are in power and uphold capitalism in almost every country around the world, it became the status quo.
And here comes another layer of nothing-ness about the term "leftist," if we succeed in building a new order, would you still be a leftist? At that point, you are part of the status quo, but you claim to oppose it by name. "Left" as a term works in the current moment in terms of opposing the rule of capital, but only principled people will remain "in" their ideology if they succeed; A communist is a communist after the revolution, but what is a "leftist?"
by April :3; ; Report
ahh I see what you mean now
we really wrote a whole novel here lmao
by ❥ antwke; ; Report
To put it as simply as possible, in America, the Word Liberal is (allegedly) the same idea as a Leftist.
But on the actual spectrum, "Liberal" covers Republicans as well, while Democrats can actually be located on the upper right side of the political spectrum almost right next to the Republicans.
So Republicans say "Liberals are the only leftists!" and (definitionally correct) Liberals say "That's right", when that's not actually correct at all.
Source: Literally the chart
by Layna; ; Report