Online left-wing infighting seems to me to be about applying labels to people because they argue or have argued one thing on a particular topic, and then use it to discredit an unrelated argument topic or paint their overall character. I know there are pot-stirring trolls and compulsive contrarians, but I do witness users I personally judge to have genuine convictions do this amongst each other.

Within US politics, CA Gov. Newsom is an illustrative example (plenty of examples exist too for other countries and around Lemmy/Fedi). I don’t particularly like him, he has done things I think are good, some things I think are funny, something things I think are bad and some things I think are downright horrible. Yet I have encountered some users online who will say they can’t ever applaud a move of his if one specific other policy or set of other unrelated policies crossed a line for them. I’m not asking people to change their mind on what they think of a person because of an isolated good thing they do, but to at least acknowledge it as a good thing or add nuance describing what about it you like or don’t. I can accept saying “I don’t think this is a good thing in this circumstance”, “this person will not follow through with this thing I think is good thing because ___”, or “they are doing a good thing for wrong and selfish reasons” too. But to outright deny any support for an action because of a wildly extrapolated character judgement of the person doing it, when that user would support it otherwise, vexes me greatly.

I know this is not every or most interactions on Lemmy, but these are just some thoughts I have to get out of my head. You don’t have to agree with me. I’m using ‘left-wing’ because the definition of ‘leftist’ or ‘liberal’ is wide-ranging depending on who you talk to. And on the side of the spectrum I’m calling left to left-centre, we seem to let the fewer things we disagree with get in the way of the many more things we would agree with each other. That’s all, thanks for reading.

  • Alcoholicorn@mander.xyzEnglish
    61·
    2 days ago

    You know the concept of Critical Support? In the case of Newsom, who if he didn’t lose a general, would demonstrate to another generation of voters that the dem party is not a potential vehicle for positive social change, its the opposite, critical opposition.

    I’m sure there were social democrats in 1933 complaining that communists weren’t getting in line behind the left-most faction of the NSDAP.

    • RentlarOPEnglish
      2·
      2 days ago

      I’m not familiar with Critical Support in this context and I’m having trouble understanding your comment, but thank you for sharing. I sense that you believe USA is already a one-party state with a token opposition, but I can’t glean much more than that. I’m not asking you to fall in line or change your principles, just be clearer about where you agree or disagree with a policy or person.

      If you’d like a 1930s fascism analogy, if Mussolini wants the trains to run on time, you don’t have to call for trains to run late just because Mussolini wants the opposite. And in contexts outside of where this was being used as a campaign slogan or dogwhistle for fascism, the fact you want the trains to be on time doesn’t necessarily mean you support Mussolini or their party, or that you trust them to actually make trains run on time. And it does not mean you want Jews, communists and outsiders to be oppressed nor that you support any of the dictatorial reforms he put in.

    • PhilipTheBucket@quokk.auEnglish
      42·
      2 days ago

      I’m sure there were social democrats in 1933 complaining that communists weren’t getting in line behind the left-most faction of the NSDAP.

      Replace NSDAP with the centrist coalition to defeat NSDAP and this is unironically 100% correct. The communists were furious at the very suggestion, and were still fistfighting in the streets with SPD supporters while then plans were being drawn up for both of them to go into the camps. How is this your example lol?

      • Alcoholicorn@mander.xyzEnglish
        2·
        1 day ago

        Centrists held power since the start of the Weimar republic and spent the last 10 years working with the brownshirts to murder socialists.

        The centrist’s candidate did win btw, they proceeded to staff the government with nazis who easily organized a coup.

        • PhilipTheBucket@quokk.auEnglish
          1·
          1 day ago

          I’m going to make a FAQ entry for this or something lol

          Long story short, no. The centrist’s candidate did win, no thanks to the communists, and Hitler with his growing street army was held at bay until the centrist’s candidate died, and then long story short the end came soon after, with the social democrats still denouncing Hitler in the hauntingly half-empty parliament after the communists had been disappeared from it. For all the good it did. But at least they were able to recognize that Hitler was the enemy. The communists could not. They were still holding anti-social-democrat rallies, and sometimes collaborating with the Nazis. Also, so was Stalin! Beyond the obvious military alliance he was also selling out German communists (who were loyally doing their best to destroy German civil society on his orders) to Hitler’s secret police, because of course he was.

          No less a person then Leon Trotsky explained this in a good amount of detail and was able to see it coming even at the time and tried to prevent it (again, for all the good it did). I’ll let the World Socialist Web Site explain:

          https://www.wsws.org/en/special/library/foundations-ger/10.html

          73 - The KPD had been established as a response to the betrayal of social democracy. But it proved just as unable as the SPD to weld together the working class and lead it into a struggle against the Nazis. A ten-year campaign against “Trotskyism” had politically corroded the party and transformed its leadership into a willing tool of Stalin. It repeated all the opportunist and ultra-left errors, against which Lenin and Trotsky had fought ten years before, and hid its paralysis and fatalism behind radical phrase-mongering. Until 1933, Trotsky tried relentlessly to correct the wrong course of the KPD. His writings on Germany from these years, which fill two thick volumes, prove his genius as a Marxist and political leader. Banished to a remote Turkish island, forced to rely on newspapers and reports from political friends, Trotsky demonstrated an understanding of German events and their internal dynamics that remains unparalleled to this day. He foresaw the events clearly and precisely and developed a convincing alternative to the devastating course of the KPD. The KPD responded not with arguments, but with slanders, violence and the entire weight of the Moscow apparatus.

          74 - At the heart of the policy of the KPD was the thesis of social fascism. From the fact that both fascism and bourgeois democracy were forms of capitalist rule, the Comintern drew the conclusion that there was no contradiction between them, not even a relative one. Fascism and social democracy were the same―in the words of Stalin: “not antipodes, but twins”―the social democrats therefore were “social fascists”. The KPD rejected any collaboration with the SPD against the rightwing danger and, in some cases, even went so far as to make common cause with the Nazis―for example, when it supported the referendum initiated by the Nazis in 1931 to bring down the SPD-led Prussian state government. Occasionally it called for “a united front from below”. But this was not an offer to collaborate, but an ultimatum to the SPD members to break with their party.

          75 - Trotsky decisively opposed this form of vulgar radicalism. He recalled that Marx and Engels had protested fiercely when Lassalle had called feudal counterrevolution and the liberal bourgeoisie “one reactionary mass”. Now Stalin and the KPD were repeating the same error. “It is absolutely correct to place on the Social Democrats the responsibility for the emergency legislation of Brüning as well as for the impending danger of fascist savagery. It is absolute balderdash to identify Social Democracy with fascism”, he wrote. “The Social Democracy, which is today the chief representative of the parliamentary-bourgeois regime, derives its support from the workers. Fascism is supported by the petty bourgeoisie. The Social Democracy without the mass organizations of the workers can have no influence. Fascism cannot entrench itself in power without annihilating the workers’ organizations. Parliament is the main arena of the Social Democracy. The system of fascism is based upon the destruction of parliamentarianism. For the monopolistic bourgeoisie, the parliamentary and fascist regimes represent only different vehicles of dominion; it has recourse to one or the other, depending upon the historical conditions. But for both the Social Democracy and fascism, the choice of one or the other vehicle has an independent significance; more than that, for them it is a question of political life or death.”[3]

          76 - Trotsky fought untiringly for a policy of the united front. This would have made it possible for the KPD to use the contradiction between social democracy and fascism to unite the working class, win the confidence of the social democratic workers and expose the social democratic leaders. In an article written at the end of 1931, entitled “For a Workers’ United Front Against Fascism”, he explained: “Today the Social Democracy as a whole, with all its internal antagonisms, is forced into sharp conflict with the fascists. It is our task to take advantage of this conflict and not to unite the antagonists against us.” One must “show by deeds a complete readiness to make a bloc with the Social Democrats against the fascists” and “understand how to tear the workers away from their leaders in reality. But reality today is―the struggle against fascism.” It was necessary to “help the Social Democratic workers in action―in this new and extraordinary situation―to test the value of their organizations and leaders at this time, when it is a matter of life and death for the working class.”[4]

          77 - The refusal of the KPD to accept such a policy led to the German catastrophe.

          I have recently unlocked a new lore tablet wherein I learned that many of the Lemmy communists also hate Trotsky for some reason. I thought he was fine, he was one of the few Bolsheviks who seemed like he did more thinking than killing and so I liked him (what little I know of him). But I guess it makes sense, since Stalin thought he was enough of an enemy to hunt him down and have him killed. And a lot of the Lemmy communists seem to like Stalin? For some reason? I still don’t understand that part. How does “Gavin Newsom is abusive to the homeless people” (which, he is) represent a reason not to support him even against literal Hitler, but “Stalin killed millions of people and allied with the Nazis and fought alongside them” is not a deal-breaker? I think asking the question is just kind of a waste of time maybe… I don’t think there is that much critical thinking being applied to it TBH. Where the affinity for Stalin comes from, I genuinely do not know, but if you want to enlighten me I would be happy to hear.